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I’m more impressed that the first smartphone is only 14 years old and it has changed so much to our lives: - First, it developed the usage of superficial socia

I’m more impressed that the first smartphone is only 14 years old and it has changed so much to our lives: - First, it developed the usage of superficial socialization (lifestyle show-off, body photos, up to lewd behaviors or prostitution, depression for a lot of people, massive societal dopamine addiction), - Second, Youtube was the world wild web of all politics and militant movements, - We’re in a third phase where most of it is under control, not tight but clearly guided, with many people doubting the accuracy of both sides. The phase of defiance. 3 phases (in my opinion) in just a few years, each of them responsible for negative societal shifts (from democratized prostitution to the invasion of Congress), and also positive ones (tech progress, political progress too, to be honest). Who knows what’s next?

scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
That comparison - the smartphone being 14 and the web being 30 really illustrates what a total warp jump it has all been. 15 years from boxy home computers connected to each other, to glowing high resolution pocket computer slabs. And then 15 years from those slabs being something totally new and revolutionary, to literally 50%* of all humans having them on their person at all times. The acceleration has definitely come with a lot of turbulence. If this acceleration is exponential, then what's next is a whole lot more turbulence. (Edit:*originally wrote 80% - I thought it would be higher at this point!)
- capableweb 5y ago
  > to literally 80% of all humans having them on their person at all times. While the number is high, it's not _that_ high (closer to 50%), at least from the sources I could find[1]. Where are you getting the 80% from? - [1] - https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/how-many-phones-are-in-the-world https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/how-many-phones-are-in-the-w... - check the references in the bottom for digging deeper
  - scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
    Sorry, I didn't fact check or anything, point was just that they're commonplace, routine, cheap etc. Just a number I had in my head for some reason.
Radim 5y ago
Allow me to offer an opposing anecdote: smartphone means fuck all to me. It changed nearly nothing in my life. Most of the time I don't even know where my smartphone is (except for car navigation). Do people really consider smartphones "more impressive" / impactful than the World Wide Web?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- wott 5y ago
  > smartphone means fuck all to me. It changed nearly nothing in my life. Sure, that's the same to me, I don't even own one. But that's not how the majority feels and acts. And there's been another acceleration in the last 2-3 years, where more business and, worse, official administrative stuff is pushed on the smartphone (as mobile-first). One fresh anecdote. 2 hours ago, I watched the news, and the presenter was explaining how you didn't actually need to have you Covid Pass on your mobile: "you can have it on paper, on a sheet you know, and then er... you fold it and put it in your pocket, er... like we used to do in ancient times." "Like we used to do in ancient times", she said. And she felt the need to explain how to carry a stupid paper... (she was that close to tell people how many times they should fold it, and how to unfold it.) At home, we were like WTF? For many people, doing everything and the rest on the smartphone has become not only normal, but the primary way of doing, and the only way of doing they know. Other ways are already being marginalised.
  - Radim 5y ago
    I guess you're right. TBH I didn't expect that offering my point of view would unleash such storm of downvotes. Clearly many people consider their phone not only a useful device, but a core part of their identity. To each his own.
- Gibbon1 5y ago
  That computers don't seem to be correlated with productivity improvements is a thing. And also despite the huge valuations of tech companies, their secondary effects on the economy appear to become negative quickly. That's very much unlike for instance GM in the 1950's. Where GM had a huge valuation. And spawned secondary businesses that themselves had large collective valuations.
csomar 5y ago
It's sad you reduced smartphones to their negatives. I did distance myself from social media but here are things I frequently use my smartphone for: - Long distance calls with Skype. It is possible to do a cheap long distance call in a foreign country by just buying some data credit. People can still reach you through your Skype number. Not possible with a feature phone. - Browsing the internet while shopping. Sometimes I find a product that I'm suspicious of its quality. I just do a quick Google search. It's possible to do that with a more advanced feature phone but a smartphone usually have more screen estate. - GPS/Maps. Big one for people living in big cities or while traveling. - Payments, notes, quick photos, recording some calls, emails, etc... There are more to smartphones than social revolutions, though I'm sure it played a certain role in shaping the opinion of people and transmitting the news. And smartphones are out of reach for most governments, and only an AI powered thing can control it (there is just too many users to read all their messages) which won't likely work in the short-term/present or will be irrelevant in the future. With the further democratization of tech, I wouldn't worry much about control. The area where government have the most control is currency and tariffs (control import/export goods). If they failed to curb crypto-currencies, they have little chance with texts/news.
iratewizard 5y ago
I wonder about correlation vs causation. Before the internet existed, many people recognized that America was a declining empire. Advisors to presidents recommended bad courses of action - like aligning ourselves with the rising empire of China - which have only accelerated the decline. The internet is the reflecting pool that shows us what our age of decadence / Weimar republic / kali yuga looks like.
cm2187 5y ago
I think smartphones might be a bit older than that. I remember using some phones in 2003 that already had a basic internet connection (wap), camera, and on which you could check your emails. The first versions of a blackberry that could do emails was 1999 I think. And PalmPilots in 1997. The iphone was just a cooler and more powerful toy.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Blackberry and Treo from the early 2000s certainly gave you "easy to access" email and some limited browsing. The iPhone by the late 2000s though was a very different experience. There was definitely a gen 1 of smartphones and then a gen 2 ushered in by the iPhone.
  - cm2187 5y ago
    That’s certainly true. But you can say the same of early 1990s www. My point is that the idea of having a multifunction tool in your pocket that could connect to the internet came as early as it was technically possible, long before Apple released the iphone.
    - mattl 5y ago
      Probably predating the web. I’d be surprised if you couldn’t get online with a Poquet PC.
- laurent92 5y ago
  The Wap, or even the Blackberry, didn’t have an impact on society. It just enabled a few more usecases for the owner but not for the group - like carrying your work with you. The iPhone 2007, and moreso in 2010, was an entire leap forward: It enabled dozens of usecases at a time, such as using Maps, online dating with photos and geographical distance, writing reviews of restaurants… and it triggered efforts in the dumbification of UI, which meant it went widespread like wildfire, which was the condition sine qua none for social media to become relevant. None of that would have been possible with the Blackberry, its wrong commercialization tactics and its 52 buttons.
adventured 5y ago
> First, it developed the usage of superficial socialization (lifestyle show-off, body photos, up to lewd behaviors or prostitution, depression for a lot of people, massive societal dopamine addiction), No, the smartphone did not do that. All it did was amplify some of those aspects of human nature, making them even easier to project; aspects which were already prevalent across essentially all cultures throughout history. Tabloids, newspapers, magazines, television, radio, photography, automobiles, physical mail, audio recording, the Internet & PCs, books, scrolls, tribal story telling, and on it goes. The smartphone is merely the latest amplifier. Lifestyle showoff? There has never been a time in which people didn't commonly do that. There will never be a time in which people don't commonly do that. It's a core, fundamental system of human evolution and social structure. It's a competition. Humans never stop competing for survival, competing for position in the pecking order of society, competing to get the best mates, and so on. Very high levels of social superficiality did not begin with the smartphone, it has always been there. Body photos? Since the first photographs. Drawing & painting eachother before that. The ancient Romans and Greeks were hyper social, gossiping cats. They could be superficial as all hell. The same was true of the colonial generations in Europe. So were all people throughout all of history and without exception, to the extent they weren't busy trying not to die of deprivation. The smartphone didn't fundamentally change anything. It amplified, and in some cases simplified, what we were already doing.
gremloni 5y ago
I don’t believe democratized prostitution is a negative thing. If anything countries like the US would have far fewer criminals and desperate incels if we just legalized it.

scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago

That comparison - the smartphone being 14 and the web being 30 really illustrates what a total warp jump it has all been. 15 years from boxy home computers connected to each other, to glowing high resolution pocket computer slabs. And then 15 years from those slabs being something totally new and revolutionary, to literally 50%* of all humans having them on their person at all times. The acceleration has definitely come with a lot of turbulence. If this acceleration is exponential, then what's next is a whole lot more turbulence. (Edit:*originally wrote 80% - I thought it would be higher at this point!)

capableweb 5y ago
> to literally 80% of all humans having them on their person at all times. While the number is high, it's not _that_ high (closer to 50%), at least from the sources I could find[1]. Where are you getting the 80% from? - [1] - https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/how-many-phones-are-in-the-world https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/how-many-phones-are-in-the-w... - check the references in the bottom for digging deeper
- scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
  Sorry, I didn't fact check or anything, point was just that they're commonplace, routine, cheap etc. Just a number I had in my head for some reason.

Radim 5y ago

Allow me to offer an opposing anecdote: smartphone means fuck all to me. It changed nearly nothing in my life. Most of the time I don't even know where my smartphone is (except for car navigation). Do people really consider smartphones "more impressive" / impactful than the World Wide Web?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wott 5y ago
> smartphone means fuck all to me. It changed nearly nothing in my life. Sure, that's the same to me, I don't even own one. But that's not how the majority feels and acts. And there's been another acceleration in the last 2-3 years, where more business and, worse, official administrative stuff is pushed on the smartphone (as mobile-first). One fresh anecdote. 2 hours ago, I watched the news, and the presenter was explaining how you didn't actually need to have you Covid Pass on your mobile: "you can have it on paper, on a sheet you know, and then er... you fold it and put it in your pocket, er... like we used to do in ancient times." "Like we used to do in ancient times", she said. And she felt the need to explain how to carry a stupid paper... (she was that close to tell people how many times they should fold it, and how to unfold it.) At home, we were like WTF? For many people, doing everything and the rest on the smartphone has become not only normal, but the primary way of doing, and the only way of doing they know. Other ways are already being marginalised.
- Radim 5y ago
  I guess you're right. TBH I didn't expect that offering my point of view would unleash such storm of downvotes. Clearly many people consider their phone not only a useful device, but a core part of their identity. To each his own.
Gibbon1 5y ago
That computers don't seem to be correlated with productivity improvements is a thing. And also despite the huge valuations of tech companies, their secondary effects on the economy appear to become negative quickly. That's very much unlike for instance GM in the 1950's. Where GM had a huge valuation. And spawned secondary businesses that themselves had large collective valuations.

