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Will we be addicted to our phones forever? An optimistic outlook

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Re: Will we be addicted to our phones forever? An optimistic outlook

#11
post #5

Kind of funny how for decades people were wishing for some sort of Star Trek device that put the world's knowledge literally in your pocket. Now that we have it...

The trouble is that, in addition to all the world's knowledge, our devices put all the world's opinions in our pockets too....

Re: Will we be addicted to our phones forever? An optimistic outlook

#12
post #8
post #2

We'll forever be addicted to the shared global (or interplanetary at some point) information network, but the phone itself won't be needed forever. I don't think there's a way to get a human to not want to know what other people think about stuff or to more generally get information for free in real time. This plus access to computational power is a pretty good combo. If the interface is a brain chip or a phone or wh…

People complain all the time about "being addicted to our phones" but my memory of the world pre-smartphone was that newspapers and magazines were everywhere and frankly...I'm not really seeing the difference - in quality or content. Because while "the newspaper" was always considered respectable...that's ignoring the endless mounds of gossip magazines, fashion magazines, lifestyle...basically every category which ha…

People didn't pull out a magazine while in a group and read an article for 5 minutes. a bus wouldn't be literally filled with nothing but people reading magazines and books, nobody punished their children by taking their magazines away.

We did have, say, "portable entertainment". music players were kinda similar to this too, but yeah there is a massive difference.

Re: Will we be addicted to our phones forever? An optimistic outlook

#13
post #8
post #2

We'll forever be addicted to the shared global (or interplanetary at some point) information network, but the phone itself won't be needed forever. I don't think there's a way to get a human to not want to know what other people think about stuff or to more generally get information for free in real time. This plus access to computational power is a pretty good combo. If the interface is a brain chip or a phone or wh…

People complain all the time about "being addicted to our phones" but my memory of the world pre-smartphone was that newspapers and magazines were everywhere and frankly...I'm not really seeing the difference - in quality or content. Because while "the newspaper" was always considered respectable...that's ignoring the endless mounds of gossip magazines, fashion magazines, lifestyle...basically every category which ha…

People might listen to a radio while driving, or have a TV show on while eating dinner or chatting with friends, magazines/newspapers might be expected at doctor's offices.

We didn't dip in and out of personalized media feeds throughout the day, getting bombarded with what's happening right this minute with our family, friends, city, state, nation, celebrities, industries, hobbies, etc... everything was slower, people seemed more methodical and present.

Re: Will we be addicted to our phones forever? An optimistic outlook

#14
post #12
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People complain all the time about "being addicted to our phones" but my memory of the world pre-smartphone was that newspapers and magazines were everywhere and frankly...I'm not really seeing the difference - in quality or content. Because while "the newspaper" was always considered respectable...that's ignoring the endless mounds of gossip magazines, fashion magazines, lifestyle...basically every category which ha…

People didn't pull out a magazine while in a group and read an article for 5 minutes. a bus wouldn't be literally filled with nothing but people reading magazines and books, nobody punished their children by taking their magazines away. We did have, say, "portable entertainment". music players were kinda similar to this too, but yeah there is a massive difference.

> a bus wouldn't be literally filled with nothing but people reading magazines and books

https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditThroughHistory/comments/1rkhx...

Re: Will we be addicted to our phones forever? An optimistic outlook

#15
post #12
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People complain all the time about "being addicted to our phones" but my memory of the world pre-smartphone was that newspapers and magazines were everywhere and frankly...I'm not really seeing the difference - in quality or content. Because while "the newspaper" was always considered respectable...that's ignoring the endless mounds of gossip magazines, fashion magazines, lifestyle...basically every category which ha…

People didn't pull out a magazine while in a group and read an article for 5 minutes. a bus wouldn't be literally filled with nothing but people reading magazines and books, nobody punished their children by taking their magazines away. We did have, say, "portable entertainment". music players were kinda similar to this too, but yeah there is a massive difference.

https://brendenmulligan.com/in-1950-i-doubt-anyone-ever-chec...

>I just wanted to share the above photo of a subway car from 1947 where every single person, even though they’re in a confined space together, aren’t paying any attention to each other because they’re reading media on a newspaper. The recent version of this is, of course, cellphones and iPads, yet the same people out there who hate change continue to cry foul.

