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Battery icons shape perceptions of time and space

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Re: Battery icons shape perceptions of time and space

#41

Post by zamfi »

erichurkman wrote: post #32
colechristensen wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Growing up in Iowa (wide spaces, no traffic) my primary unit of distance was and still is living far away from home, time. Everywhere I would want to go would be 5,15,30,45,60 and further increments of 30 minutes after that.

Same for me growing up. The weird thing has been my time in NYC with mass transit. In my earlier days, driving 30 minutes to go to a specific restaurant in another town felt like such a lift. Now? 30 minutes on the Subway, even standing room only seems normal, even though I've only gone a handful of miles, not 30 miles.

I wonder if someone has done a study about the differences between mental state or health when you're driving 30 min vs. on the subway for 30 min. In my experience, it's a different kind of interruption somehow. I wouldn't avoid the 30 minutes on the train as much as the 30 min driving, but I'm not sure why.

(In steady state, of course, I expect someone's first 30 minutes on the NYC subway to be a shock if they haven't experienced it already.)

Re: Battery icons shape perceptions of time and space

#42

Post by tempestn »

chmod775 wrote: post #38

And then there's people like me not noticing their phone ran out of charge yesterday...

> "We found that people who let their phones batteries run out are viewed by others as out of touch with the social norm of being connected and therefore unable to be competent members of society," Dr. Robinson said.

Re: Battery icons shape perceptions of time and space

#43

Post by crazygringo »

First, the headline feels almost-misleading -- it's not about battery "icon shapes" as the graphic also seems to imply, just about battery levels affecting your activities and anxiety.

But second, the best trick is just to turn your phone to airplane mode whenever you're on transportation. My iPhone goes from 100% to about 80% if I spend the whole day at home. It goes from 100% to 20% by mid-afternoon if I take a few subway rides. Your phone constantly searching for a new signal drains the battery more than anything.

It makes me wish there were a setting to reduce the aggressiveness of connectivity -- if the accelerometer has figured out I'm in motion, and I'm not using my phone at the moment, then only bother searching for a signal only once every, say, 5 minutes. I don't care about getting calls immediately when on the move, but still want text messages to come through every so often. (Obviously not true for everyone, so doesn't need to be a default -- just a setting.)

Re: Battery icons shape perceptions of time and space

#44

Post by colechristensen »

zamfi wrote: post #41
erichurkman wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same for me growing up. The weird thing has been my time in NYC with mass transit. In my earlier days, driving 30 minutes to go to a specific restaurant in another town felt like such a lift. Now? 30 minutes on the Subway, even standing room only seems normal, even though I've only gone a handful of miles, not 30 miles.

I wonder if someone has done a study about the differences between mental state or health when you're driving 30 min vs. on the subway for 30 min. In my experience, it's a different kind of interruption somehow. I wouldn't avoid the 30 minutes on the train as much as the 30 min driving, but I'm not sure why. (In steady state, of course, I expect someone's first 30 minutes on the NYC subway to be a shock if they haven…

Driving 30 minutes on 101 in the bay area at 5pm is much different than driving 30 minutes on a random journey in rural Iowa. You could easily encounter not a single other car on the latter trip which is a far different experience.

I find driving to be a relaxing almost meditative experience while not in traffic. My parents are just short of terrified of driving in normal-for-cities traffic.

Standing room only public transit is still like my own personal hell. Standing in a box that jerks me one way or another jammed between people going to a place where there will be no space which is "mine" and no escape nor self determination besides through a repeat reverse journey many hours later. Honestly I think I would prefer being locked in prison 14 hours a day than have to go back to commuting by public transit to a city center.

Re: Battery icons shape perceptions of time and space

#46

Post by maxerickson »

inetknght wrote: post #27
maxerickson wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the book analogy says anything interesting, it's a different sort of thing. Maybe we just need some combination of bigger batteries, more efficient devices and easier charging. Like, what does it say about me that I bought a car charger for my phone before a recent long drive? Am I hopelessly addicted to my battery meter or am I just vaguely prudent?

> Like, what does it say about me that I bought a car charger for my phone before a recent long drive? Am I hopelessly addicted to my battery meter or am I just vaguely prudent? I would argue: unless you have a paper map and know how to use it, buying a car charger for your phone would be a symptom of you not knowing how to get there and/or expecting to call to ask for directions.

I mean, I didn't exactly know how to get there but the main thing was for a crowd sourced street level imagery app.

Re: Battery icons shape perceptions of time and space

#47

Post by taneq »

cududa wrote: post #21
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #3

The actual article http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/id/eprint/22401/3/Main%20Docume... seems to be an example of using jargon to obfuscate > We show that energy gauges on portable technology (e.g. battery icons in phones) are a key to energy hysteresis. Through “hermeneutic reflection” on the battery charge in portable technology and information about accessibility of infrastructure outlets in the city, consumers adapt p…

Just because you don’t understand a specific scientific term doesn’t make it “jargon”. Plenty of perfectly valid technical docs would be considered invalid jargon if you held them to the same standard.

Just because you understand a specific scientific term doesn't make it cromulent. Plenty of pop-sci articles are perfectly approachable and eschew gratuitous jargon.

Re: Battery icons shape perceptions of time and space

#49

Post by waste_monk »

crooked-v wrote: post #15
aeternum wrote: post #2

>Anything less than half full, however, induced feelings of profound anxiety and discomfort," he said. I wonder how much priming they had to do to get that response. Sounds like we can cure the world's anxiety with a $20 battery backup.

Seeing my phone battery below 50% makes me faintly anxious because it seems like it always discharges faster from 30% to 0% than from 100% to 70%. It's the unpredictability of discharge rate rather than merely having a low battery.

That is what's happening - I'm not an electronics person but my vague understanding is modern li-ion batteries output e.g. 3.5v but actually hold between 2.x and 4.x volts, and regulate power up or down. When it's full it's easier to push current through, when it's nearly empty it has to work a lot harder to supply power and consequently drains faster.

Re: Battery icons shape perceptions of time and space

#50

Post by PhasmaFelis »

androidAgain wrote: post #37
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you liking it? I wanna get a new phone soon, and I'm torn between a Pixel 3a and one of the Cat phones.

They're just your typical Android phones. Nothing special. medium resolution touch screen, a little bit of extra heavy plastic on the case. The usual OEM crapware is permanently installed on the device, and sending analytics back to the mothership.

I know the hardware specs are nothing special. I don't need them to be. I'm asking about the Cat-specific features. Ruggedness, waterproofing, extra-long battery life, IR camera--do they work as advertised? Does the extra bulk affect usability?

The OEM crapware is an issue, but from a quick google it seems like Cat phones are rootable, yes? So it should be possible to fix that manually.

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