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Life before smartphones (2020)

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Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#371

Post by yaomtc »

hypefi wrote: post #257
tharne wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But smartphones are delivering no benefit to mankind. At all. This statement may be hyperbolic, but at its core is not wrong. Smartphones are very easily a net negative in terms of cost/benefit to society. They're ubiquitous because they're addictive, not because they're so wonderful. Everyone used to smoke too, then we came to see the massive damage cigarettes were doing. Smartphones are just cigarettes for the br…

Not only that, but smartphones are also bad for health, EMFs radiation all day long are no fun for the body...

Don't bullshit me. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/electromagn...

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#372

Post by buu700 »

rapnie wrote: post #131
krylon wrote: post #57

Now I feel old. I remember vividly running around with my first camera, looking for objects worthy of being photographed. The film cost money, so did developing it into pictures. I really had to weigh the pros and cons of taking a particular picture. And in a class of ~25 kids, I was one of three who owned a camera. Not that it was such a luxury item, but most people weren't into that. These days, (nearly) everyone c…

And he doesn't even mention that you could just be outside, and be unreachable and not able to reach other people too. As a kid I used to play outside a lot, and my mother had no clue where I was, nor could she easily find out. I could be outside all day without her worrying that I'd be abducted or involved in an accident. Now that all has completely changed, and my mother has too. Some years ago when I walked into t…

I have a somewhat similar anecdote. At a previous job, I would frequently work late nights and weekends (honestly more for fun than anything). Around the end of one week, I ended up pulling a few consecutive all-nighters.

Unbeknownst to me, my mom on the other side of the country had been calling intermittently throughout those days (I keep my phone on silent). After a certain point, she called security at my apartment complex to check in on me. Of course she was then informed that my room mates hadn't seen me in several days.

By the time I noticed and returned the missed calls, apparently my mom was just about ready to call the police.

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#373

Post by Noumenon72 »

mendigou wrote: post #358
ARandomerDude wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But disproven by my 20-ish years of safely texting while driving. You have to be smart about it but it can be done safely.

The only smart thing is not doing it. I know people who regularly drunk-drove for 10+ years without accidents. Are they being smart about it too? Please don't put other people's life at risk because you feel smarter. Don't text and drive.

If you could turn off being drunk at any point when you felt you needed more concentration -- foggy night, urge to speed, narrow turns -- it would be far safer to drive when drunk.

There are many reasons why the chart of auto fatalities is dominated by those with less than high school degrees[1], but one is that accurate risk assessment and good choices matter. For example, "Should I send a text one word at a time once an hour on a straight road going through Nebraska in broad daylight, or should I text continually with both hands in heavy traffic?" The first is a risk easily worth taking, even with other people's lives.

1. https://schultzmyers.com/low-income-missourians-more-likely-...

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#374

Post by oceanghost »

dboreham wrote: post #369
oceanghost wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I left one story out of my little rant-- which was my ex-wife would do exactly what you described. She would text and then if I hadn't responded in a few minutes she'd call the receptionist and/or my desk phone. It was infuriating because she rarely answered a text in less than a few hours. She said that it upset her when she couldn't reach me--and that's one of the reasons she's an ex-wife. Her go to manipulation…

Quick note (probably too late) that the behavior you describe is a classic symptom of something the DSM-5 calls "Borderline Personality Disorder".

My brother who is a mental health professional says she's an avoidant-- but I think she may be both frankly.

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#375

Post by jzawodn »

ghaff wrote: post #303
jzawodn wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What the actual...? One would hope the cops at least apologized for nearly destroying your front door all because you didn't answer the door. It's not like they had a warrant for your arrest or something!

Did you read the part where his mother made the 911 call?

Yes. So she should pay. :-)

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#376

Post by Celebros »

anthk wrote: post #327
qwertox wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you visit Reddit?

I switched from visiting Reddit from the web/phone client to a Gopher proxy with Lynx (in order to view the submitted sites in the posts): gopher://gopherddit.com Also, my NNTP list: alt.ascii-art alt.folklore.computers alt.os.linux.slackware alt.sys.pdp10 comp.infosystems.gopher comp.lang.forth comp.lang.perl comp.lang.perl.announce comp.lang.perl.faq comp.lang.perl.misc comp.lang.perl.moderated comp.lang.perl.modul…

Wow haven’t thought about Gopher in forever. I still prefer to interact with the command line instead of the GUI for most things. I’ll have to give that a try.

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#377

Post by dwighttk »

serf wrote: post #368
dwighttk wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sorry man. I’m on silent 100% of the time (though I could imagine turning the ringer on for a specific phone call) Almost everyone texts or emails and I’ve never had anyone freak out if I didn’t reply quickly.

>Almost everyone texts or emails and I’ve never had anyone freak out if I didn’t reply quickly. email/text response time is very much a metric on many employee evaluation systems. you might not have gotten anyone to 'freak out', but I guarantee that slow response times will get you lower performance reviews at many establishments. (should it? absolutely not, I am entirely against the practice.)

Email is not used in my job. There’s some texting but mostly face to face.

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#378

Post by dwighttk »

ghaff wrote: post #293
dwighttk wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason I take my phone with me on hikes is for the camera. One day I’d like to get a dumbcamera and leave my phone behind more. I don’t take a ton of pictures but do like to have the option.

I admit I use the GPS although I don't typically depend on it. (At least for anything serious.)

I’d like to get to places that I’d want to use gps. Most of my hikes are on pretty clear trails that I know.

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#379

Post by Celebros »

What I miss the most of my coming of age time during the 90s is the process of logging on and off.

Once I got my Cleveland Freenet Account I loved popping on after school to check my email (which at that point was really just personal messages from a few friends) and stopping by IRC to chat.

The limiting factor of dinner time and needing to free up the phone lines was great to limit daily use.

Snowden’s _Permanent Record_ did a nice job capturing this feeling for those around 40.

Re: Life before smartphones (2020)

#380

Post by foobiekr »

krylon wrote: post #57

Now I feel old. I remember vividly running around with my first camera, looking for objects worthy of being photographed. The film cost money, so did developing it into pictures. I really had to weigh the pros and cons of taking a particular picture. And in a class of ~25 kids, I was one of three who owned a camera. Not that it was such a luxury item, but most people weren't into that. These days, (nearly) everyone c…

As my first camera was a Kodak Disc, I have the nice experience that literally every digital camera has been better than my first film camera.
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