We live in a world where “being offline” is now an event, not a default setting. Most of the planet is plugged into something all the time. More than 6 billion people are online now, roughly three-quarters of humanity, and mobile devices account for most of that traffic.:contentReference[oaicite:0]{index=0}

On paper, that sounds impressive and advanced. In real life, it’s messier. Technology is stitched into our work, relationships, faith, boredom, loneliness, noise, and even how we fall apart at 2 a.m. and try to hold ourselves together again.

When Your Phone Is Practically a Limb

The average person spends around four to five hours a day on their phone — basically an entire day every week just poking a piece of glass.:contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1} Most people don’t even realise how reflexive it’s become. You check your notifications the way you breathe: constantly, automatically, and mostly without thinking.

I’m not judging from a distance here. I live on my phone too. It’s how I work, how I love, how I listen to music, how I stay in touch with the people who actually matter. I’m blind — so for me, the screen isn’t even visual. It’s a talking slab that becomes a lifeline when the world forgets I exist unless I fit into their little visual boxes.

But let’s be honest: this constant connectivity has a cost. Studies are pretty blunt about it — too much screen time and social media use are linked to anxiety, poorer sleep, and this hollow sense of connection where you’re surrounded by people online and still feel alone.:contentReference[oaicite:2]{index=2}

Tech as a Lifeline, Not a Toy

For disabled people, technology isn’t a cute “productivity hack”; it’s survival. Screen readers, voice assistants, and all the clunky accessible apps in between are how we read, work, study, shop, navigate cities, and basically exist in a world that still refuses to build ramps unless forced. The World Health Organization estimates billions of people rely on some form of assistive tech, and that number is only growing.:contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}

But here’s the part most people don’t see: the web still shuts us out constantly. Over 96% of popular websites have basic accessibility issues, and more than 70% of users with disabilities leave inaccessible sites immediately.:contentReference[oaicite:4]{index=4} When you’re blind, every “inaccessible” button is not an inconvenience — it’s a door slammed in your face.

So yes, I live very much inside technology. I build things with it. I listen to music through it. I connect with people I love on it. But I am also painfully aware that the same digital world that keeps me alive and functioning can be hostile, exhausting, and exclusionary.

Connection vs. Consumption

Technology amplifies whatever is already there. If you’re lonely, it can give you community — or it can make your loneliness louder. If you’re curious, it can open entire worlds. If you’re anxious, it can feed that anxiety until your nervous system is buzzing like a broken transformer.

We already know that heavy, mindless social media use is linked to worse mental and social wellbeing, especially in younger people.:contentReference[oaicite:5]{index=5} At the same time, there’s evidence that intentional, active use of technology — using it to connect, learn, and create rather than just scroll — can actually support cognitive health and emotional stability, even for older adults.:contentReference[oaicite:6]{index=6}

The problem is not “technology is evil.” The problem is uncritical, endless consumption — letting algorithms drag you by the nose while you call it “relaxing.”

My Own Dance With the Machines

For me, the interplay between life and technology is not theoretical. It’s personal and daily. I’ve had days where I was hanging on by a thread, and the only things between me and complete collapse were:

• A playlist perfectly sequenced for my emotional damage
• A call with someone I love, stretched across time zones
• A screen reader reading out words I needed to hear at that exact moment

Technology has carried my voice to people who would never have met me otherwise. It’s how I build things: an accessible CMS here, a music PWA there, little projects stitched together with PHP and SQLite and stubbornness. It lets me share songs, stories, articles, and little pieces of myself with people scattered all over the place.

At the same time, tech has shown me its teeth. Inaccessible systems. Bureaucracies that assume “just log in to the portal” is a universal solution. Forms that break my screen reader. Services that happily take my money but can’t be bothered to make a single button properly labelled.

Tech, Power, and Who Gets Left Out

We like to pretend the internet is a great equaliser, but that’s marketing, not reality. There are still billions of people offline or barely connected, and even among those who are online, there’s a massive gap in speed, quality, and affordability.:contentReference[oaicite:7]{index=7}

So when people talk about “the future of technology,” I always want to ask: for whom? Because if your future doesn’t include disabled people, poor people, people outside the shiny urban bubbles, then it’s not “the future” — it’s just a more efficient sorting system for who matters and who doesn’t.

Setting Boundaries With Our Devices

We clearly need technology. It’s not optional anymore. But needing it doesn’t mean surrendering to it. Just like food, tech can nourish or poison depending on how we consume it.

For me, that looks like:

• Using tech deliberately — not just letting autoplay, infinite scrolling, and notifications dictate my mood
• Choosing long-form content and real conversations over outrage snippets and doomscrolling
• Building and using accessible tools wherever I can, because I know what it feels like to be locked out
• Letting music, books, and real-time connection with people I care about sit at the centre of my digital life instead of ads and algorithms

Technology is at its best when it fades into the background — when it becomes the invisible wiring that lets human things happen: love, friendship, learning, faith, creativity, survival.

Living With Technology, Not Under It

In the end, the interplay of life and technology is not about gadgets; it’s about control. Do we use these tools to become more human, more present, more grounded? Or do we let them turn us into data points with sore eyes and scrambled attention spans?

I don’t romanticise the past. I’m not interested in pretending we can go back to some “simpler time.” What I want — what I try to practice, imperfectly — is this:

Use the tools. Don’t become one.

Lean into the parts of technology that give you connection, access, and dignity. Push back against the parts that try to reduce you to a user ID and a set of engagement metrics. And whenever possible, demand a digital world where people who navigate with a cane, a guide dog, a screen reader, or a shaky internet connection aren’t treated as an afterthought.

Life and technology are not separate anymore. The real work now is making sure that as the wires wrap tighter around everything, we don’t lose the parts of ourselves that were never meant to be compressed into pixels in the first place.