Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think everyone's just getting sick of rich kids
They're kids. They're nearly innocent. It's their parents people should be sick of.
good point
‘Luddite’ Teens
111–120 of 297 posts
Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens
#112It reminded me of one of pg's old essays – http://paulgraham.com/addiction.html . Highly recommended. On a personal note, it's also something that worries me for the day when I'll finally have my own children. I wouldn't want them exposed to modern cyber-addictions from young age, but at the same time, I'm not sure how to protect them, when I can expect that all their peers will be on whatever social app's gonna be p…
I'm thinking about this periodically.
I expect that - in addition to mere time restriction from the outset - ensuring that the kids are sufficiently busy with leisure outlets and spending enough face-to-face time with others their own age will go a long ways. At the core of it, the addiction we have, as social media is concerned, is to each other, excepting the mindless never-ending-scroll entertainment part of it.
Not to say I would overschedule, but would take care that they a) are registered to at least one sport for the majority of the year (intramural is fine), b) have the means and habit to make use of things for creative ends, or to get out of the house and explore. If that foundation is there from the start, might not have to pry the phones/tablets out of them.
I can't very well completely cut off any access to devices because the SO and I use them and it will just become a sore spot, particularly as the kids age.
Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's the 2022 version of "kill your television" and i love it. in practice: i wonder how practical it is to survive as an adult without a smartphone. uber has decimated cabs and i don't think you can telephone for an uber. i wonder what else is unreachable/unworkable/etc...
In Brooklyn now, it's cheaper to use a car service than Uber/Lyft, so I think you could get by fine without those apps. Getting around without Google Maps would be pretty challenging, I think.
> Getting around without Google Maps would be pretty challenging, I think.
I learned to drive before smartphones. I can assure you its very possible to find addresses without a phone. Heck, I still sometimes do it for fun! Nothing wrong with a little u-turn here or there.
Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens
#114It reminded me of one of pg's old essays – http://paulgraham.com/addiction.html . Highly recommended. On a personal note, it's also something that worries me for the day when I'll finally have my own children. I wouldn't want them exposed to modern cyber-addictions from young age, but at the same time, I'm not sure how to protect them, when I can expect that all their peers will be on whatever social app's gonna be p…
It's very difficult. I was lucky to have access to the internet in the late 80s and have watched it grow, mature, evolve. I know how quickly things can change, and I don't want my kids to miss out or be left behind. But at the same time, the dangers that exist today didn't exist even in the 90s. My biggest fear then was receiving an email virus. Now, Social Media alone is enough to make a parent take a step back and…
some of my first ever C programs did just this for the dos computers at my high school.
Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens
#115This is interesting but I can't help but notice how intensely performative these kids are as well, at least how they're characterized in this article. They're wearing Carhartt (an unusual choice for a metropolis like NYC), reading Dostoyevski and gathering to "listen to the wind." I will say most teens are like this and I certainly was myself, but I hope they are careful not to cultivate their own "artisan" brand of…
Does one always risk a bit of "pretentiousness" if they act/live contrary to the "main stream"? Just by having a flip phone, for example, someone will be called a "hipster" or whatever name. It's like a group social phenomena or something - just by being vegetarian (or being more "pretentious" by being vegan) people experience this sort of stuff
Haha, how times have changed, I was a pretty hard core vegan between 1990 and 2003 and was much more likely to be called a cunt than pretentious!
Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens
#116I've been experimenting with a "no phone" protocol for a few months now. It has been amazing. Only occasionally problematic/inconvenient, mostly miss the GPS and music. Most things I used to do on phone I simply do on a laptop. But not constantly grabbing for a phone and staring at a screen... priceless.
One of the big things keeping me from going down this road is the need to carry around a phone for 2FA purposes. Is there anything that can fill that gap?
Many sites don't support hardware tokens, and some sites such as banks require and only allow SMS 2FA. I even planned to switch banks and the two others near me also required a cell phone SMS 2FA for online banking with no other alternatives.
Online banking is far too beneficial to give up (traveling abroad, checking balance, moving funds around) and there are other sites besides banks that do this too. It's infuriating.
Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
In these discussion threads I always see people mixing call/gps functionality (which is genuinely useful, especially in case of an emergency, and not addictive) with social media. You can have one without having the other. Instagram didn't come with your phone, you installed it. So, don't.
There's a lot of people who show up in these threads whose only coping strategy is to go cold turkey. Maybe that's good advice, but it's not the only advice. There's no reason you can't carry a smartphone in your pocket without it becoming a pacifier.
Devil's advocate here: addiction is tricky. There's no reason you can't carry around a pack of cigarettes and not smoke them, either, but in practice that strategy would not work for many smokers. Cold turkey isn't the magic bullet, but try whatever you suspect might work.
Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
What did they wear? Sandals or something? I tried birkenstock sandals before but they only lasted about a year before they became too gross to wear. $150 doc martens seem like good value to me. They last about 5-8 years at the rate I wear through them, or about $20-30 per year. Certainly more efficient than any sneakers.
Maybe Im missing out but Ive never felt the need to spend so much on shoes. There’s countless of alternatives to boots/shows that aren’t name-brand Doc Martens with that aesthetic. Personally, I just shop at the clearance sections or sales (ive never seen doc martens there ime) I always feel like a fool if i drop money on something expensive. From reading On The Road, I just remember that they were always broke, drun…
I've only dropped $200+ on footwear a few times because those pairs of shoes or boots have not yet worn out. And they're very comfy and look sharp.
Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens
#119I've been experimenting with a "no phone" protocol for a few months now. It has been amazing. Only occasionally problematic/inconvenient, mostly miss the GPS and music. Most things I used to do on phone I simply do on a laptop. But not constantly grabbing for a phone and staring at a screen... priceless.
Phone without a sim card. You'll get GPS and music too. :) Just have to avoid wifi.
Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens
#120I've been experimenting with a "no phone" protocol for a few months now. It has been amazing. Only occasionally problematic/inconvenient, mostly miss the GPS and music. Most things I used to do on phone I simply do on a laptop. But not constantly grabbing for a phone and staring at a screen... priceless.
It's possible to argue that dispensing with the habit of carrying and using a music player is also a potential win. What's one of the reasons smartphones can be a problem? That they distract and disconnect you from your environment and absorb you in something other than what's around you. Music players can also do that. If you turn the music off, it'll open your ears to the sounds of your environment. If you try it for an extended period of time, you may develop a greater attentiveness and auditory acuteness.
Each of these devices, while not bad on its own and in itself, does provide an opportunity for the device to lay claim to one or more of our senses. The multiverse is a step further in that direction, a further bubble of engineered experience disconnected from reality and yes almost posing as reality. This does not bode well for the intellect as nothing in the intellect was not first in the senses. Our intuitions are at their best when seeded by the passive experience of the world, and if our experience is constantly flooded by media and engineered simulations often of a very unhealthy variety, then our alignment with reality will be off. This sort of passive perception of reality is at the heart of contemplation which is what true leisure (not recreation) is all about.
To quote Josef Pieper[0], "the greatest menace to our capacity for contemplation is the incessant fabrication of tawdry empty stimuli which kill the receptivity of the soul."
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/408300-happiness-and-c...