>> Because they change the way we acquire knowledge. Anyone who has taken trips to foreign countries before smartphones and GPS would have been forced to talk t

>> Because they change the way we acquire knowledge. Anyone who has taken trips to foreign countries before smartphones and GPS would have been forced to talk to _people_. This is such an excellent point, because it starts to bring into focus the really terrible problem of smartphones: There's nowhere to escape. The minds you encounter now, of people of any age, whose brain-meat is capable of looking you in the eye and not checking their phone for 5 minutes, are rare. It is lonelier than it was when Lonely Planet was the dog-eared guidebook. Even then, I prided myself on not checking guide books before I went. That attitude's been lost (and more importantly, the adventure and discovery has been lost) because it's virtually impossible to avoid seeing the weather and being sold ads in your pocket the moment you buy a ticket anywhere. That particular experience of traveling, meeting people, having unplanned experiences, getting lost in the world -- it really encapsulates all of the things we've lost to this hypnotic online lifestyle in one fell swoop. And it's so central to the human experience, it's fuckin terrifying to me what these new human-bots are going to be like without understanding or sympathy for it. >> You can't see the water your swimming in Neither can any of us. But I'm glad my folks banned me from watching too much TV, and told me it would rot my brain. I'm pretty disgusted with the Yuppie generation that raised children by handing them smartphones to stop them from crying, and never checked in to see if their kids were being raised to think or not. I still find those people, look in the eyes of another new human and learn things. It's just hard, and when you meet them it's like meeting someone in a wasteland. You're just happy to see each other. But hey, I was at a bar a few nights ago and chatting with a girl and her boyfriend who were very shy, but she told me about her art show (all promoted online) and I said I'd bring some friends. And as I walked away I heard her say, "see?! What did I tell you! Going out and meeting people in person!" And... yeah, I'm sad.