Life before smartphones (2020) • Hacker News Board

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#491

Post by GuB-42 » Wed, Aug 04, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

> Scientists were trusted and conspiracy theories were for tinfoil kooks.

I was exposed to more conspiracy theories in my youth (80s-90s) than today, and like today, scientists were trusted as long as they didn't put your preconceived ideas into question.

The difference is that conspiracy theories used to spread undercover. So you may not know about them all, but when they reach you, they are more convincing, as if you were given access to secret knowledge, and also, debunking was more difficult. Now they are for everyone to see, but it doesn't mean people believe them, especially considering that the debunking is just as assessible.

I think it is what I would call the "people are idiots" fallacy. You always assume you are smarter than "people". Because you are smart, you don't believe in whatever bullshit there is on the internet, but "people" are dumb, so they must believe it the second they get exposed to it, and in some cases, they do, but there is often more than stupidity. But I think that generally, people are smart, and except for a minority, if you can tell obvious bullshit, so can them. As for non-obvious bullshit, it is true people sometimes fall for it but so do you and me, but I don't think that's what the author means by "tinfoil theories".

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#492

Post by bspammer » Thu, Aug 05, 2021, 6:18 AM UTC

nanidin wrote: post #279

pugets wrote: post #142

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’ve been suffering the same thing over the last few months. A helpful technique for me has been to swap out my smart watch for a dumb watch, and to put my phone in a drawer unless I intend to use it. 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 bun…

It’s funny because for me a smart watch is the perfect compromise - you still get a bunch of the useful features of a smartphone like navigation, timers, a calculator, music, Apple Pay, etc but with none of the really damaging web-based attention black holes.

I often go out with only my watch, and it feels so freeing to have only the good side of technology accessible.

I am very strict with the notification settings, otherwise the constant buzzing on the wrist would be worse than a phone.

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#493

Post by oceanghost » Wed, Aug 11, 2021, 4:18 AM UTC

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #475

oceanghost wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I know its been a week-- had some life happen. My e-mail address is in my profile.

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#494

Post by euroderf » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 1:18 PM UTC

xtracto wrote: post #235

krylon wrote: 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…

Back in 1992 when I was 10 years old we went to Disney World with my family (as a middle class Mexican family, that was one of 2 out of the country trips in our childhood). My brother (2 years older) and I had a mechanical camera with rolls of I think 12 or 20 photos (with this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/110_film ) . We've got at most 30 pictures of that trip in our family albums. I wish we had taken more pictures…

I had a Polaroid Swinger. Few of its pictures survive to this day. "It's more than a camera... it's almost alive! It's only nineteen dollars... and ninety-five!" In those days this was not cheap. And... after _every_ picture you had to carefully take the photo by the edges, then open the film canister of the special Polaroid photo preservative and take out the foam sponge and carefully wipe it across the photo a couple of times for complete coverage and then wait half a minute for it to dry before doing anything with it. Sorta lessened the spontaneity of owning a Polaroid.

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#495

Post by euroderf » Mon, Aug 16, 2021, 1:22 PM UTC

When you were going to meet someone, you spoke on the landline and it was something like, "meet you at the mall in front of Sears at 630 or quarter to 7". And you had to STICK TO IT. All excuses were lame.