The NoPhone • Hacker News Board

Re: The NoPhone

#81

Post by donw » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 1:48 AM UTC

themacguffinman wrote: post #73

jjulius wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>... but for people for whom light entertainment is their medicine... would you rather they be drinking? While I don't find anything wrong with light entertainment being one's medicine, why make the assumption that drinking is the next viable 'medicine' in line? Are there not countless alternatives to drinking to remedy "boredom, stress, loneliness, etc."? Picking up hobbies? Sports? Anything else? Edit: I want to cl…

Isn't a similarly low-effort activity like drinking the more likely alternative for the kind of person who relies heavily on social media to fill their lives? Higher effort activities like hobbies and sports and such are obviously healthier alternatives, but anyone can already do them and they probably would if they had any inclination to do them in the first place.

That's an unwarranted assumption.

Phones, games, apps, and social media are, quite literally, engineered to be addictive.

Addiction is powerful. There are plenty of cases of star athletes ending up as homeless junkies, and this isn't because they lacked the ability to engage in higher-effort, healthy hobbies.

Especially for the generation of kids raised on (and often by) smartphones and tablets. Breaking those addictions can open up a universe of new possibilities, and provide much more positive outlets for all of the energy previously invested in games or social media.

Re: The NoPhone

#82

Post by Brajeshwar » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:00 AM UTC

I've to admit that I could not figure out that this is or not an April fool Joke.

I'm a phone minimalist/essentialist. I did started early with "smart" phones and was on the forefront of most new phones, including being one of the early iPhone users. However, I did realize that this was not good for the lifestyle I want to live. So, I've been leading a No-Phone-ish Life[1] by early 2011.

The screen greyscale thing do not work with me. The one key app that I need color is Maps (Google/Apple).

Someone in the comments mentioned pairing your phone with a Watch. Yes, this works. I have practically stopped using the phone in and around the house or even while walking/running down in the community spaces where I live.

1. https://no.phone.wtf

Re: The NoPhone

#83

Post by themacguffinman » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:15 AM UTC

donw wrote: post #81

themacguffinman wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't a similarly low-effort activity like drinking the more likely alternative for the kind of person who relies heavily on social media to fill their lives? Higher effort activities like hobbies and sports and such are obviously healthier alternatives, but anyone can already do them and they probably would if they had any inclination to do them in the first place.

That's an unwarranted assumption. Phones, games, apps, and social media are, quite literally, engineered to be addictive. Addiction is powerful . There are plenty of cases of star athletes ending up as homeless junkies, and this isn't because they lacked the ability to engage in higher-effort, healthy hobbies. Especially for the generation of kids raised on (and often by) smartphones and tablets. Breaking those addic…

> Addiction is powerful. There are plenty of cases of star athletes ending up as homeless junkies, and this isn't because they lacked the ability to engage in higher-effort, healthy hobbies.

Yes, I'd argue that it literally is because they lacked the ability to engage in higher-effort, healthy hobbies. Ask any star athlete junkie what he thinks is more healthy and more fulfilling: hobbies & sports, or whatever drug they ended up addicted to? They know what's better for them. For one reason or other, they don't do it. If the reason is addiction, that literally implies that they can't do it and addiction overpowers their ability to engage in higher-effort, healthy hobbies as a replacement.

> Breaking those addictions can open up a universe of new possibilities

Except you're not breaking these addictions, you're just sequestering or discouraging one particular abuse. Sometimes that helps. After all, teenage abstinence isn't zero percent effective. After all, cold turkey isn't zero percent effective. Though, the universe of possibilities they open tend to be relatively unreliable compared to teenagers having sex anyway & junkies returning to drugs, or safe sex & methadone.

> Phones, games, apps, and social media are, quite literally, engineered to be addictive.

No they're not, they're engineered to be engaging. There's no evidence I know of that phones, apps, etc consistently induce anything close to the addictive response in humans as the addictive substances we know of. Frankly, claiming that these things are "engineered to be addictive" is flat out misleading and conflates the extremely consistent & brutal consequences of addiction as science understands it with the much less understood area of social media.

Re: The NoPhone

#84

Post by Jonovono » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:17 AM UTC

spicybright wrote: post #72

1. Buy a joke, laugh 2. Put it in a drawer for 10 years 3. Throw it away, eventually into the ocean to add more microplastics as it breaks down. Maybe just laugh of the idea but don't actually buy it.

