Related: The Fine Art of Bullshit, Killed By Google:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8902728
Hacker News discussion:
Life before smartphones (2020)
331–340 of 495 posts
Re: Life before smartphones (2020)
#332Earlier quoted context omitted.
My ex wife was like that. One reason she's an ex wife. I lost a job due to her once because she phoned the office after I didn't respond to an SMS while I was in a very tough meeting with a client. 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 ex…
So I left one story out of my little rant-- which was my ex-wife would do exactly what you described. She would text and then if I hadn't responded in a few minutes she'd call the receptionist and/or my desk phone. It was infuriating because she rarely answered a text in less than a few hours. She said that it upset her when she couldn't reach me--and that's one of the reasons she's an ex-wife. Her go to manipulation…
Same experience with my current wife. Has yours remarried?
Re: Life before smartphones (2020)
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
When we're on our computers, email notifications come up unless we're in DND (and even then, they show up whenever your email client is visible regardless).
For me, I have to open my email browser window to see new emails. No notifications. (And no client which I would set to 100% DND if I had one.)
Fair enough! I don't think email threads are best for daily spousal communication, but perhaps for some people this could work. It sure would be easier to search than Apple Messages!
Re: Life before smartphones (2020)
#334Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regarding photos: People our age only have a few childhood pictures, and they are warped by time on analog media. Those pictures of us as a kid look really old because they are naturally filtered. Soon people will wonder WTF old-pic filters are for, and some historian will have to explain why it's blurred and the colors are faded. Also why did people have clothes for each decade? Our kids, by contrast, have had pictu…
> "Our kids, by contrast, have had pictures taken of them every week at least. With metadata so you know where you were. And they're digital images that won't fade" They might still wonder "Why only 8K resolution?! Why aren't they in 3D and interactive?!"
I think years from now people looking at old photos will marvel at the high resolution for such old pictures. Starting around 1999 they'll see fuzzy 1.2 MP digital pictures, but then over the next ten years picture quality improves and teh amount of pictures increases. So from 1999 to about 2009 will be the "fuzzy ages".
Re: Life before smartphones (2020)
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel like the optimal living-documenting ratio was right before the advent of digital cameras: photography was accessible enough, but there was enough disconnect between the event and the record to be present. Now it's much easier to live through the phone's what-you-see-is-what-you-get viewfinder [1]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27697921
Related to this: it worries me that on vacation it seems my relationship with sight seeing is mainly through the phone's camera. I'm constantly seeing opportunities to take pretty snapshots, I worry that people "get in the way", I wonder about the sun messing with my photo... ...and in the end I forget to enjoy the view. Before digital cameras and mobile phones, I would just marvel at the view and enjoy it. Now I onl…
There were people like this before digital cameras. My father was one of them with his Canon A-1 SLR.
Re: Life before smartphones (2020)
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
So I left one story out of my little rant-- which was my ex-wife would do exactly what you described. She would text and then if I hadn't responded in a few minutes she'd call the receptionist and/or my desk phone. It was infuriating because she rarely answered a text in less than a few hours. She said that it upset her when she couldn't reach me--and that's one of the reasons she's an ex-wife. Her go to manipulation…
Same experience with my current wife. Has yours remarried?
She has not, but she's living with someone. I have not met him, but I can tell he's falling for the manipulation because I'm picking up my daughter from HIM most days instead of her (meaning, he's doing her dirtywork like driving our daughter places).
She was the kind of person, if you weren't doing exactly what she wanted you to, you were a piece of shit. Once I realized what was going on (our early relationship was much, much different, I would have never married someone like this) I stopped paying this game and it infuriated her to not have power over me.
Could I throw something at you-- I am sorry to be rude-- could it be your wife thinks you are cheating or is cheating herself? This was what I think was driving my ex-wife's behavior. One, to verify that I was at work and not cheating, and to make sure I was at work so she could cheat herself.
Re: Life before smartphones (2020)
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 don't answer texts while I'm driving because I literally got in an accident texting (it was a freak circumstance, but these things do happen) I'd like to address this in a non-judgemental way: not answering texts while driving should be the norm. It's not possible to operate a vehicle in motion and text simultaneously in a safe manner.
I agree completely and this was a looonngggg time ago (2009?).
Re: Life before smartphones (2020)
#338Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Unknowingly, I've trained my friends and family to assume they aren't going to get an answer immediately. They now text to call when I have time. Or they immediately get to the point: "wanna go riding tomorrow" instead of "hey whats up". Some people are put off by this and others find it endearing, I couldn't care less what they think. My time is my time and I do with it what I please. That means being there for others when they need it, which means being the hell off my phone when I am there.
Re: Life before smartphones (2020)
#339A couple of stand-out memories from the olden days (and I don't consider myself particularly old): Getting a call in a restaurant. Only happened to me once but I certainly felt like a VIP. Carrying a tiny map book of London around with me while cycling around. Missing turn after turn until finding there was a canal which basically took me from the center to my uncle's house. Arranging to meet a friend and then being…
I (legally) smoked on a plane!
Some time in the 90s I caught what I was told was Alitalia's last smoking flight from Australia to Italy before it was phased out. Christ, it was horrendous. There was a smoking section up the back of the plane, but try telling that to the smoke. It was like being fumigated for 24 hours. Hard to believe that was real now!
Re: Life before smartphones (2020)
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I really don't know about that. I struggle to find something interesting online most of the time and when I'm actively hanging out with friend I only use my phone to communicate or check on things occasionally. I'm not gonna sit around and just browser social media while hanging out. Now if there's dead time and nothings going on we may all be looking at our phones for a bit. But even then I'm increasingly less and less enticed by social media where as years ago this was much less true.