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Life before smartphones (2020)

mattruby.substack.com

471–480 of 495 posts

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been to a college campus in the last two or three years? There is a serious smartphone addiction problem. It is seriously worrying to see so many of my peers craning their necks, starting at their phone for hours on end. On the bus, in class, while hanging out, it is an observable fact that everyone is almost always on their phone. I personally believe we are in a watershed moment for human civilization. The…

When I was an 9 year old kid (~ 1991) my dad bought a book ( https://www.amazon.com/Video-Kids-Making-Sense-Nintendo/dp/0... ) to understand our "addiction" to Videogames... My dad seriously thought that it was going to doom our generation. Fast forward 30 years, and we are doing OK. Things are different, but OK for us. "Videogames" have been replaced by "games" and we take them for granted and don't pay that much at…

Only 44 percent of millennials between the ages of 23-38 were married in 2019.

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#472
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I remember waiting for people - I got a smartphone at 16, in 2004, something like that, so it's hard to really imagine how it was for adults... My parents told me they spend evenings at the phone booth talking to each other - but even that is ultra convenient compared to my grandparents sending letters :D But I think it's better anyway - we sample mating candidates more, we cycle through faster, we can stop and…

> But I think it's better anyway - we sample mating candidates more, we cycle through faster, we can stop and try anew nearly any time until 50, and with some difficulty above. On the other side, we self report more isolated, depressed, friendless and dissatisfied than ever in the past decades, have record levels of depression prescriptions and opioids, and people get discovered dead after a month or so when somebody…

Is it worse or are we just getting better data on it? It seems just as likely that these states simply went unreported due to having nobody who was interested in listening. Might be that the quiet desperation has always been there, but now it gets voiced to a receptive audience.

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, so many similarities with my life. This were only clear once I was out of her sphere of influence and only then I was able to see the manipulation and gas-lighting. Now she tries to use our child as a manipulation tool, as that is the only aspect of my life that she has any input to.

Christ. Same here. The ex moved 45 mins away and insisted I pick up and drop off the child. When I started refusing, she just abandoned the kid at her mothers house, betting correctly that I would comply (which i had to). We had a legal agreement at my ex's insistence that we wouldn't disparage each-other. Now and then I hear from my daughter how I'm a "bad daddy"-- I have never said a single bad thing about my ex to…

We might have been married to the same person... The lying is the kicker.

We had an agreement that the kid will go a certain school, after I bough her half of the house, someone changed their mind. I complied and moved to be in the zone of the new school, then someone changed their mind again. But the 2nd time it is go as court/lawyers sided with me.

I never discuss her with the kid, but I get same tidbits from him as you from your daughter. Children know a good parent, so just do your best. They will love you regardless of what they hear.

The latest thing was her not wanting to handover his medication on handover.

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#474
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and did you drop your compass under the seat? You can get battery powered compasses that you stick on your dash. :) My car's review mirror has a compass in it and I use it for navigation quite often. Places I had to drive to before GPS are places I have a better understanding of how to get to. I have a friend who refuses to use GPS and his knowledge of the city is far far ahead of mine. Of course I am lucky to live…

Is it not "rear view" mirror, not "review" mirror? Or is that some regional term?

Wikipedia says.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear-view_mirror

Also google corrects car review mirror to rear view. :)

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow , so many similarities. I don’t know about the cheating angle. It is possible she is but in wouldn’t know when she’s have the time for it.

I am sorry to hear that. If I can be a resource for you at all let me know. It might be better for you to learn from my mistakes than yours.

how do i reach you?

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Christ. Same here. The ex moved 45 mins away and insisted I pick up and drop off the child. When I started refusing, she just abandoned the kid at her mothers house, betting correctly that I would comply (which i had to). We had a legal agreement at my ex's insistence that we wouldn't disparage each-other. Now and then I hear from my daughter how I'm a "bad daddy"-- I have never said a single bad thing about my ex to…

We might have been married to the same person... The lying is the kicker. We had an agreement that the kid will go a certain school, after I bough her half of the house, someone changed their mind. I complied and moved to be in the zone of the new school, then someone changed their mind again. But the 2nd time it is go as court/lawyers sided with me. I never discuss her with the kid, but I get same tidbits from him a…

how can we contact each other?

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#477
post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So? Why should "my son hasn't answered his phone" escalate to an armed response?

I didn't see anything about guns drawn or anything like that. Presumably if they were police in the US, however, I assume they were "armed." That said, I frankly expect this would not be the reaction in most places. That would probably be more along the lines of "If you still haven't heard from him in 48 hours give us a call back." It seems weird that police would come to break down a house's interior door when there…

He said they were going to break down the door. Police in the US will never do that without guns drawn. Maybe he was confused about the exact circumstances though.

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#478
post #57

Now I feel old. I remember vividly running around with my first camera, looking for objects worthy of being photographed. The film cost money, so did developing it into pictures. I really had to weigh the pros and cons of taking a particular picture. And in a class of ~25 kids, I was one of three who owned a camera. Not that it was such a luxury item, but most people weren't into that. These days, (nearly) everyone c…

[deleted]

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#479
post #171

The second paragraph is funny to me: > I memorized phone numbers, jotted things down in notebooks, had conversations with taxi drivers, talked to random people at bars, wrote checks, went to the bank, and daydreamed. I did all of these (except the phone number one) in the last week. More than technological advancements or anything else, all of this nostalgia is really just about getting old. "The human civilization p…

Have you been to a college campus in the last two or three years? There is a serious smartphone addiction problem. It is seriously worrying to see so many of my peers craning their necks, starting at their phone for hours on end. On the bus, in class, while hanging out, it is an observable fact that everyone is almost always on their phone. I personally believe we are in a watershed moment for human civilization. The…

If this is true, the watershed moment was actually the introduction of the television. Multiple generations have grown up glued to it and influenced by it. Before that it was radio. But each time a new technology vies for our attention, it does it differently, and a new successor comes up that changes things yet again. It is most likely that we cannot predict what the future holds from all these changes as each time it has a slightly different form and effects.

I predict the next one is a contact lens with a ticker-tape of entertaining information, and machine-learning driven "ad placements" which are phrases/sentence structure designed to call one's mind to a product's slogan without directly printing it.

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#480
post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was an 9 year old kid (~ 1991) my dad bought a book ( https://www.amazon.com/Video-Kids-Making-Sense-Nintendo/dp/0... ) to understand our "addiction" to Videogames... My dad seriously thought that it was going to doom our generation. Fast forward 30 years, and we are doing OK. Things are different, but OK for us. "Videogames" have been replaced by "games" and we take them for granted and don't pay that much at…

Only 44 percent of millennials between the ages of 23-38 were married in 2019.

No correlation.
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