I think it's more of an issue of availability. My smartphone is incredibly useful, but I spend too much time on it. Sometimes I just have to leave the phone at home, or put it on charger in a drawer somewhere and try to forget about it. Once I'm away from my phone for a little bit, my brain finds other things that are interesting.
Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'
21–30 of 77 posts
Re: Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'
#22Someone pointed out in a similar discussion: "It's not the phone itself that they issue, it's the content." Yesterday there was a debate locally about screen time, both for adults and children, and how much is to much. It's always about the phone, the iPad or the TV, never about the content. At this point I'm leaning more towards, well, we tried social media, streaming, online gaming and funny meme site and our monke…
What do you mean, I can definitely doom scroll my banking app!
For a few times until you figure out some patters, then you check your bank app once in a while knowing what to look for wasting the least amount of time.
Re: Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'
#23Someone pointed out in a similar discussion: "It's not the phone itself that they issue, it's the content." Yesterday there was a debate locally about screen time, both for adults and children, and how much is to much. It's always about the phone, the iPad or the TV, never about the content. At this point I'm leaning more towards, well, we tried social media, streaming, online gaming and funny meme site and our monke…
> It's not the phone itself that they issue, it's the content.
That was mentioned in Death Stranding. Quite a funny game which is, among other things, about connecting people and technology’s role and limits. It also attempts to do exactly that: connect people through technology, in its own odd way.
Re: Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
> you are in a tiny minority of incredibly focused people. oh please... > The majority of us, through no fault of our own it is called "personal accountability", I know its very hated on in the modern world, but please... > The struggle against cheap dopamine hits is real Yeah.. try go back 500 years or 1000 years and explain your struggles to the people there.
> > The majority of us, through no fault of our own > it is called "personal accountability", I know its very hated on in the modern world, but please... Look, I get the point you're trying to make, but as stated, this is incredibly insensitive. There are plenty of scenarios where someone should be held personally accountable for getting distracted or losing time, but this is not one of them. It's entirely possible a…
I get the feeling OP is one of those who tells people with depression to just stop feeling sad...
Re: Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'
#25At this rate of headlines, The Grauniad will be shutting their app and web servers down shortly and moving back to movable type and newspaper boys covered in soot. My phone helps gets me to places I can go and touch things. And take photos with it. It's just a tool. Encourage those uses. It's not the device, it's the users' choice in how they use it.
> It's not the device, it's the users' choice in how they use it.
This right here. But I take it in a different way. That tool is mine. I get to chose how it is used. Advertisers seem to think they own some of my time to get 'free things'. Application makers seem to think they own some of my time to try to get more money out of me thru the use of dark patterns. The phone companies seem to think they own some of my time and sell my data because I pay them. Other people seem to think they own my time because I have the thing and should be on call 24/7 whenever they want to get ahold of me.
When they first came up with the idea of the current smart phone. It was really cool. Then I have realized that everyone is using it to grab my time from me. All of them seem to get mad when I set the thing down on a table somewhere and ignore it and enjoy the things I want to do.
Re: Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'
#26Shout out for "Apple Configurator" for Mac, if a dumb phone appeals to you but can't because there are some apps you really need, I hardly ever see it mentioned in articles like this. It's designed for IT departments to configure all their company phones, but you can also use it to dumb down any iPhone by whitelisting a specific set of apps, it's way better than the parental controls / screen time options.
How hard/easy is it to circumvent the whitelist? Moreover, do you whitelist the whole browser?
Re: Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'
#27At this rate of headlines, The Grauniad will be shutting their app and web servers down shortly and moving back to movable type and newspaper boys covered in soot. My phone helps gets me to places I can go and touch things. And take photos with it. It's just a tool. Encourage those uses. It's not the device, it's the users' choice in how they use it.
The article have an ad for a cooking app, by The Guardian it think. Seems a little out of place on an article like this.
Re: Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'
#28Someone pointed out in a similar discussion: "It's not the phone itself that they issue, it's the content." Yesterday there was a debate locally about screen time, both for adults and children, and how much is to much. It's always about the phone, the iPad or the TV, never about the content. At this point I'm leaning more towards, well, we tried social media, streaming, online gaming and funny meme site and our monke…
> It's not the phone itself that they issue, it's the content." I don't think that's true, at best it's both. It's the phone that enables a more frictionless access to the content. Having a speed bump to access the same content would make a large difference which is why the alternatives in the article are proving effective, the act of accessing something is less mindless, and more deliberate. I think the point they'r…
Bingo. For people like me my phone is indispensable, not as a source of endless distractions (though I dabble like anyone) but I put everything in my phone. It's literally an extension of my brain, because my brain is bad at remembering things, so every last thing goes in the phone. Plans with friends, important dates in relationships, birthdays, I have calendar reminders for practically everything going on in my life, and even a bunch strictly for work. My reminders app is packed to the gills with everything from random little to-dos to full-bore projects I'm working on, with notes and documentation in other apps to boot.
It's one of the reasons I'm still an ardent Apple user, the fluidity I have between my tablets, phone and Mac is essential for my workflows. I just couldn't use a PC full time, even if I wanted to.
Re: Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'
#29[flagged]
Re: Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'
#30After what happened with Adobe, Microsoft and Sonos this past week, I have decided to try limit my use of American products. Don’t get me wrong, I love the USA - I have tonnes of family there and I have met some super nice people on my months long holidays there too…
But.
There is just too much poison coming out of Silicon Valley in my view. Awful choices in pursuit of our personal information, ‘Recall’ demonstrates how Silicon Vally is sick in their pursuit of trying to get even more stinking rich.
So yeah, I decided to try to remove as many American products and services from my life. It’s going to be tough. I have invested 5 digits in Apple tech over the past couple of years. It’s all to be sold now.
Switched Microsoft for Linux and OpenBSD, and I have a lot more tech to get rid of.
I know this sounds extreme, but I don’t want to fund these companies. I am partly responsible for funding then as it is, and I am out now.