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A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

nytimes.com

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Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#281

Post by causal »

csvm wrote: post #186

On my family's iPhones, we have a Shortcut (automation) that kicks in every evening at 9 pm: 1. Turn Mobile Data Off 2. Turn Bluetooth Off 3. Turn WiFi Off 4. Turn AppleTV off (this one is fun because it can cut off a show mid-sentence) 5. Set brightness to 10%. Then, a reverse of the above at 6am the following day. Normal phone signal is still enabled for any emergency calls, but most apps become useless without the…

That's cool, but also a testament to the adversarial relationship we have with our phones.

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#282

Post by JohnFen »

Syonyk wrote: post #83

I am so glad to see this backlash. It's been a long time coming. We've tried smartphones out for the past... oh, decade and change. They've been around longer, but were niche enough that they didn't dominate society, and even around the start of the iPhone era, "Crackberry" and such were common enough terms (with "Put all your devices in the center, whoever picks theirs up first buys the next round" being a fun game…

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, getting rid of my smartphone is very important.

There are very large benefits to having one, but I think that the drawbacks, of the sort you're talking about as well as the privacy/security issues with them, are larger than the benefits. They are a net negative. And I don't even use social media.

It wasn't always so. This equation became unfavorable just a handful of years ago.

And the fact that it's hard enough to give them up that I need a transition period gives even greater urgency to the need for me to give them up.

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#283

Post by skidd0 »

vonjuice wrote: post #117
skidd0 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except crack and other drugs form physical dependencies which leads to withdrawal. Smart phone addicts have a more psychological battle. That's the willpower/self-discipline part. How do you build discipline? Practice! So, yeah, it can be as simple as telling yourself "just stop using the apps" as often as you can to build up the skill.

If you think addiction is about chemical dependence you need to deepen and broaden your knowledge on the subject.

Addiction has many factors. I was pointing out that crack and other drugs can form chemical dependencies that apps and screen time cannot.

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#284

Post by JohnFen »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #153
Syonyk wrote: post #83

I am so glad to see this backlash. It's been a long time coming. We've tried smartphones out for the past... oh, decade and change. They've been around longer, but were niche enough that they didn't dominate society, and even around the start of the iPhone era, "Crackberry" and such were common enough terms (with "Put all your devices in the center, whoever picks theirs up first buys the next round" being a fun game…

My smartphone has replaced things that I used to carry. It is a tool. And as a bonus, I can pass time while waiting - doctors office, etc - which makes me more pleasant. My smartphone functions as a watch, notetaking device, and communication device. I rarely get lost now that I almost always have a map. It is a music device, which is really helpful considering I walk and take busses for most of my transportation. Th…

Yes, smartphone are a tool. They are tools that come with costs, though, and whether or not the costs are worth it depends on your particular situation.

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#285

Post by AltruisticGapHN »

allthecybers wrote: post #15

I'd love to quit my smartphone and have looked at options like Lite Phone to replace it. The only issue is my smartphone is now my GPS, my payment method, my home lighting controller, my car/house key, and my health tracker. Plus, was a convenient way to keep tabs on work messages. Half a decade ago I eliminated all my social media. Then about a year ago I started by removing work email and messaging from my phone.Th…

> The next step will be having a designated spot for it to stay while I'm home.

Sounds like a good compromise, like a basket where you put all your keys you need when leaving home.

I think the core issue with attention is ultimately the same as with infinite scroll, and the reward mechanism.

For me the unease can be felt as soon as I unlock phone, it’s like a bunch of candies and there is this implicit feeling that you need to do something, to interact with something.

Then there is this angst like when you get physical mail and you anticipate who it might be from back when we wrote more letters. Only now with smartphones it gets repeated endlessly throughout the day.

Can we really force ourselves to slow down ? To live a simpler life ? I think it’s not possible until profound changes in our society such as basic income.