Meh, more plastic in the ocean is fine ;p Source: Seaspiracy

Re: The NoPhone

#85

Post by nine_k » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:22 AM UTC

IndySun wrote: post #34

nine_k wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boredom, as they say, makes you creative. So you can of course use your phone to cope with boredom — install a couple of good drawing / painting apps, music creation apps, study-something apps. Use them when bored. Just stay away from the endorphin-pedal games which teach you nothing and are not a work of art to be experienced. With that, a conscious act of putting down your phone and looking around is important. You…

>Boredom, as they say, makes you creative. I have never heard this maxim. Is it well known? The Pet Shop Boys sang, I would never find myself feeling bored 'cause we were never being boring.

(1) https://www.google.com/search?q=boredom%20required%20for%20c...

(2) Ask any animal trainer, like a dog trainer.

Re: The NoPhone

#86

Post by sudhirkhanger » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:31 AM UTC

dan-robertson wrote: post #27

surfsvammel wrote: post #7

This is fun and all, but also incredibly sad. My fiancée previously complained that I was staring at my phone too much (and she was absolutely right). So, I decided to minimise it. Remove all apps and notifications, and kept it in a corner of the kitchen instead of in my pocket. Even though she has not increased her screen time, it is now obvious to me that SHE is staring to much into that screen. We are all phone ju…

One silly trick: put your phone into greyscale mode. Without the colours, a lot of the addictive time sinks are just less exciting.

The problem I face is that I am quick to turn off the greyscale or any other measure I would have taken.

I do read a lot on mobile so it is a productive entertainment for me but the problem is that constant exposure is not a good thing especially if the time it occupies is your family time.

Re: The NoPhone

#87

Post by pfundstein » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:37 AM UTC

earthboundkid wrote: post #75

s1mon wrote: post #47

For $7.50 you can get a dummy phone which looks a lot more realistic. A quick search on Aliexpress shows this for the iPhone X, and there are plenty of other options. (I had a bunch of the iPhone 8 models for a work project. The only downside is the glass is most definitely NOT Gorilla Glass). https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001708486523.html

Back when I lived in Japan, stores had plastic dummy phones to show you what they looked like and let you pick them up. I guess that went away when the “Galapagos style” phones died off.

They still do that in restaurants with displays of incredibly realistic fake food called sampuru, there's a huge industry around it.

Re: The NoPhone

#88

Post by Syonyk » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:40 AM UTC

OJFord wrote: post #57

Syonyk wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've gotten in the habit of turning mine off regularly. I'll just turn it off in the evening and turn it on in the morning if I don't need an alarm (which... I have an alarm clock, I just tend to not use it). I use it mostly for person to person communication and kid photos (the only things on my home screen are Messages, Signal, Hangouts, Element, the actual phone app, and the camera - everything else is buried over…

> Get one of those "You only pay if you use it" plans, though I expect the spammers and scammers would cost me a lot of money that way. I don't know what country you're in, (here in the UK I'd expect anyone would call that 'Pay As You Go (PAYG)') but could spammers and scammers really cost you anything? By calling/texting you? Even for pan-European stuff only the initiator pays these days.

I'm in the US.

There are three types of plans here.

* Standard postpaid contract. The flagship plans, lots of perks that may or may not be useful, used to have cell phones every 2 years.

* Prepaid plans, or "poor person plans." They're cheaper, usually lower priority on the network in the event of congestion, and work just fine as far as I'm concerned (I'm on one, US$30/mo for unlimited call/text and a whopping 2GB of data, of which I rarely use more than about 500MB, and half of that is system services).

* "Pay per day used" plans. These are something along the lines of a flat $2 for every day the phone is used to receive or send a call or text. They'd be perfect for an infrequently used cell-phone-as-house-phone that never left the property, but the scammers and spammers would make every day a "used" day, it seems.

Re: The NoPhone

#89

Post by incompatible » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:41 AM UTC

earthboundkid wrote: post #74

offtop5 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading a fantastic book called Digital Minimalism on this very subject. Back when I used social media I noticed I'd be very angry arguing with people I didn't even know. Never meet anyone with a job. Deleted all that crap, moved , and had an amazing partner( she had a JOB) within a month. Life is right here, if your at a coffee shop and you notice someone reading a book that seems interesting ask about it. Works out…

HN is social media.

I don't think it would qualify, since there's no connection between users' profiles. You can't set up a "friends" list, or any other kind of group.

Re: The NoPhone

#90

Post by swiley » Thu, Apr 08, 2021, 2:50 AM UTC

spicybright wrote: post #72

1. Buy a joke, laugh 2. Put it in a drawer for 10 years 3. Throw it away, eventually into the ocean to add more microplastics as it breaks down. Maybe just laugh of the idea but don't actually buy it.

I thought most of the ocean "plastic" was really paint.