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Feeling uncomfortable when leaving phone at home shouldn't be normal

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Re: Feeling uncomfortable when leaving phone at home shouldn't be normal

#341

Post by denkmoon »

leros wrote: post #320

I went to a week long workshop on a farm. Part of the workshop was a ban on all electronics. Initially it was really uncomfortable not having my phone but after 3 days I got used to it. It was incredible. I started doing things like waking up and drinking a coffee while just looking at the scenery. I actually did nothing and got calm peace. At the end of the end of the week, I found almost nothing important in the hu…

Maybe try just having notifications for things that _are_ important? If you've got "hundreds" of missed notifications after a week, you're clearly not vetting those notifications at the source.

Or better yet, just disable notifications.

Our phones are a great tool, and we don't have to be a slave to them, nor do we have to get rid of them entirely to free ourselves from being slaves to them.

Re: Feeling uncomfortable when leaving phone at home shouldn't be normal

#342

Post by jhanschoo »

I feel uncomfortable when I leave home without my wallet or (in longer trips) messenger bag. These are powerful essentials that help me neutralize dangers that happen outdoors that I don't expect. I don't see why a smartphone is any different.

Re: Feeling uncomfortable when leaving phone at home shouldn't be normal

#343

Post by jhanschoo »

nelsonenzo wrote: post #323
sysadm1n wrote: post #11

Well not that I live in a bad neighborhood or anything like that, but you really don't know what could happen at any given moment, and need to phone emergency services. This is not paranoia (well maybe it is), but paranoia doesn't work retroactively, you have to be proactively paranoid. If you're concerned about privacy buy one of those cheap Nokia dumbphones that old people use. Keep your smartphone at home, and swa…

Well, not to be contraversial, but you could also try living life without a 'threat model' assessment to live by. That sounds very close to living in fear, and that sounds miserable.

This "threat model" assessment doesn't come into play if your habit is to have it with you at all times. It's like how you have your wallet with you so you don't fear not being able to afford a trip home; you only really start having to assess these threats when you don't have your phone/wallet with you. The phone and wallet is thusly liberating you from such fear.

Re: Feeling uncomfortable when leaving phone at home shouldn't be normal

#344

Post by pgcj_poster »

ericlewis wrote: post #144

I’ll read the article but I’ll admit that my first reaction to this was… do they know how folks use their phone? My phone is my entire wallet now, in every way. Wether flying the country (boarding passes, I have clear), or purchasing something (I nearly exclusively use Apple Pay) I’ve long left behind needing to carry a proper wallet. I do make sure to carry a couple of $20s just in case there is some oddball reason…

While you won't be flying anywhere, I think in for some purposes you should be able to feel comfortable leaving home even without money or an ID. I think it's sad that our world is so entirely consumed by bureaucracy and capital that we feel uncomfortable existing, for even a brief period, just as ourselves, rather than numbers in a bank account or a government database.

Re: Feeling uncomfortable when leaving phone at home shouldn't be normal

#345

Post by TheCoelacanth »

JohnWhigham wrote: post #149
sysadm1n wrote: post #11

Well not that I live in a bad neighborhood or anything like that, but you really don't know what could happen at any given moment, and need to phone emergency services. This is not paranoia (well maybe it is), but paranoia doesn't work retroactively, you have to be proactively paranoid. If you're concerned about privacy buy one of those cheap Nokia dumbphones that old people use. Keep your smartphone at home, and swa…

What do you imagine people 30 years ago did, during a time when crime was a lot worse?

They mostly just developed a much higher tolerance for risk. That doesn't mean you should choose a higher level of risk if you have the option.

Re: Feeling uncomfortable when leaving phone at home shouldn't be normal

#346

Post by johnwalkr »

gambiting wrote: post #266
dale_glass wrote: post #155

Personally I find modern technology to be very liberating. When I was a child, even going around my own city was a stressful thing. What if I get lost? What if I run out of money for the train? How do I know I got the bus in the right direction? (the darn things didn't announce stops at all). The first times I traveled involved printing a stack of papers including names, addresses, and maps. Getting to a hotel in a c…

I went to Canada on a work trip some years back, and there was basically no way for me to get mobile internet in any way - roaming would have been absurdly expensive, like several euro per MB expensive, I couldn't get a local sim card that would work with my phone(and even if I could all offers were weirdly expensive and not worth it for just a week long visit) - and yeah, I felt super uncomfortable travelling anywhe…

It’s so much easier with a smartphone and data. Luckily it’s even easier to get a SIM card now. In most countries you can get an esim online.