csomar 5y ago

It's sad you reduced smartphones to their negatives. I did distance myself from social media but here are things I frequently use my smartphone for: - Long distance calls with Skype. It is possible to do a cheap long distance call in a foreign country by just buying some data credit. People can still reach you through your Skype number. Not possible with a feature phone. - Browsing the internet while shopping. Sometimes I find a product that I'm suspicious of its quality. I just do a quick Google search. It's possible to do that with a more advanced feature phone but a smartphone usually have more screen estate. - GPS/Maps. Big one for people living in big cities or while traveling. - Payments, notes, quick photos, recording some calls, emails, etc... There are more to smartphones than social revolutions, though I'm sure it played a certain role in shaping the opinion of people and transmitting the news. And smartphones are out of reach for most governments, and only an AI powered thing can control it (there is just too many users to read all their messages) which won't likely work in the short-term/present or will be irrelevant in the future. With the further democratization of tech, I wouldn't worry much about control. The area where government have the most control is currency and tariffs (control import/export goods). If they failed to curb crypto-currencies, they have little chance with texts/news.

iratewizard 5y ago

I wonder about correlation vs causation. Before the internet existed, many people recognized that America was a declining empire. Advisors to presidents recommended bad courses of action - like aligning ourselves with the rising empire of China - which have only accelerated the decline. The internet is the reflecting pool that shows us what our age of decadence / Weimar republic / kali yuga looks like.

cm2187 5y ago

I think smartphones might be a bit older than that. I remember using some phones in 2003 that already had a basic internet connection (wap), camera, and on which you could check your emails. The first versions of a blackberry that could do emails was 1999 I think. And PalmPilots in 1997. The iphone was just a cooler and more powerful toy.

ghaff 5y ago
Blackberry and Treo from the early 2000s certainly gave you "easy to access" email and some limited browsing. The iPhone by the late 2000s though was a very different experience. There was definitely a gen 1 of smartphones and then a gen 2 ushered in by the iPhone.
- cm2187 5y ago
  That’s certainly true. But you can say the same of early 1990s www. My point is that the idea of having a multifunction tool in your pocket that could connect to the internet came as early as it was technically possible, long before Apple released the iphone.
  - mattl 5y ago
    Probably predating the web. I’d be surprised if you couldn’t get online with a Poquet PC.
laurent92 5y ago
The Wap, or even the Blackberry, didn’t have an impact on society. It just enabled a few more usecases for the owner but not for the group - like carrying your work with you. The iPhone 2007, and moreso in 2010, was an entire leap forward: It enabled dozens of usecases at a time, such as using Maps, online dating with photos and geographical distance, writing reviews of restaurants… and it triggered efforts in the dumbification of UI, which meant it went widespread like wildfire, which was the condition sine qua none for social media to become relevant. None of that would have been possible with the Blackberry, its wrong commercialization tactics and its 52 buttons.

adventured 5y ago

> First, it developed the usage of superficial socialization (lifestyle show-off, body photos, up to lewd behaviors or prostitution, depression for a lot of people, massive societal dopamine addiction), No, the smartphone did not do that. All it did was amplify some of those aspects of human nature, making them even easier to project; aspects which were already prevalent across essentially all cultures throughout history. Tabloids, newspapers, magazines, television, radio, photography, automobiles, physical mail, audio recording, the Internet & PCs, books, scrolls, tribal story telling, and on it goes. The smartphone is merely the latest amplifier. Lifestyle showoff? There has never been a time in which people didn't commonly do that. There will never be a time in which people don't commonly do that. It's a core, fundamental system of human evolution and social structure. It's a competition. Humans never stop competing for survival, competing for position in the pecking order of society, competing to get the best mates, and so on. Very high levels of social superficiality did not begin with the smartphone, it has always been there. Body photos? Since the first photographs. Drawing & painting eachother before that. The ancient Romans and Greeks were hyper social, gossiping cats. They could be superficial as all hell. The same was true of the colonial generations in Europe. So were all people throughout all of history and without exception, to the extent they weren't busy trying not to die of deprivation. The smartphone didn't fundamentally change anything. It amplified, and in some cases simplified, what we were already doing.

gremloni 5y ago

I don’t believe democratized prostitution is a negative thing. If anything countries like the US would have far fewer criminals and desperate incels if we just legalized it.