4 ms·

I mean you are talking about trillions in economic value from those combined industries so while it may not measure up to the pandemic, few things would. And ju

I mean you are talking about trillions in economic value from those combined industries so while it may not measure up to the pandemic, few things would. And just because you personally prefer card games, a few billion people play video games. Also having a cheap phone from 2015 is quite an outlier. I absolutely get wanting to moderate tech use and I make full use of the digital wellness limiters to cut down on social media and interruptions, but phones are just so damn useful for just about everything in modern life. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater a bit there, no?

AussieWog93 4y ago
>phones are just so damn useful for just about everything in modern life Honestly, I'm not sure how true that is. I got rid of my smartphone just before my daughter was born (she's turning 2 this month) and there has never been a single point where I've regretted it. That's not to say I avoid Android entirely. I've still got a tablet at home for Netflix/Chromecast, and we'll use my wife's phone in the car for Google Maps, but that's about it. There really is no need to be 100% connected 24/7.
- dougmwne 4y ago
  Like, you could also give up electricity, indoor plumbing or motorized transport if you really wanted to and manage to arrange your life so you don't regret it. You are basically reliant on your wife for accessing any kind of digital service without a website, communicating with anyone, or any computing whatsoever when not at home. For most that is giving up on staggering utility, but I know people who prefer to ride horses still, so different strokes of course.
  - AussieWog93 4y ago
    I don't think you can really compare electricity or indoor plumbing (unobtrusive technology) to smartphones (extremely obtrusive technology). I still use computers and the internet, including Android devices, at home and work (quite non-trivially, actually - I am my family's sole provider and 100% of that income comes from a mix of online business and remote consulting) and I'll still talk to friends, family and employees via SMS or occasionally voice. Genuinely, man, as someone who has actually done it, you miss out on absolutely nothing and gain so much.
- theelous3 4y ago
  So "I make my wife do it" is the loophole. Classy.
  - AussieWog93 4y ago
    Did you actually read the comment you're responding to?
    - dang 4y ago
      Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - dang 4y ago
    Please don't cross into personal attack, snark, or name-calling. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
usr1106 4y ago
> Also having a cheap phone from 2015 is quite an outlier. Nobody would deny that, at least not in Europe, North America etc. But I don't think I miss a lot of "modern civilization" by not participating in evey aspect of surveillance capitalism and used mostly apps from F-Droid. Remember that it was possible to fly to the moon in 1970 with less than a Megabyte of memory. The efficiency of additional resources poured into scientific seems to go down all the time. Not at all sure it is worth ruining the planet by ever increasing resource usage for small gains in knowledge.

AussieWog93 4y ago

>phones are just so damn useful for just about everything in modern life Honestly, I'm not sure how true that is. I got rid of my smartphone just before my daughter was born (she's turning 2 this month) and there has never been a single point where I've regretted it. That's not to say I avoid Android entirely. I've still got a tablet at home for Netflix/Chromecast, and we'll use my wife's phone in the car for Google Maps, but that's about it. There really is no need to be 100% connected 24/7.

dougmwne 4y ago
Like, you could also give up electricity, indoor plumbing or motorized transport if you really wanted to and manage to arrange your life so you don't regret it. You are basically reliant on your wife for accessing any kind of digital service without a website, communicating with anyone, or any computing whatsoever when not at home. For most that is giving up on staggering utility, but I know people who prefer to ride horses still, so different strokes of course.
- AussieWog93 4y ago
  I don't think you can really compare electricity or indoor plumbing (unobtrusive technology) to smartphones (extremely obtrusive technology). I still use computers and the internet, including Android devices, at home and work (quite non-trivially, actually - I am my family's sole provider and 100% of that income comes from a mix of online business and remote consulting) and I'll still talk to friends, family and employees via SMS or occasionally voice. Genuinely, man, as someone who has actually done it, you miss out on absolutely nothing and gain so much.
theelous3 4y ago
So "I make my wife do it" is the loophole. Classy.
- AussieWog93 4y ago
  Did you actually read the comment you're responding to?
  - dang 4y ago
    Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 4y ago
  Please don't cross into personal attack, snark, or name-calling. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

usr1106 4y ago

> Also having a cheap phone from 2015 is quite an outlier. Nobody would deny that, at least not in Europe, North America etc. But I don't think I miss a lot of "modern civilization" by not participating in evey aspect of surveillance capitalism and used mostly apps from F-Droid. Remember that it was possible to fly to the moon in 1970 with less than a Megabyte of memory. The efficiency of additional resources poured into scientific seems to go down all the time. Not at all sure it is worth ruining the planet by ever increasing resource usage for small gains in knowledge.