I've gone from creating web sites and writing smart phone apps, to hating much of it like a lot of you.
I carry an Android phone, as it can track my run distance, play music, navigate, and let me look at sites like this one whenever I want.
But that's it. My run tracker is an app not from the Google Play Store, that doesn't snoop anything about me (Fitotrack). I don't do any social media, so nothing like that is installed. I'm not signed into Google, and I use a VPN 24-7, so I'm hopeful I'm snooped less than most.
Like a lot of things that are bad for us, a smart phone is a necessity for modern living. What isn't necessary is social media.
The phones aren't the issue. Social media is the issue.
Genuine question - do a lot of people use social media as an everyday part of their lives? I keep in contact with my friends on group text threads. Only 1 or 2 of us bother to update Facebook, the rest have old stale accounts we don't update. Never bothered with Instagram or anything else because if Facebook got old I figure the next one will too. I keep my LinkedIn profile updated so that recruiters can reach out, but beyond that I don't personally feel like social media is much in my life.
A lot of older people don't have a full perception of the way social media has taken over our lives. They always talk about how bad it must be for body image and social perception and narcissism and stuff like that. The reality is that nobody is bothered by the FOMO, social anxiety and body image issues that social media allegedly causes. What happens is that social media created a "feed" that lets you endlessly scroll the algorithmically picked most entertaining posts out of billions of content creators. It is always funny, interesting and perfectly suited to your hobbies/interests. Social media is hugely addicting, not because people are obsessed with what their friends are doing, but because its literally free happiness to just scroll through endless posts that make you laugh. I mean it, it is a pure happiness button that is in your pocket at all times. I haven't been bored in like 6 years since I first got my phone. Looking back, being bored is probably something that I should have learned how to experience. Now I have absolutely no capacity to be bored. I whip out my phone the moment I that I have nothing to do.
I don't know what to do with this information, but if you want a real idea of what it is for people under 23 probably, this is 100% accurate. I don't know anybody my age who doesn't have this experience. Also, if any parents are out their who have kids that swear they aren't addicted to their phone, they are, and they aren't in denial either, they know it, they just would never admit it to you, the same way I would never admit it to my parents. But we talk about it with each other and all of us recognize that we have a huge dependency on our phones. Some people have a problem even when they are around others like friends or family, some don't. Everyone has the boredom dependency though.
Yeah the phone is trash, and somehow it’s gotten more addictive. My iPhone 13 Pro is 120hz super colorful and 5G is fast AF. Every new discussion, video, stimulation is just a quick touch away.
Life isn’t slow anymore. Wake up, check stocks and Bitcoin. Text from boss to check something. Text from friend about this event. Texting back and forth with GF to keep her happy or something. Listen to music etc. Read in depth analysis on current events. Watch adult vids. Etc.
Best times are:
hiking without reception. Lifting in gym with music. Reading a book no phone. Meditating.
We have instant handheld portable access to all human knowledge. We can also communicate with humanity. Incredible.
Peak internet was 2003-2008 or so. We had high speed internet and you could look up whatever you wanted and it was all super fast, but it took some work to sit down at a computer and look it up. It was all there, but not intrusive in your every day life.
You could text on your phone, but it was a pain in the ass (t9!), so you never really bothered. It also cost 10 cents a text. Some phones had cameras, but they were terrible, and the only entertainment you had was to play snake. It was purely a communication tool, and didn't do much else, and nothing else well.
Once smartphones started getting powerful, that's when they really started invading every day life. This allowed everyone to stare at social media 24/7. You can look up anything you wanted instead of thinking about it and using your brain to figure it out.
Back when I was in college (2005), you'd just keep your phone in your pocket and only look at it if it made a noise, and even then it wasn't uncommon to just not reply to a text message. This is still my policy with my phone. If there are people near me, its in my pocket, and its silenced. You aren't under any obligation to reply to anything.
The things you can do with phones these days seem essential and we all enjoy them thoroughly. We are never going backwards.
But if you lived about 45 years ago you lived a time when your time was truly your time. Nobody had any way of bothering you unless they physically went to visit you. Even the land lines phones did not have answering machines so people had to catch you at home and you had to pick up. It might be days or even weeks before someone got a hold of you. Today you are making a huge sacrifice by turning off your phone for an hour. People get peeved if you don't text back within minutes. Bosses and customers demand access-ability.
I wish we still had the ability to check out completely.
Am I the only one?
