Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out in the Digital Age

Let’s begin by recalling what Timothy Leary meant in the 1960s. Leary, a Harvard psychologist turned psychedelic guru, coined “Turn on, tune in, drop out” as a rallying cry for the counterculture. In his own words, “turn on” meant awakening one’s inner consciousness (often via LSD); “tune in” meant engaging creatively and harmoniously with the world; and “drop out” meant a “selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary commitments,” embracing self-reliance and change. In context, this slogan was delivered at the 1967 Human Be-In in San Francisco to 30,000 hippies, urging young people to break from social conventions through inner transformation. Leary later clarified that “drop out” really meant shedding conformity — not literally quitting life but exiting imposed roles and seeking one’s own path. In short, Leary’s mantra was about heightened awareness and voluntary disengagement from mainstream society’s expectations.

Fast-forward to today, and we can ask: how do these three imperatives translate in a world of smartphones, social media, and constant connectivity? In Leary’s time, “turning on” meant activating the mind through psychedelics. In our era, it might literally mean turning on a device — but does that truly awaken us, or instead hook us? Leary himself foresaw the parallel: by the 1990s he had quipped “computers are the new LSD,” even updating his slogan to “Turn on, boot up, jack-in.” The parallel is striking. Today our screens beam dopamine triggers into the brain almost constantly. What Leary meant by “turn on” (awaken inner awareness), modern tech often means “power on” the endless stream of content. Yet many commentators warn that social media and apps are engineered like slot machines for our brains. Tristan Harris, a former Google ethicist, has called the smartphone “a slot machine in my pocket,” and notes that apps create a “race to the bottom of the brain stem” — we’ve really lost control of our relationship with technology because technology has become better at controlling us. In other words, the digital “turn on” is often a form of technological addiction, not genuine enlightenment. As one technology critic summarizes, digital devices today are being likened to “electronic heroin” or “digital cocaine” — their allure hooks us and can overwhelm our attention, rather than open it. By the time we say we’ve “turned on” our phones, the effect may be pacification, not liberation.

And what does it mean to “tune in” now? In the 60s it meant attuning to your newly awakened inner perspective by interacting creatively with the world. Today it can mean remaining hooked into the global network — but often in a highly engineered way. Social media algorithms ensure we “tune in” to a curated reality. We think we’re engaging with the world, but in practice we’re fed a filtered, personalized media diet designed for our eyeballs. This relentless connectivity creates a kind of algorithmic tuning: platforms track our data and show us content that reinforces what we already like or fear. Critics like Shoshana Zuboff, Evgeny Morozov and others have documented how such tech isn’t neutral — it surveils us and guides our attention for corporate or political ends. In effect, the modern “tune in” can easily become passive consumption of whatever our feed delivers. As Tristan Harris puts it, apps are “engineered to get us scrolling as frequently as possible”, pushing us into a constant state of partial engagement. In this setting, to “tune in” often means surrendering agency — the technology tunes us instead. In fact, Harris emphasizes that the all-or-nothing choice (keep the phone on or drop it completely) is “a design failure” of our devices, and that by design we’re losing control. To tune in healthily today might require reclaiming that agency: choosing what to pay attention to rather than letting an algorithm do it for us.

Finally, “drop out.” In the 1960s, Leary’s call to drop out was a revolutionary act — step away from compulsory schools, jobs, institutions and the “rat race,” seeking spiritual freedom. In the digital era, many of us feel a similar impulse: to unplug or digitally detox. We carry the world in our pockets now — as one legal commentator quipped, Leary’s advice “is just as sound” today, since we literally lug “the world and all its distractions in the palm of our hand.” Ironically, the drop out of today often means walking out of the tech-led matrix. Retreats like Camp Grounded (a weekend “digital detox” in the woods) see otherwise-connected people give up phones and screens to rediscover silence and perspective. Participants describe the experience as “cleansing,” gaining a new perspective on their relationship with technology. Wellness experts even speak of “giving yourself permission to relax and disconnect.” In a world of FOMO and constant pings, stepping back feels like an act of self-preservation. Leary insisted that “drop out” was not suicide but self-discovery — today’s droppers-out similarly seek autonomy: logging off social media, quitting addictive apps, or simply setting strict boundaries (like tech-free evenings or neighborhoods).

Yet there are contrasts too. Leary envisioned dropouts building new communal lives, often countercultural communes or back-to-the-land farms. Today’s dropout impulse ranges widely: some aim to avoid only toxic online culture (quitting Twitter or Facebook, finding friendly online enclaves or not connecting at all), while others go more extreme. Consider Mark Boyle, a modern-day voluntary minimalist — he literally lives without internet, phone, or electricity in a cabin, arguing that technology “separates us from nature” and fuels consumerism. He says he became “happier away from screens” and learned that we must reject technologies harming people and planet. His is an extreme example of dropping out of the digital and industrial world entirely. More moderately, digital minimalists like Cal Newport urge selective use: keep only those online tools that genuinely serve you and ditch the rest. Others embrace low-tech communities or decentralized networks — for instance, the Fediverse (open, peer-to-peer social platforms) or local cooperatives — as analogs of Leary’s communes. The thread is the same: avoid being enslaved by a technology-driven consumer culture. In practical terms this might look like buying second-hand gadgets, cutting cable and news subscriptions, favoring face-to-face meetups over endless Zoom calls, or simply resisting the urge to upgrade phones each year.

In all these cases, the spirit echoes Leary. Both then and now, to “drop out” means not blindly accepting the dominant system — whether it was 60s conformity or today’s surveillance‐capitalist media. Leary urged young people to be conscious and self-reliant; today’s advocates also stress awareness. For example, software guru Tristan Harris talks about a need for a “Hippocratic oath” in tech design so that tools respect our autonomy. We see modern writers and thinkers saying: take responsibility for your digital life. The impulse to unplug (digital detox) directly mirrors Leary’s call for detachment — as one trend article notes, part of the attraction of week-long tech-free retreats is simply getting “away from work email and enjoy[ing] the moment.” Similarly, just as Leary valued meditation and introspection, today’s “Drop Out” can mean embracing offline meditation or nature walks.

In sum, Leary’s mantra remains provocative in the internet age. Turn on now might mean turning one’s attention to mindfulness rather than mindless scrolling. Tune in might call for genuine, human connection — listening to real conversations, not just viral clips. And drop out still suggests that opting out of the mainstream (now often digital) ecosystem can be an act of freedom. As philosopher William Burroughs once put it about technology: the only escape from the “surveillance machine” is to shut it off. Whether one takes that literally or simply limits screen time, it channels the same spirit Leary invoked. In the end, these words invite us to ask: do we use technology as a tool to expand our consciousness, or are we being used by it? Reflecting on Leary’s wisdom helps frame that question — reminding us that even in a hyperconnected world, there may be virtue in selectively disconnecting and finding our own wavelength