Re: Will we be addicted to our phones forever? An optimistic outlook

#16
post #8
post #2

We'll forever be addicted to the shared global (or interplanetary at some point) information network, but the phone itself won't be needed forever. I don't think there's a way to get a human to not want to know what other people think about stuff or to more generally get information for free in real time. This plus access to computational power is a pretty good combo. If the interface is a brain chip or a phone or wh…

People complain all the time about "being addicted to our phones" but my memory of the world pre-smartphone was that newspapers and magazines were everywhere and frankly...I'm not really seeing the difference - in quality or content. Because while "the newspaper" was always considered respectable...that's ignoring the endless mounds of gossip magazines, fashion magazines, lifestyle...basically every category which ha…

While it's true that there were always ways to entertain oneself, I'd argue that the the ease of consumption (or alternatively, "effort required to consume") and potency of the effect on dopaminergic networks in the brain have increased _dramatically_. And unfortunately, it turns out that this kind of entertainment is directly related to the biggest money firehose that humanity has ever invented: targeted advertising.

Which means that the world's most powerful algorithms have a strong incentive to optimize both of those variables. Great for the people in control of the algorithms and content networks, not so good for the people who are suddenly exposed to a very powerful "drug" that they were not prepared to keep at bay.

Re: Will we be addicted to our phones forever? An optimistic outlook

#17
post #8
post #2

We'll forever be addicted to the shared global (or interplanetary at some point) information network, but the phone itself won't be needed forever. I don't think there's a way to get a human to not want to know what other people think about stuff or to more generally get information for free in real time. This plus access to computational power is a pretty good combo. If the interface is a brain chip or a phone or wh…

People complain all the time about "being addicted to our phones" but my memory of the world pre-smartphone was that newspapers and magazines were everywhere and frankly...I'm not really seeing the difference - in quality or content. Because while "the newspaper" was always considered respectable...that's ignoring the endless mounds of gossip magazines, fashion magazines, lifestyle...basically every category which ha…

>People complain all the time about "being addicted to our phones" but my memory of the world pre-smartphone was that newspapers and magazines were everywhere and frankly...I'm not really seeing the difference - in quality or content.

I have to vehemently disagree with this one. Since the advent of Twitter, news has become "who is first" over "who is most accurate", and it has become a cancer on all of mankind. The quality was so much better it's almost difficult to describe to someone who is under the age of 30.

I can't even imagine something like Watergate happening today, and if it did it would have had nowhere near the impact because half the US population would've been seeing Russian misinformation on Twitter convincing them it was all a "deep state conspiracy" and they'd believe it.

Re: Will we be addicted to our phones forever? An optimistic outlook

#19
post #8
post #2

We'll forever be addicted to the shared global (or interplanetary at some point) information network, but the phone itself won't be needed forever. I don't think there's a way to get a human to not want to know what other people think about stuff or to more generally get information for free in real time. This plus access to computational power is a pretty good combo. If the interface is a brain chip or a phone or wh…

People complain all the time about "being addicted to our phones" but my memory of the world pre-smartphone was that newspapers and magazines were everywhere and frankly...I'm not really seeing the difference - in quality or content. Because while "the newspaper" was always considered respectable...that's ignoring the endless mounds of gossip magazines, fashion magazines, lifestyle...basically every category which ha…

I recently subscribed to a newspaper as in printed on paper and delivered to my mailbox once a week. It's pretty interesting experience. Main thing about it is it's finitness. There is only so much information in the weekly issue. It's deliberately slow. It's local and it's more than 140 symbols too.

Re: Will we be addicted to our phones forever? An optimistic outlook

#20
post #8
post #2

We'll forever be addicted to the shared global (or interplanetary at some point) information network, but the phone itself won't be needed forever. I don't think there's a way to get a human to not want to know what other people think about stuff or to more generally get information for free in real time. This plus access to computational power is a pretty good combo. If the interface is a brain chip or a phone or wh…

People complain all the time about "being addicted to our phones" but my memory of the world pre-smartphone was that newspapers and magazines were everywhere and frankly...I'm not really seeing the difference - in quality or content. Because while "the newspaper" was always considered respectable...that's ignoring the endless mounds of gossip magazines, fashion magazines, lifestyle...basically every category which ha…

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