So a text message consisting of 20 characters counts as 20 “touches”. And do we really touch our smartphones more than 2,600 times a day? Only if you count every tap, type, click and swipe as a touch. No, there are not more smartphones in the world than humans, humankind does not now have an average attention span shorter than a goldfish, and 72% of Australian children do not play video games containing gambling components. Lykos concludes that it is not the technology in his life per se that had become problematic but the way he allowed the technology to control him.ĭisconnect Me is billed as a documentary, and Lykos cites his rookie status as a documentary film-maker (his two previous feature films were the romcoms Alex & Eve and Me & My Left Brain) as the reason why he has a tendency in his latest film to … well, at times stretch the truth with some of the many startling facts, disseminated without critical thought, that the film tosses at its audience. There were no lost job opportunities, no momentous milestones missed nor calamitous events visited upon friends or family members. When the safe is unlocked on the 30th day, there are 238 missed WhatsApp messages on Lykos’s Android, hundreds of unanswered personal emails and 99+ Facebook messages, including seven from Meta itself, each message more insistent than the last that he has missed out on so much since we (Meta’s algorithm) detected a sudden absence in engagement. He narrowly avoids a collision reading the Gregory’s while driving. “My wife is losing it, my dad is losing it. The messages Lykos’s wife leaves on his answering machine sound increasingly brusque. Without instant messaging the household routine is thrown into chaos. Lykos’s father has resorted to calling his daughter-in-law to continue the theme of his son’s shortcomings. Lykos’s NBN connection could not and would not tolerate the latter he ends up replacing the relic with a 1980s push-button model, via which his elderly father subjects the film-maker to daily verbal assaults in Greek (“Get a real meaningful job with a secure wage, not some documentary-making crap” – subtitled) from day one.īy day 13 family discord has set in. This has the effect of portraying the film’s protagonist as an increasingly isolated being, negotiating daily life armed with a digital alarm clock, Gregory’s street directory, newspaper and what looks like a 1960s-era rotary dial telephone. She had no wish to take part in the social experiment or the documentary, Lykos says, and it was out of the question that the couple’s primary school-aged child would play any role either. Her appearances in the film become increasingly fleeting. Over the next month the relationship between the couple would deteriorate to what the film-maker described as increasingly “terse”, although this is disclosed in the interview, not reflected on screen. Lykos’s wife is filmed locking her partner’s smartphone, tablet and laptop in the family safe. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning ![]() “I started asking, ‘What’s the return on investment here? … I need a circuit breaker.’” “I’d spend two hours of my time scrolling through social media and then I’d feel worse,” he says. ![]() And it was making him miserable feelings of jealousy towards colleagues getting better gigs than him, envy towards those heading off to holidays in Hawaii or meandering in the Maldives sad, if not bitter, doubts about career choices made and financial status achieved. ![]() He had become beholden to the ping and the scroll, ceaselessly checking his news feeds and social media apps on his Android phone. It was a project motivated by his own sense of despondency, he says. His film Disconnect Me opens in limited cinemas around Australia from 19 October. The experience put his personal relationships on the line, threw his daily life into disarray and forced him to make some major and permanent changes.
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