New Yorker Writer Argues Collective Action Is Key to Resisting Tech

Collective Action Against Tech

In a column for The New Yorker, a writer argues that individual resistance to technology—such as screen-time limits and app deletions—fails because it places the burden entirely on personal willpower, leaving people helpless against Big Tech.

Resistance to technology typically focuses on personal choices, according to The New Yorker. People try buying brick phones, limiting children’s screen time, deleting apps, stopping doomscrolling, and avoiding ChatGPT for mundane searches. Freedom becomes a matter of individual will.

In 2022, The Times published a story about Brooklyn teens meeting in Prospect Park once a week to draw, whittle, and read The Consolation of Philosophy after dropping out of digitized life. The writer notes a similar personal focus in parenting, worrying constantly about screen time and celebrating weekly usage reductions.

That individual focus makes people feel helpless, The New Yorker reported. Those who want to free themselves from phones might find better results through collective action.

Collective action against artificial intelligence is already visible in the healthcare sector. Nurses have mounted long-running political actions against AI incursions into their profession since at least the spring of 2024, according to The New Yorker.

National Nurses United Resists AI Supremacy in Clinical Decision-Making

Hospital efficiency measures are not new, and labor fights usually center on head count and hours. However, Puneet Maharaj, executive director of the National Nurses United, told The New Yorker that AI represents a different type of invasion.

The union does not demand a full removal of AI technology or a return to entirely manual scheduling. Instead, the union draws a line at AI supremacy in staffing, decision-making, and clinical assessments.

What makes AI even more dangerous is the insistence of health-care companies and these billionaires to use it as a technology to override the judgment of nurses, and to override their clinical decision-making, Maharaj told The New Yorker.

Maharaj stated that AI has infiltrated many parts of a nurse’s workday. Automated scheduling run entirely by AI tends to understaff nurse posts without accounting for personal issues.

Nurses face AI tools listening to patient interactions and evaluating medical records. These programs sometimes make automated mistakes, such as mislabeling a patient mentioning pine needles in yardwork as having an opioid problem.

Listening machines also raise serious privacy questions regarding data destinations and protection. AI phone-monitoring was another reason for the Kaiser Permanente strike in March.

The ultimate concern involves AI replacing the nurse-patient relationship and turning medical professionals into meat puppets who do the machine’s bidding. Maybe you can look at efficiency when you’re looking at widgets, Maharaj told The New Yorker.

But when you’re talking about patients, and you’re talking about the relationship between a nurse and her patient—that is extremely important, and that is reserved for the judgment of the nurse, and not some technology that is going to override their judgment.

Automated Restrictions and Physical Barriers Limit Social Media Access

Alternative approaches to screen reduction involve physical barriers and automated restrictions. A phone setup automatically disables social media access at noon, 6:30 p.m., and 10 p.m.

Restoring access requires physically pressing the phone against a plastic square on a high shelf. During blocked hours, only text messages and Apple Books remain available for reading The Brothers Karamazov.

Screen time does not fall under this setup, but usage shifts from social media scrolling to reading character rants about God. The author of that approach seeks a larger seismic intervention to separate people from screens, algorithms, and simulated social life, considering either a dropout movement or government anti-screen initiatives with tobacco-style penalties for tech companies.

Disclaimer: The views and cultural analyses presented in this article are for informational and entertainment purposes only. Information regarding legal disputes or financial data is based on available public records.