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‘Luddite’ Teens

nytimes.com

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Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens

#251

Post by fleddr »

A simple tip to reduce usage. I would guess that a lot of smartphone usage happens within your home, which most people spent a lot of time in, even more so if you work from home.

Put the phone in the next room. As simple as that. Break the convenience of having it with you. Working in a home office? Put it in the next room. Watching TV on the couch? Put it in the next room. Driving? Don't mount it.

You'll still check it, during natural progressions of the day. Lunch. End of the work day. Before you go to bed. But that's still quite a lot better than the 100-200 times that people check it per day on average.

Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens

#252

Post by Jorengarenar »

weregiraffe wrote: post #189
seanw444 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boredom is crucial. Boredom creates will. Your body hates boredom, because traditionally, it meant you weren't doing anything to better your life. Today, we won't die if we're not filling our boredom with farming/hunting our meals by hand. It's too easy to live nowadays. Now, we plug that hole with social media and entertainment. Rather than adapting that caveman survival instinct to something else: improving knowled…

You are mistaken. Hunter-gatherers, and even medieval farmers, worked less hours on average than we do today.

>Hunter-gatherers (...) worked less hours on average than we do today.

Yeah, other apes also work less hours on average than humans do.

>even medieval farmers, worked less hours on average than we do today.

On their lord's farms. After serfdom, they needed to provide for themselves too.

Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens

#253

Post by verdenti »

nickthegreek wrote: post #249
idrios wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids can be naive and selfish, but even most kids aren't so unempathetic as to not understand that their friend doesn't have a phone because their parents won't buy them one. The addage "if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?" seems relevant here.

Oh I’m sure they aren’t consciously, but are they going to make the effort everyday to communicate with the person who makes it hard to be reached? It will be harder to maintain/build relationships. I’m not passing judgement either way, I’m just stating a reality and that reality can be dark.

No post body was provided.

Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens

#254

Post by floren »

armenarmen wrote: post #154
wara23arish wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Ever hear of the Sam Vimes Boot Theory? Terry Pratchett in the Discworld novel Men at Arms has the Vimes say: "The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or…

> Ever hear of the Sam Vimes Boot Theory?

Generally at least once a week on this very website. And on reddit. And on something awful.

Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens

#255

Post by voisin »

huehehue wrote: post #236

Can't say that I love the praise over Chris McCandless, given the amount of deliberate self-sabotage and the fact that hikers have literally died trying to recreate his pilgrimage. > We’ve all got this theory that we’re not just meant to be confined to buildings and work. And [McCandless] was experiencing life. Real life. Social media and phones are not real life. I'm nitpicking, just think there are way healthier ex…

> given the amount of deliberate self-sabotage

I never got the impression that it was deliberate self sabotage. I understood that he simply had over confidence going into the woods, and that he stayed a bit too long in an unfamiliar area and consequently couldn’t make his way back due to snowmelt flooding.

Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens

#256

Post by idrios »

nickthegreek wrote: post #249
idrios wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids can be naive and selfish, but even most kids aren't so unempathetic as to not understand that their friend doesn't have a phone because their parents won't buy them one. The addage "if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?" seems relevant here.

Oh I’m sure they aren’t consciously, but are they going to make the effort everyday to communicate with the person who makes it hard to be reached? It will be harder to maintain/build relationships. I’m not passing judgement either way, I’m just stating a reality and that reality can be dark.

For sure. But I think the reality where everything kids do is being watched under the microscope of their friends and their parents is a dark one too. It's for sure also fostering social anxiety, but that seems to be the reality that's more culturally acceptible.

Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens

#257

Post by dmschulman »

subsubzero wrote: post #201
ancientworldnow wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look up their parents. It's not a coincidence they crossed path with NY Times reporters looking to profile them. Nepotism teens doesn't have the same ring though.

yeah I was wondering how a small group of say 5-8 teens made it to NYtimes. The paper tries to fool you to think these are just organic encounters that are part of a massive movement(anti-tech) when its really just hand picked people close to a friend of someone that works at the paper. Remember it was discovered this year the editorial desk of the NYtimes has a mandate that all stories must paint tech in a negative…

This is common in reporting "human interest" stories. If you know someone who knows someone who knows someone who is up to something unique, is that any different than getting a tip from your community?

This is not a story of consequence but it does speak to an important issue of our day. It's not as though this is the only kind of reporting NY Times does.

Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens

#258

Post by yamtaddle »

freemanofthewan wrote: post #87
wara23arish wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sir, please try a good pair of footwear, for your sake! If you need convincing, look up the Boots Theory. Personally, I live in my boots and have worn out many cheap pair. Sometimes 2 a year. Invested a little more, my body was never so happy, and I didn't need to replace them for 4 years. Easy math.

My first pair of Redwing Heritage boots (and the only ones I've paid full retail for) have seen probably 800-900 wears over seven or so years. I expect they'll make it to at least 2,000, and maybe a lot more, though they may require a resoling somewhere in the 1200-1500 range.

I've worn them up mountains a couple times (OMG don't, they're so damn heavy, it was such a bad idea), while tiling floors or drywalling or doing other DIY housework, building a fence, moving house, working on cars, bicycling (not the best, but they're OK for a quick ride), around town in general, to the office, everywhere. Haven't babied them a bit. Snow, rain, I make sure they don't sit around totally soaked after I'm done, but I don't shy away from wearing them in those conditions.

They still look plenty presentable for slightly-fancy-casual, a hair below smart-casual, which is about the "highest" wear they were suited for to begin with.

Meanwhile, the cloth sneakers I used to buy would look like shit after maybe 80 wears, and be trash no later than 200.

They're also my most comfortable shoes that aren't house-slippers. It's like they're part of my foot. After the ~2-week break-in period, anyway :-)

Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens

#259

Post by didericis »

huehehue wrote: post #236

Can't say that I love the praise over Chris McCandless, given the amount of deliberate self-sabotage and the fact that hikers have literally died trying to recreate his pilgrimage. > We’ve all got this theory that we’re not just meant to be confined to buildings and work. And [McCandless] was experiencing life. Real life. Social media and phones are not real life. I'm nitpicking, just think there are way healthier ex…

What people describe as "tech addiction" is I think better described as "consumer product addiction".

Technology has created an unprecedented opportunity for us to turn the world into a human friendly imaginative playground.

That opportunity is squandered by people who think in the short term about control and money and status and grievance.

Call me what you will, but I have a hard time watching old videos like this and not getting emotional -> https://youtu.be/Uz__bJTlOjk?t=37 Great engineers using the most advanced technology of the day to make childhood fantasies a reality is one of the most beautiful uses of our time on Earth I can think of. Tech could make the world the ultimate fantasy adventure. We have so much capacity to alleviate material want and create amazing dreamworlds and make people happy, but laziness, greed, ego, jealousy, and resentment all get in the way.

Technological complexity obfuscates and entrenches a lot of existing problems and creates lots of room for abuse, but at root most modern problems are not fundamentally tech related. They're rooted in our difficulties cooperating with each other.

Re: ‘Luddite’ Teens

#260

Post by fancyfredbot »

When I was a teen in the nineties it was the teens who really got computers and the adults who were the luddites. Being into computers wasn't cool but it was exciting to understand something that most of our parents didn't. Seems like things have come full circle now! As much as I admire the rejection of social media I hope this generation can still be fascinated by the possibilities computers can bring.
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