I don’t miss my phone because I’m addicted, I miss it because I’ve lost my ability to communicate or transact with everyone in my life and have severed my conduit to all human knowledge and world events. A literal war could break out and we wouldn’t know. We could drive right into a tornado or a riot. We’re totally cut off.

[…] I think that the odds are high that there will be some huge news or a disaster somewhere, considering we now average one of those every few hours. There’s a war in Europe, you know. And a plague. And constant mass shootings. And democracy is collapsing. And climate change is about to render the species extinct.

— Abbott in Jason Pargin, I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom, 2024, St. Martin’s Press, Ch. Day 1, p. 53