I heard a definition about nostalgia as fondly remembering a time that never actually existed (or something like that).
Were times better? Yes and no. The issue is you not the tool. Customers wanting to reach you during your business hours is kinda part of the job. Just is in pre-times, if a customer was calling your landline and could not get you or a call back they went to another business. The ability to text in many ways is superior to talking (to a point).
Plenty of people turn off their phones. A friend puts his in airplane mode every night for kids bedtime. How is it any different if you have your phone off now than if your friends could not reach you 25 years ago? I doubt that your friends are thinking "We could not get a hold of 'asker of questions' so lets just cancel our plans." You may have to accept missing out on some things. If that tradeoff is worth it, then just turn off your damn phone.
I like being able to use my phone to navigate or even rebook flights/hotels easily. Or getting updates that my flight is delayed. Or just being able to read something while I wait for an appointment or to kill time. I also sometimes use that time just to think because I control the phone not the other way around.
yea I'm 36, got a Nokia in 2003, was on Facebook in College in 2004/2005 ( I still have the account) and have an iPhone. The other poster is right. It's not the smartphone, it's the social media, which I find obnoxious. I wanted to delete Facebook but I have years of memories and history there and It's also the way my running club stays in contact.
To get away from it all, I like to go running and leave the damn phone at home.
you can have a smartphone and not participate in social media...
I miss leaving work for the day and, you know, leaving work for the day. I didn't think about work again until I got back to the office the next morning. Now I'm on call 24/7. Immediate responses are expected.
I miss actually talking to people because their faces weren't buried in their phones. It just kills me to see four people sitting around a table at a restaurant, ignoring each other as they play with their phones. We are simultaneously more connected and less connected than ever.
I miss not worrying about getting run over by distracted drivers.
It is nice being able to contact people remotely when needed or being able to look up a location when out on the go (but not while driving - I never touch my phone while driving).
A friend got into an accident years ago because he looked down at his printed out Mapquest directions and rear ended a car. With my smart phone it tells me when to turn so I can keep my eyes on the road. Texting is obviously a different matter.
I miss leaving work for the day and, you know, leaving work for the day. I didn't think about work again until I got back to the office the next morning. Now I'm on call 24/7. Immediate responses are expected.
I miss actually talking to people because their faces weren't buried in their phones. It just kills me to see four people sitting around a table at a restaurant, ignoring each other as they play with their phones. We are simultaneously more connected and less connected than ever.
I miss not worrying about getting run over by distracted drivers.
It is nice being able to contact people remotely when needed or being able to look up a location when out on the go (but not while driving - I never touch my phone while driving).
A friend got into an accident years ago because he looked down at his printed out Mapquest directions and rear ended a car. With my smart phone it tells me when to turn so I can keep my eyes on the road. Texting is obviously a different matter.
Yeah, people could still get distracted driving before smart phones. Fiddling with the radio dial, changing an 8-track, lighting up... But I guess now that sex is not a thing anymore for people in their 20s that's one less driver distraction.
Humanity started down the road to the current state of information and entertainment technology with two inventions that came within 5 years of each other:
1839: The Photograph. Daguerre. France. The miracle of real world images captured and put on paper.
1844: The Telegraph. Morse. United States. The miracle of long distance communication without the need of a human courier.
When I started in sales I'd leave the apartment every day with a roll of quarters. I knew where every payphone was and which ones would be quiet (and clean!) enough for calls to customers. Checked in with office three times a day. Did paperwork at night.
No one knew where I was or when I'd be home. I'd find a nice trail and go for my PM run where ever I ended the day.
Got all my news from NPR while driving around.
Talked to all sorts of great people.
I traveled a lot for work in the 1980s before not just smartphones, but before the internet. I remember what a pain it was trying to find the hotel at night in a different city using a map. And not a map printed out from a printer, but the folding kind you got from AAA or a gas station. For years I carried a small alarm clock that doubled as a flashlight whenever I traveled. The handiest device I owned.
I'll keep my smart phone. I seldom use social media anyway.
I was based in Asia during the 80's, 90's, and 00's for 30+ years traveling to many countries in the region. No internet but we did have FAX machines which were the latest greatest in tech. We also had the use of Telex which worked pretty well. I got my first mobile phone, which was a brick, in 1990. Very heavy and huge in size. I got a smaller analog phone in 1992 and a fully digital GSM phone in 1995. International hotel and airline reservations were made via FAX and Telex in the 80's and early 90's. Funny thing is that mobile phone service was better in Asia and more advanced than in the US for quite some time. Still is in some regards. It was easy in the 90's and 00's to spot Americans at airports outside the US as they were the ones with phones that didn't work as all were locked! Whereas we would just pop in a new sim card and were good to go.
