Smartphones: C or D?

flip phones blow treeship, don't get one, i had one for 9 years until i got an iphone last year and everything is way easier. i thought i was happier before bc i was less connected but it was more just a pain in the ass

like even if you text w/ friends more than once every couple of days you should at least get a phone w/ some kind of keyboard feature

Classic, despite people under-utilizing them. Being able to communicate with anyone anywhere in the world and having immediate access to the sum of human knowledge and information, it feels like magic.

i would still like to use my phone less especially in the evenings after work but overall i like having a smartphone more than not having one

it's so easy to just be looking at it all fucking day though

I like having one but I think it really is possible -- at least this is what I do -- to have a system of "when I'm out and about during the day the phone is with me in my pocket, but once I'm home the phone is elsewhere and I'm not staring at it." Best practice here is to keep your phone in your pants pocket and then remove pants for the night immediately upon entering the house. #lifehack

i think its power is paralyzing and it'll take a while for people to adjust

btw, despite the fact that I take smartphones to be basically classic, what's really dud is people who insist that the downside doesn't exist, and that if you find yourself checking your phone all day it can only be because checking your phone is actually and truly what is good in life

image of four friends at bar all staring at phones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR7_TbMIVnA

i mean on one hand, seeing a bunch of people out in public staring at their phones sometimes seems like a glimpse into dystopia. but you could also point to a long line of behavioral changes in response to tech advances in the past, so it's probably not worth freaking out

i really have come to resent smartphones, and to a lesser extent the internet itself, but part of this is obviously just a projection of anger with myself for squandering my time

i do think that the phone has eroded some of my coping mechanisms, like when i am anxious now i just go on the internet and distract myself and end up not dealing with the things that are bothering me

I've gotten pretty good at not taking my phone out when I don't need to.

before smartphones i just didn't leave my computer ever, and now i can go out and about with the knowledge that i can still get my fix if i need it

so, classic

my inclination is to want to throw my phone into a river, but only if everyone else tossed them in at the same time. ok everyone! one...two....

but i have to temper that by remembering that new communication technologies rarely represent a 100% improvement over the existing paradigm. smartphones can represent an improvement in quality of life for people while still making some things worse. i guess it's only with time that the balance becomes apparent, though. i mean i bet socrates would probably want to revise his thoughts that books would lead to the destruction of human memory

I had an iphone until two or three years ago when I lost it. I went around a year without a phone of any kind and didn't miss it at all. I had to get a replacement phone eventually after people insisted they wanted to be able to get hold of me, this induced high levels of anxiety as this is anathema to serenity and reverie. I went into EE in Rhyl and got the cheapest smartphone they had. I also got a stick-on-back-of-phone wallet which is for people who forget their cards all the time, which I think is a good idea for people who like phones and looking at them.

I dont like cards, wallets, phones or looking at them, however I do like that smartphones exist, especially when people look at them instead of asking me questions or disrupting reverie in other ways

http://i.imgur.com/5PmRX4a.jpg

xp karl i used to be all in with derrida in saying that the perennial tendency to disparage the various technological "supplements" people use to augment their limited abilities is the wrong way to go, that "supplementing" our limitations with tools of various kinds is just what human beings do. there was never really a "state of nature" as far as humans were concerned; there is nothing to long for.

i no longer agree with this position. i think our society bombards people with too much information for them to handle. i feel overwhelmed all the time, but i am also addicted to the stimulation.

ultimately, though, i think my general thought is that it's ok to look at yr phone but maybe don't do it when you're out with friends and it's conversation time (esp. not when you're out with grandma). and i also try to keep in mind that it's inevitable that some people will persist in staring at their phone all the time and it will be incredibly annoying, just like people will still do annoying things at all times everywhere, what else is new

grandma otm

chuck 'em

xpost to treeship

things to seem to be heading in a depressing direction, overall...but the other thing is: what can we do about it?

i have to admit that my last several posts have just been an attempt to recreate this

looooooooooooooooool

your earlier post, though - i think our society bombards people with too much information for them to handle. i feel overwhelmed all the time, but i am also addicted to the stimulation - is close my own views. i feel completely overwhelmed, and also recognize that i'm probably in the minority on that. the kids seem to be completely comfortable and i feel like a dinosaur complaining about it.

i feel this way and i am young though! i am 26!

when i was a kid i watched too much tv though... i think i just have a dysfunctional relationship to technology

Posting from my phone to say this q sucks

no way, it's a good question.

