I was trapped in the machine zone. Two weeks ago, I was offered the red pill that would bring me back to reality.
I took it.
Here’s where it led me.
________
In my Ethics, Science, and Technology class, we were discussing the “gamification” of discourse through social media. Gamification is the phenomenon where communication, which usually involves multiple viewpoints and motivations, becomes corrupted. The new goal of everyone entering into gamified discourse is singular: score “points” on social media. The biggest problem with gamification is that altering our motivations degrades the quality of our discourse; we no longer want to engage for the sake of pursuing knowledge and understanding, learning successful argumentation, expressing empathy, etc. We only care about conversing in a way that is sensational and attention-grabbing because that is what earns us points.
In order to understand better how gamification works—and, as was my goal, to practice resisting it—my philosophy professor assigned us a two-day phone fast: no social media, no texting, no gaming, no personal use of the cell phone of any kind.
I thought this was going to be easy. I took the red pill eagerly, thinking I could handle this reality. I’d like to put it on record that this wasn’t just naive hope; in the summer of 2024, I went two weeks with little to no use of my phone, partially by choice, partially by force of the absence of Wi-Fi, and in the spring of 2025, I took the forty days of Lent to abstain from all social media usage. Both times, I quite enjoyed the fast. I was grateful to no longer have the obligation to check my phone constantly to make sure I wasn’t missing messages. Therefore, going into this philosophy assignment, I was expecting a similar relief. However, instead, I spent the first eight hours or so feeling like a burden because my friends could only reach me via phone call, and that took some getting used to. I hated feeling like I was ignoring them (or more accurately, I worried they would perceive it that way, though they knew about the assignment and were very amenable). The worst part was that if someone texted me, I couldn’t respond to them to remind them to call me because I would be violating the terms of the assignment. This new reality was much more demanding and unforgiving than I’d been expecting.
As the assignment began Tuesday at 5:00 PM, Wednesday was the first (and only) full day of abstention. Wednesday went much more smoothly than Tuesday evening. I relished the excuse to be in thought and deeper contemplation like I used to be, to refuse to give my attention to my phone. I had tried so hard to escape the pull of discourse platforms like Instagram and Facebook, refusing to join them until late in high school. Unfortunately, as soon as I had them, my fears were realized and I frequently struggled to resist using them, which is what prompted my initial fast during Lent. I felt I had been spending too much time on social media, and I wanted a break, so I took one. Similarly, with this philosophy assignment, I had a concrete reason to tell people I couldn’t respond to their messages, but I could be reached for emergencies via phone call. The stipulations of the assignment did include allowing work or school-related messages to be checked on our phones (e.g. email, Microsoft Teams), but we were encouraged to limit it to certain times throughout the day. This method worked quite well for me, and it was a relief to go several hours without looking at my phone at all.
As I became more attuned to my reality, I realized the biggest accomplices to the gamification phenomenon are notifications. Knowing exactly when someone contacted me or something potentially relevant to me was ready for viewing prompted my frequent phone-checking. With social media in particular, once I was on the site, I was much more likely to get trapped and sidetracked by the app. I would get sucked into the machine zone, the mental state of hyperfocus on a task that appears to offer the same fulfillment and satisfaction as working towards and accomplishing meaningful, slightly challenging goals, but that provides no actual reward for the participant at any point in the process. The machine zone is the just one more mentality that keeps people scrolling for hours, thinking that the “work” they are putting in will eventually lead to one reel or one post that provides that deep satisfaction they’re looking for. However, because online discourse has been gamified and those creating content are trying to score points, not contribute to humanity’s advancement, users’ interactions with that content are not truly meaningful, and therefore leave them endlessly searching for fulfillment.
I was aware of the voice in my head constantly telling me just one more when I was on social media; I was aware that when I opened the app with a specific purpose (e.g. responding to a message), I got distracted and sometimes even forgot to respond to that message; I was aware that I could not get a meaningful reward from opening “one more” post. Yet I was trapped. The machine zone had me—only a shiny red capsule promising freedom in the form of a quiz grade was powerful enough to break me out of it. I told myself, I’m free, I’m not going back.
It turns out, maintaining and fighting for that freedom is harder than it sounds. The revelation was there, the truth was known, freedom had been experienced. However, the temptations—namely, the notifications—were unrelenting. Those needed to be controlled.
So, I got rid of them. I turned off Instagram notifications (the only social media app I regularly used or received notifications from). It has made all the difference. I actually forget some days that Instagram exists because I don’t have it on the first page of my home screen and I’m not getting alerts from it, so it doesn’t cross my mind as much. Once my attention was diverted away from it—and its main mechanism for reclaiming my attention was destroyed—social media had little to no influence on me unless I had the conscious thought to open it. I spend less time on my phone now. I know that I can take breaks from using my phone without my friends and family getting worried or upset that I’m not answering immediately. I know that I can set that boundary between my phone and myself and still thrive.
The red pill doesn’t just offer freedom and truth. It offers hope. That’s what this philosophy assignment gave me: the hope that I did not have to succumb to the demands of discourse gamification, that I did have the strength to resist their tactics, and that I could have productive, successful days without incessantly checking my phone messages.
Hope is perhaps the most invaluable gift we can receive from external or internal sources. It is what underlies a promise, a dream, an ideal. It is what motivates our every step.
Choose hope.
Choose freedom.