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The author went somewhere totally different than I thought they would here. Their argument boils down to “smartphones are shitty computers with too many limitat

The author went somewhere totally different than I thought they would here. Their argument boils down to “smartphones are shitty computers with too many limitations”. This is a fair point but arguably not the main one. IMO the real reason smartphones suck is that they are attention sucking, dopamine delivery systems. A logical evolution of a slot machine. I hate mine yet here I am yelling into the internet on it...

om3n 7y ago
> IMO the real reason smartphones suck is that they are attention sucking, dopamine delivery systems. I think he did make this same argument, in point 1: > Smartphones are unapologetically devices for consumption
s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
You're in control of how you use it. Limit yourself to utility apps and you won't have a problem. Bonus is your battery should never be dead when you really need it.
- looeee 7y ago
  This argument doesn't work, especially on a societal level. Tech companies are spending millions on researching how to make people addicted to their apps, and it's working. If you can overcome that, good for you. But for society at large, it's working extremely well and should be regulated as a society wide mental health issue, just as cigarettes and pollution need to be regulated to prevent lung cancer.
  - itsokimbatman 7y ago
    How would you recommend regulating this? Not saying it's a bad idea, but the tech industry moves so fast I'm not sure regulation would be able to keep up.
- the_common_man 7y ago
  I honestly don't think humans can control their urge. It's like surrounding kids with candy. At some point we have to regulate it for the greater good ( I think sugar should be regulated like tobacco )
  - s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
    The war on drugs failed, you want to go to war with everything else humans can abuse? In the end it's up to the person to practice self-control, passing the buck to the government just ends up in less freedom and more black markets.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >You're in control of how you use it. Limit yourself to utility apps and you won't have a problem. It's a methodological error to overestimate the power of humans as animals to resist reward systems such as these. Yes, it can be done, but it's difficult, and most will fail (and there are other factors making it even more difficult, e.g. people tired from work, depression, children that have less developed self control or sense of purpose, etc).
  - s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
    I'm not sure what you and others are suggesting though. Instead of the user limiting time on their own phone, you want the government to? Or you want the government to restrict certain practices from certain app makers? There are many many many things people abuse and many many many industries that make their products as addictive as possible, that's the world we live in. Go after the caffeine and sugar industry if you want to rid the most humans of addiction.
baxtr 7y ago
Sounds like a mainframe dude who says he doesn’t like PCs
buboard 7y ago
question is your desktop/laptop computer less of an attention sucking dopamine delivery system?
- vikingcaffiene 7y ago
  Yes.
- rlue 7y ago
  You're thinking of your browser. There's a lot more to be done on a computer.
cortic 7y ago
>attention sucking, dopamine delivery systems I've been siting here for five minutes, trying to think about something, anything, that is good and doesn't fit that description. Everything people like, from exercise to socializing, shopping to charity. Literally everything that i do and that i like can be summed up as some form of attention sucking, dopamine delivery system.
- headsoup 7y ago
  Just be careful to draw the distinction between a dopamine hit as a reward for genuine effort and one delivered deliberately to reinforce an action...
  - cortic 7y ago
    so, a headsoup approved dopamine rewards system? Which is of course different from all other types, 'because'.
  - buboard 7y ago
    Actually all reward systems work the same. There is no distinction between reward that is deemed good and bad for society.
    - headsoup 7y ago
      Pokies/slot machines?
    - taneq 7y ago
      I don't think parent is saying the mechanism is different, just that we need to distinguish the effects.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  I prefer the term "skinner box". Yes, many pleasurable experiences deliver dopamine—it's a perfectly fine brain function. What's problematic are products that take advantage of this very specific bug in our psychology to trick us into performing a repetitive action for no long-term fulfillment.
Kaiyou 7y ago
It's like that because of the decisions you made (and the apps you installed). My smartphone isn't like that. At all.
arethuza 7y ago
"smartphones are shitty computers with too many limitations" First ever computer I used was a Sinclair ZX 80 - the computing power, storage and connectivity of current mobile devices seem like something out of a science fiction story compared to that.
duxup 7y ago
Yeah it is a bit shocking when I find myself just by default disengaging from life ... to look at my phone for no reason.
huis 7y ago
I was a little shocked that my new smartphone didn't have a notification LED. But actually this is one of the best 'features' of the device.
- buboard 7y ago
  I dont really get notification mania either. We switched from voice calls to text to avoid constant distractions and now this. Thankfully they are easy to turn off
pwinnski 7y ago
Smartphones are attention-sucking dopamine delivery systems if you let them be. Deleting or never-installing social media apps does a lot to reduce those effects, though.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Crinus 7y ago
I agree with the posted article more, but i see your stance (and the others who echo your stance) as equally valid. I think the difference between the two is how you already have fallen into using smartphones. My POV and i guess the author's is from people who do not really use smartphones much (personally i never use any app, i only use twitter and other social sites from the desktop via the web browser and that sporadically, i never allow any site or app to push notifications and my only use for my smartphone outside being a phone to make and receive calls is to read websites and ebooks). But i suspect if you consider smartphones an essential part of your life (i don't, i only carry it with me just in case something happens since i am in a foreign country, but at my home i could regularly forget it at my place - even forget to recharge it for days) then you can see other negative aspects past those mentioned in the article. So essentially, it isn't really that "smartphones are shitty computers with too many limitations" vs "smartphones are sucking, dopamine delivery systems" but "smartphones are shitty computers with too many limitations and sucking, dopamine delivery systems". It is only your POV that changes which one you see as worse.
- dangus 7y ago
  I could see someone who gets a lot of use out of a smartphone feeling that normal computers are more limiting. After all, my computer can't call a rideshare, it can't navigate, it can't call my mom, it can't connect to the Internet outside my home or a coffee shop, it can't take photos and videos, it can't fit in my pocket, it can't pay for things in a store, it can't deposit checks, it can't measure objects in my house, it doesn't know where north, south, east, west, up, or down are, and it can't stay in a useful standby mode all day without draining out the battery, it can't get wet without damaging it, it can't play music for me while I'm outside exercising, it can't scan QR codes, it can't be used as a boarding pass or show ticket, it can't tell my security system when I've left the house...
  - Crinus 7y ago
    Most of those (e.g. having a GPS, being able to deposit checks, measuring objects, making calls, playing music, etc) do not affect desktop computers though, which is the issues i and apparently the author of the linked article have with smartphones.
CaptainZapp 7y ago
I got the new rendition of the Nokia 8110 exactly to avoid what you describe. And generally speaking it's working. Unfortunately KaiOS at this point is so buggy and partially so annoying that it's borderline unusable (for example, after a software udate it can't do umlauts, which is pretty bad for the German language region and there are literally dozens of such bugs and annoyances). I'm still hanging in there, but the frustration level is so high that I'll probably need to switch phones. An idea, which I loath. What I will do if there's just no other way I decided not to install any apps (except for the absolute minimum, i.e. banking), let alone games. Another option would be to switch back to a seriously dumb phone, but the problem there is that I couldn't find any one that offers a 4G hot spot. And that would be a minimum requirement. In addition to what you describe, and which I think is the most important reason to dislike smartphones, there's the privacy landmine to consider.

