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Not bad, getting famed novelist Jonathan Franzen to write your book review! Sherry does noble work and it deserves wide recognition and readership. I can't say
by brianstorms 11y ago
Not bad, getting famed novelist Jonathan Franzen to write your book review! Sherry does noble work and it deserves wide recognition and readership.
I can't say I am hopeful, but I do hope that society's current preoccupation with mobile devices will start to get old, and after a few years people will begin to realize how negatively they're affecting everyday life and interpersonal interactions. Perhaps it will become "cool" to not have a device, or, it will be societally uncool to use it during meals or at restaurants, like cigarettes have become. I kind of hope that the smartphone market splits soon into two camps, one the same old machines that Apple/Samsung etc pump out, and another camp of slightly less smart, less feature-rich phones, fewer apps, designed to be used occasionally not every damn second of the day... phones that are more about infrequent checks on status and more about making calls and occasional text conversations. Devices that start giving your life back to you. I know, dream on. But as the smartphone owner population gets demographically older, I suspect you will start seeing something like this happen.
It would be interesting to design a user interface that was easy to use, but was designed in such a way to dissuade you from constant use. Perhaps it might reward you the less you used it.
- volaski 11y agoI doubt it will happen, if human beings were such rational creatures, we would have all quit watching TV and playing video games (I have, but I'm sure I'm the minority, and I think the ratio of people who end up using those vintage phones you mention will be much lower than those who don't watch TV, because of network effect). I have seen plenty of super addictive technologies die off if the value it provides is pure entertainment, but I have never seen any technology that provides clear benefit go away just because it has side effects--people who realize the side effect and want to do something about it will find a way to discipline themselves, but most people are not disciplined enough to be able to do that.