Smartphones: C or D?

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

ipod touch + flip phone was actually not a bad combination for me a long while, but it got frustrating enough trying to find wifi w/ the touch that getting a smartphone became a much better option

people misunderstand my lifelong mobile-phone avoidance as some kind of Luddite-elitism. if i had a smartphone i'd have it out all the time; that's what i want to avoid.

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

― saer, Thursday, March 31, 2016 6:43 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this

Have no need for a smartphone but cool if other people do. Have no need for a pocket sized map/book/internet either.

but then again i don't live in the city or take public transport

You Luddites are an inspiration. I hate my smartphone.

But does anyone else see possession of it as a kind of evolutionary advantage over those who don't? Difficult to give concrete examples, but the mobile communication abilities + Google knowledge + personal assistant functions might equal something substantial.

i was hoping to find more luddites on here tbh

Im not a luddite, Im a developer and take my laptop with me most places to write code, I just think phones are an invasion of privacy and dislike the feelings of entitlement that people have about my time, and that I must somehow always be reachable. Its a concerted attack on reverie by the forces of capitalism and traditionalism, by people who don't understand the need for the dreamstate, and want to nail down every fleeting second of respite, and know where you are. The smartphone is an abomination, its only use to distract people and give them something to occupy themselves while i look out the window dreaming I was somewhere else

treeship this is the post you've been looking for ^

yeah, i was looking for some of that anger toward the modern world, some fire in the belly

Except you can turn all notifications off if you want and just use it when one feels the need to invade someone else's space...

yeah but i have no self control

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")

otm ive pretty much stopped looking stuff up in face-to-face conversations because i feel like the uninterrupted flow of the conversation is infinitely more enjoyable than knowing for sure what that guy was in

i spent a lot of time as a kid worried sick about where my parents were if they were out, if they were late i always worried there had been an accident. it was such a relief when cell phones became ubiquitous and that anxiety of knowing your loved ones were safe just evaporated.

of *not knowing if

Smartphones & cell phones are classic if only for their function in emergencies & crises

just replaced by the anxiety of not getting a text back from a loved one even though you know they should have their phone on them

xp

yes save research for alonetime

i am too poor to afford the recharge on my smahtphone now so mostly i just let it lapse for months and then occasionally recharge it as little as possible when i need to have a normal-feeling conversation with someone (i sometimes make calls through my computer but that feels weird for personal conversation)

when i leave home is when i am away from the computer and after a brief investigation of phone lyfe i do not find that much is gained by having access to my digital life in my pocket. it's nicer when you're on the go a lot, or maybe occasionally feel like checking in on a break, but i am not, and i don't, so.

xp that's not nearly as bad though, i mean i remember feeling totally helpless with absolutely no way to reach someone.

i have a smartphone. it's prety good for things.

smartphones are duds. i only use mine for its gps functions and music

however getting rid of mine would mean people can't text me, and having no social media, my family and close friends would probably be very upset

i use yelp on occasions but i'm finding it to be increasingly unreliable

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

― Ecomigrant gnomics (darraghmac), Thursday, March 31, 2016 8:16 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

memories of travelling through south america and sketchy dudes just handing out mobile phones with prepaid plans as you walk out of the washroom

felt like even the homeless had one whilst over there

my smahtphone has a real keyboard and a few years ago i installed an ssh app on it so that i could log in to my remote, decades-old shell account, send proper emails, perform filesystem operations and whatnot, and doing that on a smahtphone is, i must say, extremely satisfying

after a brief investigation of phone lyfe i do not find that much is gained by having access to my digital life in my pocket.

― j., Thursday, March 31, 2016 4:16 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, not at all. it is the total triumph of the virtual. the end of the world.

http://www.mindful.org/addicted-to-your-phone-try-this-practice-phone-in-hand/

^^ have not tried that but it doesn't seem like a waste of time.

i am with Treeship pretty much. I feel profoundly troubled by my phone to a far greater degree than I am by the internet in general. on the other hand a meditation app has finally led to me having a regular daily meditation practice (which I now do on my own), and i am really grateful for that.

thing with smartphones is you are held accountable for every fb invitation, semi "important" social media goings-on, and texts. you can never said i don't know or escape anything. you either remain active on it or not; any middle-ground is treated with suspicion

say even

boomin' truth; what horror!

the whole "mindfulness" approach to technology kind of fascinates me since it mostly represents a doomed attempt to re-orient the reversal of means and ends that Weber observed in the workings of technology on society. Franco Berardi makes a kind of outlandish connection between the dinging of your smartphone and the whistle that used to call workers back to work. maybe it's not that extreme, but in some ways smartphones just seem to represent the ever more complete diffusion of the protestant ethic into every aspect of our lives.

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