Overall I'd say mid 1990s-early 2000s were the absolute peak in terms of technology/life balance.
You had (limited) texting, email, instant messaging, online shopping, and fairly innocuous social media like MySpace or "journal" sites where people would mostly blog. Basically 90% of the benefits of modern-day internet with a tiny fraction of the problems. But you also had the ability to shop, book airline tickets, pay bills online which was amazing.
During those years I'd still bring books and magazines to pass the time (e.g. waiting at the doctors office). I felt I could still disconnect every so often and just say I wasn't near my computer to check my emails or IMs. I don't recall ever really checking my work email outside of the office. Kids would still go to malls to hang out.
Nowadays, many snowflake-types or dbag managers will get offended if you don't reply within a short period of time. There are people in my group at work that are glued to their work email 24/7/365 since it's on their smartphones.
One thing I miss are the old-school forums. There was a greater sense of community. Less drivel. More though-out, lengthy discussions versus the non-sense on Twitter/Facebook/Reddit.
No matter how we feel about modern smartphones, we have to admit that they play a huge role in our lives today. Nevertheless, few people can live without this miracle of technology, unlike most of us who cannot imagine life without our favourite gadget. Remember the days when the first cell phones were on sale? They were large devices that were considered a miracle in technology. People were happy to be no longer tied to their landline phones. No one could talk freely anywhere all day long! But the capabilities of these phones were limited to regular calls and text messages. Now phones have a lot of necessary and unnecessary functions. I bought myself a great smartphone for https://degoogledirect.com, which concentrates only on the basic functions, without various tracking trackers.
No matter how we feel about modern smartphones, we have to admit that they play a huge role in our lives today. Nevertheless, few people can live without this miracle of technology, unlike most of us who cannot imagine life without our favourite gadget. Remember the days when the first cell phones were on sale? They were large devices that were considered a miracle in technology. People were happy to be no longer tied to their landline phones. No one could talk freely anywhere all day long! But the capabilities of these phones were limited to regular calls and text messages. Now phones have a lot of necessary and unnecessary functions. I bought myself a great smartphone for https://degoogledirect.com, which concentrates only on the basic functions, without various tracking trackers.
BULLSH!T! Especially this quote " No matter how we feel about modern smartphones, we have to admit that they play a huge role in our lives today."
I haven't had a cell phone in 20 years AND still manage a 50 million dollar a year company. They are/were a complete waste of time and money. In the twenty years I have been without a cellphone including company cell phones I/company have saved over 2 million dollars in cell phone charges! How do they play a huge role in our lives???? Only if you want them to. I can do everything from my desktop computer that a supposedly "smartphone" can do. If I need to make a call I pick up the landline phone and make a call. Too many people today think they are entitled to immediate information--instant gratification---BS!!! Yes there is probably less than .5% of the population that actually needs a cellphone. The rest are just social media slogs.
No matter how we feel about modern smartphones, we have to admit that they play a huge role in our lives today. Nevertheless, few people can live without this miracle of technology, unlike most of us who cannot imagine life without our favourite gadget. Remember the days when the first cell phones were on sale? They were large devices that were considered a miracle in technology. People were happy to be no longer tied to their landline phones. No one could talk freely anywhere all day long! But the capabilities of these phones were limited to regular calls and text messages. Now phones have a lot of necessary and unnecessary functions. I bought myself a great smartphone for https://degoogledirect.com, which concentrates only on the basic functions, without various tracking trackers.
BULLSH!T! Especially this quote " No matter how we feel about modern smartphones, we have to admit that they play a huge role in our lives today."
I haven't had a cell phone in 20 years AND still manage a 50 million dollar a year company. They are/were a complete waste of time and money. In the twenty years I have been without a cellphone including company cell phones I/company have saved over 2 million dollars in cell phone charges! How do they play a huge role in our lives???? Only if you want them to. I can do everything from my desktop computer that a supposedly "smartphone" can do. If I need to make a call I pick up the landline phone and make a call. Too many people today think they are entitled to immediate information--instant gratification---BS!!! Yes there is probably less than .5% of the population that actually needs a cellphone. The rest are just social media slogs.
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