 Do you think your phone is a tool or do you think it's an instrument? Now I know it sounds weird, but think about it. When you go out to buy a new phone, you're like, I really wish I took better pictures. And so you go get a thing that solves that problem better than the thing you had before. But what if that's all wrong? You're thinking of your phone like this thing, like a hammer. But what if it's not like that? What if it's more like this thing? An instrument. I've been obsessed with phones for like 20 years. Actually, oh god, 22 years? My first phone was a Mountain Dew Extreme Network pager when I was in high school. Oh god. Okay. Anyway, I've been obsessed with phones for 20 years. I've been writing about them for like 15 years. And in that time, I have learned a lot about phone specs. The Snapdragon processor and megapixel that and color gamut and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I do believe that specs matter, but I also think that we probably spend way too much time arguing about them. Specs make your phone a better tool. If you've got, I don't know, a better camera, it's going to take better photos. The deal with a tool is you use it to solve a task and then you put it away and then you get a different tool to solve another task. So the best hammer in the world isn't going to help you cut down a tree. Just like the best, most beautiful screen in the world isn't going to help you if you drop your phone. You might need a different tool for that. So what you want to do when you're picking out a phone or any technology is don't think of it as just a single thing to solve a problem. Think of it as something that you kind of need to have a relationship with. Look, the tool thing, it's not a very good metaphor, but I think there's a better metaphor. One that can help you have an actually good relationship with your phone and hell, with most tech. And that metaphor is one I said earlier. Think of your phone as a musical instrument. I think the first thing that happens when you think about your phone as an instrument is that you tend to care about it more, the way that a musician cares about their instrument. It's not some foreign thing to you that's like being inflicted upon you. It's actually something that you participate in, that you actually enjoy using. The first time you pick up any musical instrument, you suck at it. I mean, you are deeply, deeply bad at playing that thing. And you know what? The same is true with phones. You have to learn how to use it and you can get better with it over time. So if it feels awkward and annoying to you, you can just practice with it. The other thing about instruments is you have to keep them in tune. They don't just work all the time without a little bit of care and maintenance. Look at your storage. If the thing seems slow, maybe it's full. Look at your battery. We've learned with the iPhones that if the battery is kind of old and crappy, the phone's going to slow down. I hate to say it, but Android apps tend to have more crappy little tentacles that sneak out into the rest of the OS. And getting rid of the weird crappy games that you downloaded that you maybe don't need, just periodically cleaning stuff up can really help keep the thing running fast. The other thing, we could go back to what I was saying earlier about specs. If you think of your phone as an instrument, then specs sort of like, I don't know, it's weird. Is there such a thing as the best guitar? There's lots of different kinds and they make different kinds of music. So why should you be worried about necessarily having the quote unquote best phone? The truth is that there's really no such thing. Now, if you're anything like me, you're probably thinking, you know, this metaphor isn't that great. It's kind of broken down. Actually, yeah, that's what metaphors do. They break down. Words have got a wide array of meaning. So, I don't know, instruments can be used to just measure things and tools can be used to make beautiful, amazing art. Are you going to use your phone to just consume junk, just endlessly scroll Twitter and feel bad about what your friends are doing on Instagram? Would you sit and listen to really crappy music that you hate? No, what you do on your phone should make you feel good. Or if it's work stuff, it should make you feel productive. And here's maybe the most important point. If you really think about your phone as an extension of your mind, then the things you do on your phone are an extension of what you are and who you are. The technology doesn't absolve you from your actions. So if you're using your phone to leave hateful comments or say hateful things or just generally be terrible on the internet, that's you doing it. It's not some separate thing. You should use your phone to improve humanity, not make it worse. In the same way that a musician doesn't pick up a guitar to make you feel like crap, they do it to make music that makes people feel good. The metaphor of an instrument is more useful because it makes you feel differently about the phone. You should think differently about it. Or more importantly, you should have a different attitude when you're using your phone. As long as we're talking about metaphors and words and whatever, here's one for you. Phone. It comes from the Greek for voice and it's for communicating with other people. But more than other people, it's for communicating with culture. So when you play a game on your phone, it's an instrument for experiencing a new kind of art. And when you take a selfie with your phone, it's an instrument for putting a picture of yourself out in the world. Phones are pieces of culture that also create culture. If you treat your phone like a tool, like a hammer, you're just going to pound nails with it. You're going to dehumanize the person on the other end of the phone. But if you treat it like an instrument, you're going to recognize that it creates culture, that it has a place in our culture. And so do you. Because that's what instruments do. And I'm really curious, you know, this is my metaphor, but maybe you have a better idea of how we should think about these phones so that they feel better in our lives. Please let me know down in the comments and we'll have a chat.