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Agreed. The problem here is not the smartphone per se, but our increasing dependence on it and the "outsourcing" of our thinking and desires to our smartphone.
by fortani 9y ago
Agreed.
The problem here is not the smartphone per se, but our increasing dependence on it and the "outsourcing" of our thinking and desires to our smartphone.
Imagine the follow scenario:
* Need to get to a place? Just ask Google Maps, no need to think.
* Need to decide what and where to eat? Don't need to think, just use an app that optimizes for health/variety/preferences/budget and you don't even need to leave the house, just it delivered right to your doorstep.
* Need to think deeply about something? Just Google for the right articles. No need to waste time thinking.
* Feeling bored? Just consume a game, song, movie, Reddit/Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/etc.
* Don't know what to do next week? Have an app that auto-suggests what you can do based on your preferences, your friends' schedules, activities in your city, past user ratings for an event, etc. Taking this further, have an AI virtual assistant that plans your entire year's activities.
* Need to date someone? Use an AI virtual assistant (built with the latest in Natural Language Processing and AI technology that optimizes for the right words to use, the correct responses, the best times to send a message, the best jokes to be using, the best emotions to elicit) that has already done all the swiping on Tinder/OKCupid and done all the texting conversations to set you up on a date.
When this point in the future arrives, without a smartphone, you would become almost feel like an empty shell (or even suicidal). Your very existence becomes tied in to the smartphone. Your daily whims/desires becomes dependent on the smartphone.
If you were given a life sentence: give up an arm or a leg, or give up the right to own or use a smartphone for life. I think increasingly in time, people would rather give up an arm or a leg than give up a smartphone for life.
The question then becomes: Do you own a smartphone, or does the smartphone own you?
- alansammarone 9y agoI don't think all of these are a problem per se. The problem is (and probably always was) people with empty minds. Sure, now they can fill it more easily with junk, but the whole point of technology is to make life easier after all. If you're learning or working on something you love and you want to have more time to do, its a perfectly reasonable choice to outsource "what I'm I going to eat next" or "how do you I get from A to B". The problem is not having anything that you love to learn/work on.
- gcvbvghb 9y ago> The problem is (and probably always was) people with empty minds. And of course you think you’re in the other camp, don’t you? How cute.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoThe point is, smartphones are not magically holding people back, who would otherwise be creative and do cool stuff. In fact, it's pretty much the opposite, as even the constant stream of shit Internet content eventually exposes you to e.g. DIY tutorials in precisely your favourite area. Nevertheless, some people have less of intellectual lives than others, and (as GP argues and I agree with) whatever the reason, it's unlikely technology is to blame for that.
- ben_w 9y agoThey (or, rather, the software they connect to) are holding me back from precisely that. If there was no social media, the novel I’m writing would have been done a year ago.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoIt wouldn't. You would spend a lot of time watching TV, reading novels, or hanging out in the bar.
- walterstucco 9y agoAt one point you stop watching TV, because there are no more new things to watch, you stop reading novels because they aren't novel anymore, you stop going to the bar because there's a fixed amount of alcohol you can consume, it costs money, the bar has opening hours. Smartphone follows you everywhere, all the time.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoA smartphone has only so much battery. It's best suited for frequent but short uses. If you want to replace TV, novels and bars with social media, your best bet is still the PC.