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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

#71

Post by tocs3 »

yetanother12345 wrote: post #64
XorNot wrote: 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…

> my memory of the world pre-smartphone was that newspapers and magazines were everywhere May I add... Television!

There were more real world options. Roller skating rinks, malls (a sign of the online world to come but still real world), water skiing. Also, there was real content in a lot of the older media (Scientific American,Popular Mechanics pre 90s for example) even television news showed some actual news. It just all went from some actual content, expensive, fraught with difficulties to get right (what is truth anyway), to empty calories, cheap, easy to produce, and just more profitable.

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

#73

Post by faeriechangling »

tocs3 wrote: post #68
XorNot wrote: 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…

In my experience the older styles media were consumed in "down time" even if it was for a minute or two at work. People (in my memory, I'm 50+yo) did more real life things. There were malls, movie theaters, skating rings, box stores. These were a herald of things to come on the internet. This was also the last days of interesting Popular Mechanics and Scientific American.

There was also more standing around literally doing nothing and waiting.

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

#74

Post by miffel »

MrGinkgo wrote: post #61
pizzafeelsright wrote: post #38

Luddites and neoludites and similar Amish type will expand their foothold into different cultures. I personally am going to be adjusting my usage as it is impacting my life and negative ways. I've already added timers and limits and will soon be going to grayscale only. What I do hope for which does not yet exist is the ability to use voice GPT at selective moments with a finger tap of an ear bud. I have noticed a gr…

Can you explain what you mean by "going greyscale only"?

It's setting your phone/screen to stop displaying color, instead just showing everything in greyscale. I believe that on Android you can currently set something like a bedtime for your phone that will stop displaying colors at a certain time, and if you have any time limits for apps then during the last minute before you run out of time it will turn grey too.

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

#75

Post by MrGinkgo »

miffel wrote: post #74
MrGinkgo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain what you mean by "going greyscale only"?

It's setting your phone/screen to stop displaying color, instead just showing everything in greyscale. I believe that on Android you can currently set something like a bedtime for your phone that will stop displaying colors at a certain time, and if you have any time limits for apps then during the last minute before you run out of time it will turn grey too.

Interesting! I'll have to give this a try and see what effect it has on my social media usage. My new years resolution is to use it only 30 minutes a day at max

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

#76

Post by squigz »

Levitz wrote: post #12
XorNot wrote: 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

Laughably wrong.

> nobody punished their children by taking their magazines away.

Also wrong, but less laughably so, as this happened to me (well, with books) :P

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

#77

Post by jmoak3 »

I swapped to https://www.thelightphone.com/ as my phone. According to my iPhone, my daily usage hovered around 7 hours.

It's relatively expensive and a little janky but it's insane how much more time I feel I have in my day. My work has improved (if my commit-calendars are any indication), and I no longer spend time in bed scrolling when I sleep / wake up.

Many people try "Sober October" - I've just completed "Dumbphone December" and I don't think I'll be going back.

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