The smartphone in a sense is symptomatic of the rat race. It’s the only way we found to make things better when better is « doing more things in less time ».

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#286

Post by JohnFen »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #243
Affric wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You complain about people being friendly. You complain about having to actually learn a language. It sounds like your phone is preventing you from the very normal human interactions that made society pleasant. There’s no amount of asserting that others are uninteresting that can convince me that a society is better when strangers only interact transactionally.

If I'm going for a two weeks vacation and know I will never return - is it a reason to learn that country's language, further than hello/thank you/bye?

I think so, yes. There are tons of benefits to learning other languages even if you never travel at all. Traveling is a great opportunity to start picking up a new one.

It also demonstrates respect for people of the country you're traveling to.

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#287

Post by didntcheck »

snarkyturtle wrote: post #254
tristor wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curmudgeonly enough that I'd tend to agree with you, however as someone who travels often I don't think I could ever give up my smartphone. I actually had a smartphone and some other similar devices well ahead of them being popular, and the reasons pretty much have not changed. Here are the things I don't have a reasonable alternative, because it's not just the capability, it's the capability backed by the Intern…

Really it's just social media that's terrible. If all the social media apps go away, you still get left with all the above and can contact people you know. Algorithmic recommendations and flame wars with strangers are the worst things about smartphones — and they're not limited to them either.

Yep. It's kind of annoying to see people be so fatalistic about their self control that they think the only solution is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I carry my smartphone everywhere for the useful functions detailed above, but the closest I get to social media is some idle HN commenting if I'm unexpectedly waiting around somewhere. It's really not hard to just not spend all day on Twitter of whatever. The device is just a scapegoat. It's like blaming a microwave for a poor diet, ignoring the usefulness of on-demand heating for better uses

I do resent things that require smartphone though. E.g. parking or ordering in some places. And especially if they require your device to be certified as locked down by the Google-Apple duopoly

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#288

Post by JohnFen »

toyg wrote: post #192
CalRobert wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I had a photo to share, but there's a museum on Bere Island in southwestern Ireland about the island's people and history. It's a TINY island with a few hundred people on it. One of the exhibits shows pictures of how people would gather at the one street corner (I mean, it was a dirt path, not a "street" as you imagine it) and dance and play music on Friday nights until late. And then how that died out after T…

That's sad, but on the other hand - I bet nobody now has to deal with broken bottles, urine, and the other dreck that festive gatherings tend to produce. Modern society is definitely more deliberate in how people interact. You lose some poetic spontaneity but gain in peace and order, which make society scale up. I'm not saying it's all good but it's a trade-off.

> but gain in peace and order

It doesn't seem obvious to me that this is true. Is there data about this?

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#289

Post by calvinmorrison »

debok wrote: post #219

I found the following 3 measures quite helpful to make my smartphone less intrusive in my daily life: 1: I don't bring my smartphone into my bedroom. My bedroom is a personal and intimate space, no need for the outside world to barge in via smartphone. 2: I disable or silence every notification I get. The only time my phone draws my attention is if I am getting a phone call, my wife texts me, or if I get a Pagerduty.…

Skip pagerduty. When I was oncall I carried a regular pager. Cost about $10 bucks a month, took 1 AA battery per month, very reliable, clipped onto my belt, and it gets service Everywhere. basements, underground garages, top of the towers. And it beeps VERY loudly.

Re: A practical guide to quitting your smartphone

#290

Post by JohnFen »

AstralStorm wrote: post #166
bandie91 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe it's a genuine human-to-human interaction which helps healing these...

Small talk isn't one of these, however. "Third spaces" (guided meeting place that's relatively loose and not work or home) are sorely missing because running one is not very profitable. By the way, pubs aren't one of those really, as they're too unstructured.

"Third spaces" don't have to be (and preferably aren't) commercial spaces where monetization is expected.

> pubs aren't one of those really, as they're too unstructured.

I'm not sure what you mean by "third spaces", then.

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