Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 77 posts

Re: Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'

#51

Post by ethbr1 »

sumtechguy wrote: post #25
cjk2 wrote: post #2

At 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 t…

I apportion blame a bit differently.

App makers (and mobile phone companies) are competitive marketplaces with alternatives. They're trying to find viable business models to fund feature development and make a profit. Can't fault them for that: users can pick another option.

Who I can fault is mobile OS/platform owners.

It's a duopoly, and they've repeatedly and strategically made user-hostile decisions that strip choice away from mobile device owners.

All of the ills you mentioned wouldn't be ills if OS features enabled user control of them.

Google is obviously the more egregious (user freedom features and need to boost quarterly profits are inversely related), but I don't think Apple would be taking a pro-privacy stance if it conflicted with their business model and they didn't see it as a strategic differentiator.

Re: Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'

#52

Post by eimrine »

ethbr1 wrote: post #4
cjk2 wrote: post #2

At 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.

Cocaine is a tool too.

Dear SJWs, stop downvoting the parental post if you just don't know the mentioned substance is a really good local anesthetic with short but powerful effect and having close to zero post-effects after a singular use.

Re: Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'

#54

Post by giantrobot »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #28
politelemon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 lif…

> but I put everything in my phone

Same here. After using even the original iPhone for a few months I started describing using it like being a cyborg. My pocket cybernetic tool let me actually (usefully) keep my calendar with me, gave me real access to my email, and let me look up random bits of data wherever I was (modulo Cingular/AT&T's shitty EDGE service). It's only gained more capabilities as time has gone on.

I have zero social media apps and disable pretty much all notifications. My phone is a digital brain extension and reading device. I'll take pictures of random crap or where I parked to augment memory.

Phones do not have to just be dopamine distribution devices.

Re: Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'

#56

Post by ethbr1 »

cableshaft wrote: post #49
mrweasel wrote: post #11

Someone 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…

My main problem is that smartphones are geared way too much towards consuming content and not enough towards producing content (except for pictures and videos and short twitter-like comments, i.e. easily consumable crap). For coding, 3d modeling, writing books, composing music, etc, it's really not that great. When I was in junior high I got one of those TI-Calculators, like 10 years before the iPhone first came out.…

Wholeheartedly agreed.

At various times in computing history, but not infrequently, a device was shipped with a programming environment.

IMHO, we should mandate a return to that by law.

(1) Any interface-capable device must afford its owner an ability to create new programs on it. (E.g. laptop, pad, smartphone)

(2) Any device sold must allow its owner an ability to load programs of their choice onto it.

(3) Any device sold may include security or restriction features, but must include a jailbreak capability that removes all such restrictions, if the user so chooses.

Teaching an entire generation that a computing device is a thing to be used (and hoping someone else has created and gotten approval for a program to do what you want) is a bad evolutionary path.

The point isn't that everyone will use on-device creative capabilities -- it's that anyone can.

And that their efforts can then be shared with others.

Re: Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'

#57

Post by ethbr1 »

ElFitz wrote: post #23
mrweasel wrote: post #11

Someone 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.

The game as a vehicle for human connectivity, via trying to engineer multi-player features for altruistic-only interactions, was more fascinating than the game itself to me.

It was an interesting exercise in popular art.

Re: Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'

#58

Post by giantrobot »

mrjh wrote: post #6
cjk2 wrote: post #2

At 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.

If you've never picked up your phone to do one thing and half an hour later found yourself trawling through Instagram, having forgotten what you originally meant to do with your "just a tool", you are in a tiny minority of incredibly focused people. The majority of us, through no fault of our own, find these 'tools' regularly sucking us into a vortex of distractions and time-wasting. The struggle against cheap dopami…

> you are in a tiny minority of incredibly focused people.

I have never been described as a focused person but I have never lost an hour to Instagram because I do not use Instagram. Nor do I use Facebook or any other social media apps. Not a one is even installed on my phone.

If you lose an hour to Instagram that is entirely on you. Instagram has to ask you to turn on notifications. You choose to open it.

Turn off all your notifications and silence your ringer and your phone won't distract you with anything. Even better delete social media apps that demand your engagement to make them money. If you feel you must use some social media only do so through their web apps.

By allowing notifications you're participating in your own abuse.

Re: Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'

#59

Post by [deleted] »

danielbln wrote: post #24
LoganDark wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > 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...

[deleted]

Re: Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'

#60

Post by ethbr1 »

grugagag wrote: post #22
evrimoztamur wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You don't get satisfaction from reading merchant transaction coding? #favaBeancountLife
Post reply on HN