It's a hatefully privileged q imo shame on anyone blames incredible technology for anything ever

why are they so great?

is life better now that your computer is in your pocket all the time?

a few xps if it was the 1800s you'd probably be diminishing your relationship to the real world by reading too many books, heaven forbid

i think that is also an issue for me though

I love mine. I do not care much about what's happening on social media or on ilx or on planet earth so that's not a problem. I just hate that I'm so readily available/reachable, but this has been the problem since I first got a cell in the 90s.

the issue comes down to having enough willpower to regulate your attention in a way that is satisfying to you, personally. but some technologies can wear down willpower more efficiently than others.

rip van wanko otm about not wanting to be reached.... in high school and college i used to leave my cell phone at home on purpose all the time but i was also kind of a weird shut in then and resented getting texts from people

i held out w a flip phone for years and marcos is otm that they're just not worth what texting's like on them, and texting is great imo

also often nice to have a map in your pocket

the part that gets on my nerves about smartphone culture is everyone's immediate, reflexive googling at the first hint of ambiguity or confusion in conversation (from "who was that guy in that thing" to "when was the march on rome again") partly because i think of socrates' warning against writing -- that it would outsource memory and thought -- but mostly because nine times out of ten the conversation would really do better to stall (or to proceed untroubled)

but really the thing that does all the things smartphones/the internet/the information era are allegedly doing to me is definitely ilx.

like if i were banned from ilx i'd only touch my smartphone when it made a noise

I still carry a "feature phone" - mainly because I'm cheap and I don't want to pay for a data plan. It has other pluses though, such as the fact that it's a better form factor for actually making phone calls, and the battery lasts for weeks. Last time I went to Verizon to get a new phone, they only had one model in the entire store that didn't require a data plan, so selection was easy as well.

last year when i lost my 4th flip phone or whatever i actually was considering just buying another one, but iirc there wasn't even a huge savings over a smartphone

also often nice to have a map in your pocket

yea having a map is killer

There was a phone so bad in EE that it was free even on a Pay As You Go plan. I was briefly tempted but in the end i put down the £15 on the cheapest smartphone instead (£15 I could have spent on records or put towards a hat)

i used to have a gold-plated motorola razr which i'd bought cheap long after razrs of any metal had ceased to be luxurious. the buttons on this phone were unusuably elegant. at the time i was much mocked for my brokerish ostentation by radical leftists w iphones.

really i should have said a magic map! a piece of fairy-tale equipment.

Having the Internet/maps/books/music in my pocket at all times is the best.

I can see social media being draining and negative but the key there is to either not use them or use them peripherally. I have an Instagram account but I just browse chefs and food porn and travel stuff while I poop. Ditto Twitter, but with musicians instead of travel.

if you live in a big city and rely on public transportation then a smartphone is amazing, you can map your path to see what route is best, check on when the next bus will show up, see what track your train will be on, etc.

if you have a long commute on public transportation then a smartphone is amazing, you can goof around, deal with email, etc.

people who check phones while talking to people are jerks but imo so are people who look at watches or clocks during convos for the most part & we all do that sometimes so being a jerk = part of "modern "busy" life"

i was hoping to find more luddites on here tbh

jes' me

iirc

:)

I realize that someone much younger than me who views cell phones as part of life is going to find such complaints laughable. But I really do hate what they've done to the world.

what's crazy about smartphones is that they are not even that old. when i graduated from college in 2011 they were not yet ubiquitous. but now everyone is addicted to them.