om3n 7y ago

> IMO the real reason smartphones suck is that they are attention sucking, dopamine delivery systems. I think he did make this same argument, in point 1: > Smartphones are unapologetically devices for consumption

s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago

You're in control of how you use it. Limit yourself to utility apps and you won't have a problem. Bonus is your battery should never be dead when you really need it.

looeee 7y ago
This argument doesn't work, especially on a societal level. Tech companies are spending millions on researching how to make people addicted to their apps, and it's working. If you can overcome that, good for you. But for society at large, it's working extremely well and should be regulated as a society wide mental health issue, just as cigarettes and pollution need to be regulated to prevent lung cancer.
- itsokimbatman 7y ago
  How would you recommend regulating this? Not saying it's a bad idea, but the tech industry moves so fast I'm not sure regulation would be able to keep up.
the_common_man 7y ago
I honestly don't think humans can control their urge. It's like surrounding kids with candy. At some point we have to regulate it for the greater good ( I think sugar should be regulated like tobacco )
- s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
  The war on drugs failed, you want to go to war with everything else humans can abuse? In the end it's up to the person to practice self-control, passing the buck to the government just ends up in less freedom and more black markets.
coldtea 7y ago
>You're in control of how you use it. Limit yourself to utility apps and you won't have a problem. It's a methodological error to overestimate the power of humans as animals to resist reward systems such as these. Yes, it can be done, but it's difficult, and most will fail (and there are other factors making it even more difficult, e.g. people tired from work, depression, children that have less developed self control or sense of purpose, etc).
- s_y_n_t_a_x 7y ago
  I'm not sure what you and others are suggesting though. Instead of the user limiting time on their own phone, you want the government to? Or you want the government to restrict certain practices from certain app makers? There are many many many things people abuse and many many many industries that make their products as addictive as possible, that's the world we live in. Go after the caffeine and sugar industry if you want to rid the most humans of addiction.

baxtr 7y ago

Sounds like a mainframe dude who says he doesn’t like PCs

buboard 7y ago

question is your desktop/laptop computer less of an attention sucking dopamine delivery system?

