271–280 of 495 posts
I didn't see it mentioned, so I'll add it for completeness. One of the differences between pre-smartphone and the post-smartphone world is the pervasive and unlimited availability of adult content. Pornography used to be really hard to get. Now it is unlimited and free. There are now more than 1 million content creators on OnlyFans. The democratization, if you want to call it that, of adult content to me seems to me…
I think there is definitely something I miss from the pre-smartphone era, and that is that the Internet was something akin to an appointment activity. You 'signed on' in the morning and maybe again after school or work. Logging into AIM was like broadcasting to your social circle that you were home and free to chat. You welcomed the instant messages, the interruptions, the socialization - because you knew you could s…
I didn't see it mentioned, so I'll add it for completeness. One of the differences between pre-smartphone and the post-smartphone world is the pervasive and unlimited availability of adult content. Pornography used to be really hard to get. Now it is unlimited and free. There are now more than 1 million content creators on OnlyFans. The democratization, if you want to call it that, of adult content to me seems to me…
I'd say pre-internet, not pre-smartphone. Wide availability of free porn has been there since the start of the internet. It precedes smartphones by more than a decade. Or so I've been told.
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And he doesn't even mention that you could just be outside, and be unreachable and not able to reach other people too. As a kid I used to play outside a lot, and my mother had no clue where I was, nor could she easily find out. I could be outside all day without her worrying that I'd be abducted or involved in an accident. Now that all has completely changed, and my mother has too. Some years ago when I walked into t…
I wanted to say this. I hate how small the world has become and how we're supposed to be "reachable" all the time. Some of my friends will freak out if I don't text back in as little as 5 minutes. A particular needy friend once tried to get me to "promise" that I would always return her texts within 10 minutes. I said "hard no" explaining that it meant that it meant that I could never watch a movie uninterrupted, rea…
I now have my phone on do not disturb 24/7. I will choose when I participate in messaging. I also disable iMessage on my Mac. If someone comes up to me and talks to me, I may not even respond immediately.
I took this to extremes and a couple of weekends back I actually went for a day long solo hike with zero technology with me at all past a torch, map, compass and alcohol stove. I didn't even have any way of telling the time with me. It was invigorating with the obligation to communicate and steal my attention removed. What was most surprising was the removal of a camera and watch. Rather than being focused on recording my journey and keeping to a schedule I was focused on enjoying it. This has led to considerably more vivid memories and a much higher level of satisfaction. A trip I will always remember.
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> But smartphones are delivering no benefit to mankind. At all. You know better than that. You don't have to lie to try and make a point.
> But smartphones are delivering no benefit to mankind. At all. This statement may be hyperbolic, but at its core is not wrong. Smartphones are very easily a net negative in terms of cost/benefit to society. They're ubiquitous because they're addictive, not because they're so wonderful. Everyone used to smoke too, then we came to see the massive damage cigarettes were doing. Smartphones are just cigarettes for the br…
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I'd argue that I've been watching this play out in real time among other... parents. It is actually sad when you go outside and start noticing that people are glued to their phone screens, including parents who would rather look at their smartphones rather than their kids. I can tell you that little kids notice that they lost the attention war to their parents' smartphones.
I've made this argument before, but in relation to dating. You'll never be more interesting than a smartphone. It's virtually impossible. You're a single human, and that device contains the entire world. If you meet a woman, she has her friends on there. She has her instagram account. Snapchat, TikTok, whatever. You are instantly contrasted against the entire world (against only the highlight reel) and you don't matc…
Honestly I think if you are feeling this way then you might want to traverse deeper into your relationships, if someone is looking for an entirely shallow relationship than this could certainly apply.
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I wanted to say this. I hate how small the world has become and how we're supposed to be "reachable" all the time. Some of my friends will freak out if I don't text back in as little as 5 minutes. A particular needy friend once tried to get me to "promise" that I would always return her texts within 10 minutes. I said "hard no" explaining that it meant that it meant that I could never watch a movie uninterrupted, rea…
I am optimistic that I can use the upcoming Focus mode in iOS 15 to start broadcasting my unavailability to my contacts
I also wish there were a way for me to send a low-priority message to my wife so that it didn't notify her regardless of her notification settings. We send each other news articles throughout the day but don't really want to interrupt each other. It would be great if there were a sender-side option that could enable this.
I've thought about using a shared document in the Notes app, or just use a different messaging app for low-priority stuff, but it seems like too much overhead. Does anyone else have a way of handling this?
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> These days, (nearly) everyone carries a camera around all the time, and one that is quite probably much better than the one I had in 1992. They can take dozens, even hundreds of pictures without breaking a sweat, and it does not cost anything. ...and despite that, pictures of UFOs are as awful as ever. ;)
I tried taking a photo of the moon a while ago on my phone, and I couldn't really get it to look decent. I don't know if most smartphone users even know how to adjust the exposure setting even if any of that helped. And if they saw something as interesting as a UFO, I don't think they would figure it out on the spot either. I'm not sure if automatic settings would cut it on a fancier phone.
Today if you hovered a UFO over any city over 1000 people you will get endless footage of the event.
I’m waiting for said event.
What I miss more than anything else is having an attention span. Years of abusing social media has left my brain pinballing all over the place. I am a collection of unfinished thoughts. Even as I write this, I can feel my mind needing to latch onto something new.
I also heavily limited the types of things Facebook will send push notifications for. It used to be that if I got a notification, it was because one of my friends actually interacted with me in some way. Now I get a bunch of junk notifications that I feel are designed to pull me into the app and not really inform me of anything, to get me back to scrolling a feed. Like I’ll get a notification that someone I don’t know made a post in a group I’ve been in for years without ever getting a similar notification in the previous years. So I basically turned off everything that doesn't involve my actual friends doing something relevant to me.
What I miss more than anything else is having an attention span. Years of abusing social media has left my brain pinballing all over the place. I am a collection of unfinished thoughts. Even as I write this, I can feel my mind needing to latch onto something new.
What to do to fix this?
Behaviour-wise, following the prompt, I've replaced checking Reddit with checking Hacker News (similar enough to work, without getting too engaged with the content). I've also replaced Twitter with curated Tweetdeck streams, and Facebook for the news feed with newspaper apps (a free one like AP could work, though I pay for newspaper subscriptions).
Cognitive-wise, in terms of thoughts, I also recognize that social media is designed to hijack your attention and maximize engagement, so I've chosen to frame it as a negative (versus a neutral) habit for my own personal goals.
In short, replacing the habits with similar ones with better consequences, and understanding why I'm doing this has helped.