An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you • Hacker News Board

Re: An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you

#91

Post by ImprobableTruth » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 3:21 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #47

DecoPerson wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a logical fallacy. If you increase the dosage of mercury, it'll eventually be deadly. In the same vein, smart phones, social media, etc are entirely different beasts to books, radio and even television.

And we'll adjust, as we always do. It's fine to have this discussion, but the position that it can "destroy you" and comparing it to a lethal dosage of mercury is on the extreme end of the discussion.

>And we'll adjust, as we always do

I don't understand this line of thinking. Sure, it may not be the literal end of the world, but that doesn't mean that it won't cause a lot of damage before people 'adapt'. People have always adapted to wars, but that doesn't mean that the world wars weren't absolutely catastrophic.

And while I don't think that smartphones will 'destroy you', I think there's a good chance that it can both be very corrosive in all sorts of manners. I think smartphones are a lot more potent at sedating people and making them detached than novels ever could hope to be, which can have a very harmful impact on society at large.

Re: An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you

#92

Post by nradov » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 3:21 PM UTC

altitudinous wrote: post #85

1123581321 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phones are useful when that predictability breaks down, especially when others are involved in the changing plans.

That is why it is so liberating.

Why is it liberating? I'm old enough that I used to live that way as a youth because I didn't have a cell phone. It was an annoying waste of time with zero benefits.

Re: An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you

#93

Post by mastre_ » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 3:23 PM UTC

altitudinous wrote: post #58

An interesting experiment is to leave your phone at home when you go out. Try it. I don't mean take your phone anyway but don't use it. That is not the same thing. The value in this experiment is not to have your phone to fall back on. Initially you feel anxiety, but it soon becomes quite liberating. Having to look at road signs to navigate, relying on personal interaction or reading notices to find things out etc et…

I am a runner and when I go for runs I don't take my phone with me. I have a Garmin watch that has music storage (which I also use for podcasts & audiobooks) and some basic navigation/mapping functionality (which I've never used). I run semi-long distances, up to and above a half marathon for training runs, and never really felt like I needed my phone. I guess it would be useful for emergencies, and when I ride my roadbike I do have it with me, but that's primarily because riding is more dangerous. The main thing I miss on my runs w/o a phone is snapping a pic every now and then. I would not use it for anything else as I don't make any stops (I run non-stop), and quite often I don't even wear headphones as I like to enjoy the sounds around me.

I suggest you guys try it. And yes, that includes if you don't run/jog, _try_ that as well, phone or not.

Re: An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you

#94

Post by swiley » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 3:23 PM UTC

altitudinous wrote: post #58

An interesting experiment is to leave your phone at home when you go out. Try it. I don't mean take your phone anyway but don't use it. That is not the same thing. The value in this experiment is not to have your phone to fall back on. Initially you feel anxiety, but it soon becomes quite liberating. Having to look at road signs to navigate, relying on personal interaction or reading notices to find things out etc et…

You can switch to the PinePhone and do this if you still want a portable computer. Last time I checked there still isn't a turn by turn navigation program (although you can run gnome maps, which will give you a list of directions to memorize.)

Re: An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you

#95

Post by eMSF » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 3:25 PM UTC

hnarn wrote: post #64

altitudinous wrote: post #58

An interesting experiment is to leave your phone at home when you go out. Try it. I don't mean take your phone anyway but don't use it. That is not the same thing. The value in this experiment is not to have your phone to fall back on. Initially you feel anxiety, but it soon becomes quite liberating. Having to look at road signs to navigate, relying on personal interaction or reading notices to find things out etc et…

This whole idea that being without a phone is somehow liberating — and just not using it is definitely not as pure and wholly amazing as being completely without it — is to me a silly and predictable response to the very real drawbacks of high tech modern life. Phones have value. That’s why people use them. Pretending they don’t and that we’re all brainwashed doesn’t change that reality. Here’s an example: I want to…

Why would you walk out the door before checking that the store is open, if the whole point of the excursion is to visit the store (and in this case, you don't have an idea when it is open)?

