To feel sexy, we need risk and spontaneity. Our phones kill both.

Instantaneous access to everything obviously comes at a cost. The cost being that we all behave like demented Roman emperors, at once bored and deranged, summoning whatever we want at any time.

Today, everyone and everything is always available, and there’s nothing less sexy than that. There’s no chase. Our phones don’t allow us time to dwell, and they don’t allow us time to yearn. Why force yourself to daydream about the guy you’re seeing when you can easily look at dozens of photographs of him online? Why walk into a store in Soho and s... See more

Eros—carnal desire—is an embodied experience, and our phones do a terrific job of getting us out of our bodies and into our heads. In the digital age, we often neglect our bodies entirely, and use them merely as a way to transport our heads to meetings. (The rise of rave culture and physical fitness programs since the 1990s is perhaps evidence that... See more

And our phones don’t just move us out of our bodies, but they have become something of a second brain, a second body. You don’t have to remember something if you can record it, photograph it, or type it into your notes app. You don’t have to look good in person if you look good on Instagram. Our phones not only hollow out our true selves, but are s... See more

It is perhaps impossible to desire what we already have, what is easy, or what is implicitly promised to us. Desire is fueled, to a certain degree, by the possibility of not getting what you want. It depends on a certain distance and difficulty that must be overcome through one’s own effort.

We need to allow ourselves to be restless and bored, to be less preoccupied with the opinions of others, and to look honestly within ourselves. We need to get off of our phones and hear the gravel crunching under our feet. Our phones promise us something eternal and infinite, but we should be extremely skeptical of anything that claims it can go on... See more

And our phones don’t just move us out of our bodies, but they have become something of a second brain, a second body. You don’t have to remember something if you can record it, photograph it, or type it into your notes app. You don’t have to look good in person if you look good on Instagram. Our phones not only hollow out our true selves, but are s... See more

Something is deeply wrong when we sext the same way we order a sandwich.