perhaps someday you can have one city, as easy to see as illusions, and as hard to forget as reality (xp)

not everyone

the phaedrus writing thing isn't a good example for smartphones. socrates was actually right that writing caused a fundamental shift in not just society but consciousness. oral societies worked in a totally different way. it happened, though, that this development was actually an advance. but the smartphone is just plugging people into this capitalist entertainment matrix thing. it's not a neutral technology but something connects to a network that is owned and controlled--it seems more ominous for something similarly game changing

socrates imo feared that writing would serve power, that scribes would be owned and controlled, that every deferment to the facts on the page would be an abdication of the power of ordinary human discourse, the only tool he believed in. plato's genius escape from this was to commemorate his teacher as a character in drama rather than as a sage in prose. i think modern comm tech makes this possible too-- obviously there's plenty of room for drama. but you are correct that power is still power.

nationalize tech obv.

like this-- this development was actually an advance-- seems as reductive as a panglossian view of smartphones. more power, new dangers. what has to be maintained even as our tech improves is listening to each other and thinking about what we say.

(it's true tho that i don't really consider interrupting a conversation to nail down what year the lion king came out a sign of creeping authoritarianism. it's just annoying.)

1994

lol

i guess what's newly creepy about web2.0 that wasn't creepy about papyrus is that the latter is v clearly, for better or worse, a guy telling you how it is; but the former has the appearance of infinitely multidirectional and endlessly renewed dialogue but is arranged in such a way that it keeps reducing to nothing but profitable noise and passivity

i think a lot about a passage of john reed's where he enthuses about the omnipresence of political argument in petrograd 1917-- couldn't take a tram ride without excitedly discussing kerensky with strangers. he'd never seen anything like it. nor had i the first time i read it. now i feel like i live there and it's hell. but only because so much of the discourse is so disconnected from anything like actually wielding power. power, when it comes, is still exhilarating.

anyway treesh wish we could hang

u could text

i'm a rly bad correspondent

people walking around the city gazing at their cell phone and never looking up

This makes me angry too but then I keep having to remind myself that I was doing this with books way before smart phones

me too except my feet

Anyway, originally I did not get a data plan for my phone because I was cheap, now I'm thinking this has mostly saved me from smart phone addiction. I'm gonna try and stay without a data plan as long as possible.

update: I am very happy with this phone!

one thing not mentioned above(I don't think) is the fact it seems to charge very quickly (maybe they all do now, or its something to do with the usb-c charging?

I may have been equally happy with the other contenders too, but this is passing the test

USB-c can deliver a lot more power Than previous iterations of the standard. It depends on the phone and the charger but charging can be very quick.

yep thats a given with usb c

I also like I can charge with same charger as my macbook, one less cable to lose

the old type of usb seemed completely tempremental, though maybe that was using pieces of shit no name chargers and cables due to last minute replacements of previous pieces of shit no name chargers and cables.

Before i bought this my old phone just wouldn't charge then i was in a phone shop in the airport looking at phones and there was a cable sticking out. i put my would not charge anywhere dead phone on it, and it started charging. i had to tell the man sorry its charging now so i wont be buying that other phone, I'm going to buy something else I'm just going to take a long time about it so my phone charges enough that i can get an uber at the other end of this flight. he said ok

I spoke too soon

The phone is still good but the power supply I used for the macbookno linger works (or maybe the MacBook forsnt)?)

I went to get another power supply but it doesn't charge the MacBook and charges the phone at like 1 pet cent a day this is terrible. Cheap pieces of CRA agai. 54 euros ffs

Oh wow types Ng on a phone is notgood

I don't quite understand what's happened but the xaomi is now dead and so is the MacBook

I am nowthe proud owner of a 70 euronokia and a 299 lenovotbinkpafindteax

Thisspac varproblenIsannoyingad fick

This Nokia is straight up garbage!