Re: An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you

#96

Post by renewiltord » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 3:25 PM UTC

altitudinous wrote: post #58

An interesting experiment is to leave your phone at home when you go out. Try it. I don't mean take your phone anyway but don't use it. That is not the same thing. The value in this experiment is not to have your phone to fall back on. Initially you feel anxiety, but it soon becomes quite liberating. Having to look at road signs to navigate, relying on personal interaction or reading notices to find things out etc et…

I've had this accidentally happen because I run out of charge (not very diligent charging) and it's actually not all that much more fun.

I'm pretty good with not using my phone, though.

Re: An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you

#97

Post by wholinator2 » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 3:25 PM UTC

nxc18 wrote: post #86

altitudinous wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is why it is so liberating.

What is it liberating you from? Your own empowerment?

Basically yeah, but I would rephrase it as liberation from constant reliance, or from always having the perfect answer, from a lessened use of ones mind, from necessary human interaction to ask anyone a question, or from spending any precious second not maximizing the amount of information and "productivity" you can achieve.

It's about being a human, in an environment, around other humans, with time to spare for original thoughts and just to enjoy being alive. I expect many people on this forum are the "productivity" and "maximizing" type. Not that there's anything wrong with that! We need those people! But I think we might all be able to benefit from truly relying on ourselves in difficult situations, instead of just asking the answer box to help us avoid any annoyance or unnecessary difficulty.

If you wish your life to be a perfectly smooth series of directions given by a silicon hivemind, feel free friend. Sometimes the bumps and the dirt are what make life worth living though. Sometimes the empathy of unnecessary difficult situations can create bonds and perspective that shiny chrome smoothness cannot. Persistent smooth perfect answers have their purpose and we wouldn't have invented it if not for its use but I find the rather strong opposition to experiencing and exploring one's humanity, whether this way or that, rather frightening. Almost sounds like it's the chrome talking and not the human.

Re: An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you

#98

Post by SN76477 » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 3:27 PM UTC

jhbadger wrote: post #27

I'm old enough to remember when it was TV that was supposedly wasting the time and destroying the youth. Before that, it was comic books. And movies. And even in the 19th century people were complaining about novels. Yes, in theory it is better if people do something constructive rather than just enjoy entertainment. But people can't be 100% in productive mode 100% of the time.

I wonder if productivity per capita has went down?

Re: An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you

#99

Post by zabardasth » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 3:29 PM UTC

The neoluddite take is kind of like beating a dead horse. Smartphones are a tool; how you use this tool is entirely dependent on how disciplined your mind is. Not everyone who has their first sip of alcohol will become an alcoholic. It is the same for smartphones.

The article’s take on China is weird too; do they not have smartphones? The author probably wrote the article on a Huawei phone that the vast majority of Chinese people use every day.

Re: An open letter to India’s youth: Get off that smartphone. It can destroy you

#100

Post by saagarjha » Sat, Oct 24, 2020, 3:35 PM UTC

altitudinous wrote: post #80

hnarn wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire point is that you don’t need a phone to do any of this, just like you don’t need a spike gun if you have a hammer when building a house. If you feel that liberates you, go ahead and do whatever you want, but when you’re preaching to others about how they’re somehow going against our innate human nature, that’s when I get a bit annoyed. Don’t you think it’s pretty obvious that this exact line of reasoning c…

You seem to be trying to describe the point of my own post to me, I don't get why you would do that. I know the point of my own post. As I have just written to someone else above - you are just proving the OP original article. Why not just try something different rather than pointlessly arguing about the intricacies of it all on the internet..

I see nothing in that post that is explaining anything other than why you calling being without a smartphone as liberating as what others may call “I have free time to waste”. Now, you can argue that maybe I should stop and smell the flowers sometimes, but usually when I have to do something it is work and I would much rather get it done as quickly as possible with the tools I have at my disposal.