The middle "stoplight" button is 1-2 pixels higher than the others for me. Is this one purpose? It looks this way in the screenshot, as well, unless my eyes are playing tricks on me.
Commenters are criticizing the man for knowing that cell phones exist and for being surprised by it.
I bought smartphones before the iPhone.
I stood in line for four hours to buy the first iPhone (never again).
I still use an iPhone.
Yet, I am regularly surprised by how often everyone is looking at their phones.
(Context: I live in a rural area outside a metro area and don’t go there often, except for work.)
When their kid is at a crowded city park, the parent is glued to their phone.
When their kid is performing, the parent is glued to their phone, their thumb scrolling.
During any break from activity, they whip out their phones.
I used to be skeptical about the claim that devices contribute to societal brain rot through dopamine hits. However, the more I pay attention, the more I notice it. Even though I'm quite disciplined, I still catch myself instinctively pulling out my phone.
I can easily see this man having that sincere thought. You know smartphones exist, but you have no idea how much they are used.
I truly believe we are at a stage where one could argue that smartphones qualify as cybernetics.
1. Insofar as no apps on phone, minimal social media usage at all, and willful focus on a return to my 70s/80s roots where I embrace active boredom doing nothing.
I did a week without my phone and it was astonishing how uncomfortable I was with… doing nothing. The act of just waiting for anything made me instinctively reach for the phone and when it wasn’t there… it was uncomfortable to not get that hit. Even after a week, it hadn’t gone away.
Before smartphones, I carried a book wherever I went for just this reason. I was bullied mercilessly for it, but didn’t care - that’s preferable to being bored.
Ye. I mean it is bad for us as individuals and collective to constantly have an internet connected computer available.
I don't know what we should do about it though. Like any cure would be to authoritarian for my taste. Hope for culture change? Like how fronting the TV as the center of your family life at home is not hip anymore.
I guess thise articles dissappeared when those people did not rack up huge telephone bills.
You'd have to have some non abstract damage to write simple articles. Otherwise the journalist need to do a deep dive in the victim's life to explain the damage.
I am proposing that we should hope that we just sort it out without doing anything. I think that is like claiming that there is not some nice fix.
I for example am burned out on scrolling feeds since I consumed way too much memes on like some meme rating feed site I don't even remember the name of, before feeds was a thing.
So maybe people might just cut down on it by them self?
Was that feeling happening constantly at any time or only during the time you didn’t have anything else to do?
I do plenty of physical exercise during the day, and I don’t like to take with me the phone (because it’s big). When I go out for a walk I don’t take my phone with me (I walk around 40 min/day). When I read I don’t have my phone near me. Now, when I have done all the things I wanted to do during the day and it’s time to sit on the sofa, yep, I take my phone and I would get bored without it I think.
I did a month, it was actually surprisingly easily. The worst part was actually pissing off a bunch of people that couldn't reach me easily any longer.
Even when people are not looking at the phone, they need to know it's nearby.
Some young people feel anxiety without their phones to the level they don't go out even for a few minutes without a phone. They still lose their phone inside their homes, but they feel comfortable because they know it's nearby. But if you are asking someone to come to help carry something, takes max 2 minutes, and they refuse until they find their phone. It is same for taking out the trash, and visiting the nearby shop (5 min max).
Wish I could make an NFC implant and pay like that. But probably not in this decade, since that would require merchants to have an eyelid scanner or something similar, so that people can't pay with your hand while you're not looking.
Oh you mean like if the battery runs out? I just make sure it never does. I thought they meant like if I lose my phone, but in that case I could just go home and grab my card and pay with my card.
I don't even have a wallet. Also, a big reason to avoid cash is that you never know who was its previous owner, and whether they washed their hands. Unless you can somehow get factory new cash.
That's correct. You should never touch a public door handle with your bare hands. And often you don't have to. Many doors would be opened for you if you just pushed them, and some would even open themselves on their own if they saw that you wanted to get through. But, hold on, let me blow your mind even further: you should also never eat food that fell on the ground, even if it was less than 3 seconds.
No ignorance here, quite the opposite. When you realize how low the odds are of the worst case scenarios you use to justify your behavior and do a cost/benefit analysis you'll find it isn't in favor of that level of mild paranoia.
> I'm 19, but no worries, when COVID happened I was not affected
Being afraid to touch door handles in public and being as attached to a smartphone as you are would indicate the pandemic did indeed affect your development. The question is to what extent is your development typical.
Even if you ignore the potential implications to your health, realising that dozens of homeless drug addicts touch that very same door handle every day justifies a small detour to find a better door, or at the very least using your sleeve to avoid direct contact. Also, I did leave my phone in the house when taking out trashes, so can’t say I’m that attached.
> Even if you ignore the potential implications to your health, realising that dozens of homeless drug addicts touch that very same door handle every day justifies a small detour to find a better door, or at the very least using your sleeve to avoid direct contact.
I'm not going to argue about door handles, I'm just going to point out this is objectively not normal, as in common, behavior - and that you think this does seem to have been due to you growing up while COVID was a threat.
> Also, I did leave my phone in the house when taking out trashes, so can’t say I’m that attached.
Ironically, I was taking out trash a couple hours ago, and left my phone in the house, and somebody called me, and when I got back they no longer needed me.
Not scientific, but when I snoop, I most often see the thumb scrolling and various incarnations of the video shorts apps like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Instagram, and Snapchat.
Probably any of the above except work? It's indeed a tool for any kind of distraction you want/whichever road you take (i.e. whichever app you open) you'll find said distraction. HN counts too. (Ironically I'm typing this as I sit on the toilet.).
I agree on HN, though I think it's markedly different as it moves slow enough that you can just check it once or twice a day and get most everything you want. Whereas a lot of other social media is an unlimited feed of everything, ephemerally, and can make you feel like that if you blink, you'll have missed something.
I do check HN from my phone, typically in the mornings and night when I have downtime and don't want to watch TV or read a book. But I can't say I've ever been at a park, bar, or airport lounge and just itching to see what was going on HN this second.
Yeah it truly is astonishing how constant and ubiquitous. Occasionally I'll be out somewhere and I'll have that moment of clarity and just notice it and see it for what it is. That's usually only when my phone is dead or not on me though :\
Southern europe, that shame may happen if you dont prioritize family, but it doesn't happen with work.
In fact I'm prone to belive that informing others that you exercise/meditate/others instantly increment the perceived "value" and successfullness. Just like dressing good, but with actual health improvements.
That said, I'd recommend you focus more on your self-agency and self-discipline, as well. It will pay dividends.
NextDNS.io with Parent Control category blocking and perhaps a news blocklist might help. It works with pretty much every platform. You'll have to give your Parental Control passcode to a trusted adult, though.
I agree there is nothing to coerce out of you anymore and so you'd not be held on this forced decryption law... but not complying with such a court order probably results in another offence for which you can then get punished (not sure if a fine, community service, or jail time would be most likely for this), on top of that it doesn't look good to the judge who presides over the original case in which they de demanded the decryption in the first place
But it would be up to him, wouldn't it? I think that's the main deal here: cart blanche access to your data, or giving into someone's bullshit fishing attempt because it's inconvenient.
Nice, that's a big differentiator! I use git sync with my mobile vault, but it's very hacky (using a Termux cronjon) and it's often flaky. Plus I have to open up Termux any time I need to troubleshoot, which is a bit annoying.
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