I have now replaced the Nokia (it kept turning itself off and was just generally straight up garbage, as they say when talking about phones)

I have a Motoroller G7. It is good, it was cheap. It doesn't feel like I am going to drop it at any minute. Lets see how long this one lasts before blowing up

I use a first gen Moto G, which has been a very solid if unremarkable phone. It's frustratingly slow nowadays though, so I'm thinking of moving to whatever of the newer iterations I can afford.

I am on my second Moto G (over 5 years). The first was ~$80 and the second was ~$100. The first one was the first phone I ever cracked the screen on and i just put some tape over it and kept using it for another year until it stopped charging.

people walking around the city gazing at their cell phone and never looking up

This makes me angry too but then I keep having to remind myself that I was doing this with books way before smart phones

― silverfish, Wednesday, May 1, 2019 3:00 PM (five months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah it me.

Y'all are really mad about phones though. May I suggest that the kids are all right? They'll speak a language of split-second images and sub-sub-sub text in like a year from now and we oldsters can keep our "Roman alphabet" that requires speaking a discrete language in order to communicate. In the meantime I'm so happy to have infinite books and news and vehicles for social connection in my pocket at all times, I would never willingly give up a smartphone now.

An irl friend once said that one of the things he liked most about visiting NYC was the high percentage of ppl on the subway who were quietly READING--a book, a newspaper. I just prefer to assume that a significant amount of time ppl spend on their phones is reading/writing/communication time, all of which I think are general goods!

i am skeptical

stunned

I have some version of this argument with my father every few years.

Him: How come the kids today are always staring at a device instead of doing real stuff and interacting with real people?

Me: Ah but they _are_ doing stuff! Lots of stuff! And interacting with people constantly! Every time they look at a device they are interacting with people all over the world. The device is more than anything a window with people on the other side. They are playing games that were created by people. They are watching videos made by people. They are chatting with people. They are experiencing art and literature and music, all of it made by... people.

Him: Okay yeah but why don't they just interact with people directly?

Me: Aha, so says the guy who is a professor of literature and reads BOOKS so that he can communicate with Shakespeare and Austen and Cervantes. This is like that.

You can't call your wish to commune with people who are distant in time is an exalted pursuit, while also saying that communing with people who are distant in space is a lowly pursuit. That is some Boomer bullshit.

they're playing games or scrolling thru endless memes and lookit me posts on facebook/snapchat/whatever the new shit is. if someone pulled out a book during a lull in conversation that'd be pretty gauche.

After a certain hour (8pm?) my parents are as glued to their devices or TV as any millenial might be.

a recent fave is the people who take forever to get on/off the elevator because they're looking at their phones. and by fave i mean i've considered killing them

Ban smartphones and vaping and those chunky dad sneakers zoomers wear.

Parents are worse than their kids. At least kids drive better and can function. Parents are more apt to be rude.

That said, I get strange looks when I'm at a bar reading. Admiring ones too, to be fair. Bartenders usually ask what I'm reading and offer a variant on, "Wow, I wish customers wouldn't just play with their phones."

If I play with my phone at all, I'm on ILX.

mookie otm

see also the subway, from stairs to train doors and everywhere else

This DOT study failed to take into account that if i am behind you on the sidewalk, you may get kicked up the ass.

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-dot-report-distracted-pedestrians-20190902-fwlzxg6rlzhzhh3imotu3ll3l4-story.html

I also read in bars but it tends to be on my phone

I just read the bartenders' tats

My phone is somewhere inside an airport X-ray scanning machine. I have a replacement sim and bought a cheap set for now to put it in. But its locked to the network (EE). I didn't know this was a thing that they were able to do

I have another flight in 90 minutes.

Has anyone jailbroken a phone so they can switch networks? How difficult is it?

I just read the bartenders' tats

Unlocked phones are widely available for 60-100 usbux

I don't want yet another one! I want to unlock the one in my pocket!

switched to black and white.

deleted every inessential app, including email. i just have text and maps.

keep it in my bag.

so far so good. i missed a lot of calls and texts yesterday, but that is for the best.

good luck, I think about doing that all the time

hero