vikingcaffiene 7y ago
Yes.
rlue 7y ago
You're thinking of your browser. There's a lot more to be done on a computer.

cortic 7y ago

>attention sucking, dopamine delivery systems I've been siting here for five minutes, trying to think about something, anything, that is good and doesn't fit that description. Everything people like, from exercise to socializing, shopping to charity. Literally everything that i do and that i like can be summed up as some form of attention sucking, dopamine delivery system.

headsoup 7y ago
Just be careful to draw the distinction between a dopamine hit as a reward for genuine effort and one delivered deliberately to reinforce an action...
- cortic 7y ago
  so, a headsoup approved dopamine rewards system? Which is of course different from all other types, 'because'.
- buboard 7y ago
  Actually all reward systems work the same. There is no distinction between reward that is deemed good and bad for society.
  - headsoup 7y ago
    Pokies/slot machines?
  - taneq 7y ago
    I don't think parent is saying the mechanism is different, just that we need to distinguish the effects.
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
I prefer the term "skinner box". Yes, many pleasurable experiences deliver dopamine—it's a perfectly fine brain function. What's problematic are products that take advantage of this very specific bug in our psychology to trick us into performing a repetitive action for no long-term fulfillment.

Kaiyou 7y ago

It's like that because of the decisions you made (and the apps you installed). My smartphone isn't like that. At all.

arethuza 7y ago

"smartphones are shitty computers with too many limitations" First ever computer I used was a Sinclair ZX 80 - the computing power, storage and connectivity of current mobile devices seem like something out of a science fiction story compared to that.

duxup 7y ago

Yeah it is a bit shocking when I find myself just by default disengaging from life ... to look at my phone for no reason.

huis 7y ago

I was a little shocked that my new smartphone didn't have a notification LED. But actually this is one of the best 'features' of the device.

buboard 7y ago
I dont really get notification mania either. We switched from voice calls to text to avoid constant distractions and now this. Thankfully they are easy to turn off

pwinnski 7y ago

Smartphones are attention-sucking dopamine delivery systems if you let them be. Deleting or never-installing social media apps does a lot to reduce those effects, though.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

Crinus 7y ago

I agree with the posted article more, but i see your stance (and the others who echo your stance) as equally valid. I think the difference between the two is how you already have fallen into using smartphones. My POV and i guess the author's is from people who do not really use smartphones much (personally i never use any app, i only use twitter and other social sites from the desktop via the web browser and that sporadically, i never allow any site or app to push notifications and my only use for my smartphone outside being a phone to make and receive calls is to read websites and ebooks). But i suspect if you consider smartphones an essential part of your life (i don't, i only carry it with me just in case something happens since i am in a foreign country, but at my home i could regularly forget it at my place - even forget to recharge it for days) then you can see other negative aspects past those mentioned in the article. So essentially, it isn't really that "smartphones are shitty computers with too many limitations" vs "smartphones are sucking, dopamine delivery systems" but "smartphones are shitty computers with too many limitations and sucking, dopamine delivery systems". It is only your POV that changes which one you see as worse.

dangus 7y ago
I could see someone who gets a lot of use out of a smartphone feeling that normal computers are more limiting. After all, my computer can't call a rideshare, it can't navigate, it can't call my mom, it can't connect to the Internet outside my home or a coffee shop, it can't take photos and videos, it can't fit in my pocket, it can't pay for things in a store, it can't deposit checks, it can't measure objects in my house, it doesn't know where north, south, east, west, up, or down are, and it can't stay in a useful standby mode all day without draining out the battery, it can't get wet without damaging it, it can't play music for me while I'm outside exercising, it can't scan QR codes, it can't be used as a boarding pass or show ticket, it can't tell my security system when I've left the house...
- Crinus 7y ago
  Most of those (e.g. having a GPS, being able to deposit checks, measuring objects, making calls, playing music, etc) do not affect desktop computers though, which is the issues i and apparently the author of the linked article have with smartphones.

CaptainZapp 7y ago

I got the new rendition of the Nokia 8110 exactly to avoid what you describe. And generally speaking it's working. Unfortunately KaiOS at this point is so buggy and partially so annoying that it's borderline unusable (for example, after a software udate it can't do umlauts, which is pretty bad for the German language region and there are literally dozens of such bugs and annoyances). I'm still hanging in there, but the frustration level is so high that I'll probably need to switch phones. An idea, which I loath. What I will do if there's just no other way I decided not to install any apps (except for the absolute minimum, i.e. banking), let alone games. Another option would be to switch back to a seriously dumb phone, but the problem there is that I couldn't find any one that offers a 4G hot spot. And that would be a minimum requirement. In addition to what you describe, and which I think is the most important reason to dislike smartphones, there's the privacy landmine to consider.