Re: Feeling uncomfortable when leaving phone at home shouldn't be normal

#347

Post by Melting_Harps »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #257
dale_glass wrote: post #155

Personally I find modern technology to be very liberating. When I was a child, even going around my own city was a stressful thing. What if I get lost? What if I run out of money for the train? How do I know I got the bus in the right direction? (the darn things didn't announce stops at all). The first times I traveled involved printing a stack of papers including names, addresses, and maps. Getting to a hotel in a c…

This pretty much nails it, though in my case I wasn't a child. In my early 20s I lived in Japan for a few years. Early on, before I had a phone of any type (let alone a smartphone), it was incredibly stressful – even though I had studied the language prior to arriving, it wasn't enough to handle more than the most basic situations and trying to meet and coordinate with others was a nightmare. If anything deviated fro…

> If anything deviated from the plan, including me getting lost somewhere along the way, it all fell apart.

I hate to say it, but this is exactly why most people are tourists and not travelers: getting lost is the best part of traveling, it's only when you randomly find yourself in the most remote part of say Kyushu that you find the quaint ramen shop that you have the best bowl of Tonkotsu and meet a lot of people that were never mentioned in your AAA travel brochure when you realize what it really is all about.

Nothing about what you said was how I traveled all over Europe back in 2012 and I probably did more in 2 weeks than you did in a year as a result. (I lived there for 3.5 years, and I speak over 5 languages now for those reasons.)

Technology is fine, it's the person who makes it a replacement for Life that is my issue.

With that said, I just traveled half way around the World with 5 phones, none of which had any data (and sim cards weren't recognized in some networks) and I got home fine.

Re: Feeling uncomfortable when leaving phone at home shouldn't be normal

#348

Post by porknubbins »

kitsunesoba wrote: post #257
dale_glass wrote: post #155

Personally I find modern technology to be very liberating. When I was a child, even going around my own city was a stressful thing. What if I get lost? What if I run out of money for the train? How do I know I got the bus in the right direction? (the darn things didn't announce stops at all). The first times I traveled involved printing a stack of papers including names, addresses, and maps. Getting to a hotel in a c…

This pretty much nails it, though in my case I wasn't a child. In my early 20s I lived in Japan for a few years. Early on, before I had a phone of any type (let alone a smartphone), it was incredibly stressful – even though I had studied the language prior to arriving, it wasn't enough to handle more than the most basic situations and trying to meet and coordinate with others was a nightmare. If anything deviated fro…

I was in Japan in the pre smartphone years and it was really hard. To go anywhere by train I had memorized a fixed number of routes, though its not like I would randomly cross the city to go to a famous ramen place or something, because I’d just get lost anyway. I honestly can’t remember how we found things in Tokyo since there is no consistent street address system, probably just getting close and circling for 20 minutes or asking someone, or trying to read numbers off telephone polls or local area maps. There was a sense of one’s “home turf” where you knew everything, and then leaving that was like exploring somewhere new. Now when I travel its an undifferentiated mass of places I can look up on google. I miss the serendipity of it all now, the excitement of finding something really cool and unexpected, but don’t have as much time to explore.

Re: Feeling uncomfortable when leaving phone at home shouldn't be normal

#349

Post by beefield »

eternityforest wrote: post #308
beefield wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a radio I can use to summon help. Why would I _ever_ want to be without that? I think it's good for you to occasionally to know that you are on your own. Completely responsible on what you do. Be it on the nearby forest or in some more extreme situation. I am not sure the direction of (illusion of) ultrasafety where our society has been going is all good. Occasionally it's good to have the red pill instead of…

On the other hand, people who don't have the "illusion of ultrasafety" seem to develop a habit of just accepting danger as part of life, to the point of actively speaking out against things like automatic detection for kids left in hot cars. I think the "Blue pill" mindset is more useful overall. The red pill generally does nothing to build a safer world.

You... do understand that the "safest" world literally means you lying in a bombproof vat of fluid with all your sensory input produced virtually so that there is no way you can get into an accident that harms you physically?

A safe world is of course nice, i do not deny that. But I see higher goals for our society than that. And pushing the boundaries of our knowledge and understanding of the universe we live in is inherently not safe.

I can't honestly say I respect people for choosing the blue pill. However, I very much respect their right to make that choice. I'd also appreciate that blue pillers respected red pillers' right to make their choice and not try to prohibit and demean everything they think looks risky. (obviously, dichotomy is not this strong in the real world)

Re: Feeling uncomfortable when leaving phone at home shouldn't be normal

#350

Post by kitsunesoba »

Melting_Harps wrote: post #347
kitsunesoba wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This pretty much nails it, though in my case I wasn't a child. In my early 20s I lived in Japan for a few years. Early on, before I had a phone of any type (let alone a smartphone), it was incredibly stressful – even though I had studied the language prior to arriving, it wasn't enough to handle more than the most basic situations and trying to meet and coordinate with others was a nightmare. If anything deviated fro…

> If anything deviated from the plan, including me getting lost somewhere along the way, it all fell apart. I hate to say it, but this is exactly why most people are tourists and not travelers: getting lost is the best part of traveling, it's only when you randomly find yourself in the most remote part of say Kyushu that you find the quaint ramen shop that you have the best bowl of Tonkotsu and meet a lot of people t…

I too value getting lost while traveling sometimes, but that's for me to do in my own time, not when trying to honor commitments made with others.
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