4 ms·

>> The best feature on a phone is the camera and maps app. One is for capturing and sharing memories, and the other is for finding your way to friends and adven

by skeeter2020 4y ago

>> The best feature on a phone is the camera and maps app. One is for capturing and sharing memories, and the other is for finding your way to friends and adventure to make those memories. I agree strongly with the rest of your post, but then you highlight the two biggest offending aspects of our current society: (1) Everyone is so busy capturing and sharing "memories" they're not actually experiencing them in the first place, (2) When we're trying to get somewhere we don't even look up to ask where are we right now IN RELATION to where we'd like to go before pulling out our device. The second is particularly odd to me, as my father (now in his 70's) did all sorts of adventure travelling as I was growing up with nothing more than paper maps and I now watch him routinely ask for gps directions to places he's been dozens of times. It makes me sad.

prmoustache 4y ago
Agree on this one. I went to a concert this week. When the concert started, thousands of smartphones were raised in the air and many people spent an awful amount of time grabbing ugly videos with saturated sound. I was guilty of grabbing a 1min one. Do we really enjoy the moment as well when grabbing everything. I doubt it.
- bonoboTP 4y ago
  Taking some pictures is great. Having some pics to look at a vacation years down the line is good for refreshing memories and emotions and to relive those moments. But that's achievable with a few pictures a day, whereas many people now take hundreds or more and never even look at them again. It's like hoarding behavior or bookmarking web pages or buying books you never end up opening.
  - prmoustache 4y ago
    My experience is that taking pictures is only worth it if you print them quickly and put them in an album with comments. I and my daughters will very often grab a photo album randomly in the living room and enjoy remembering those moments. The digital albums? They only serve as a backup thanksfully synched remotely in case my house burn. Normal non pro photographs human beings have very little energy to organize/tag/process their pictures, they mostly lie forgotten until google photos remember them of those moments, more often than not showcasing the ugiest badly framed photos.
  - jstarfish 4y ago
    There are two types of hoarders though-- those who take 1000 pictures of things they find interesting, and those who take 1000 pictures of things they think everyone else will find interesting. The former is a good way to relive any experience. It's literally training data for the photographer to reconstruct their own memories. The latter group will never have reason to look at the pictures they took. There is a lack of connection.
- dazc 4y ago
  When I think back to such experiences I tend to remember how annoying other people were rather than the event itself. As a consequence I rarely go to concerts, the theatre or the cinema any more.
bertr4nd 4y ago
Re: maps. Eh. Some people tend to romanticize the pre-GPS era with stories of serendipitous adventures, but that doesn’t match my experience at all. My recollection is that wandering around lost was time-wasting, frustrating, and sometimes downright scary. I’m not sure I can recall a single positive unexpected experience that resulted. I don’t miss it one bit. If the price is that I sometimes ask for directions to a place I’ve been before, I’ll take the trade.
- m3047 4y ago
  I used to do a lot of solo hiking / scrambling in the (PNW) Cascades. I rarely looked at maps when actually hiking, except to identify some landmark in the distance. I spent time (hours) casually perusing an open topo map laying somewhere at home; sometimes I'd discover that overflight photos were available at one of the libraries. =) When in the field I rarely looked at a map to see where I was going. I never carried a compass. Today I can get satellite photos on the internet, (quality? meh. some of the overflight photos were stereo. I suppose I could pay) but "up and down are forever".

prmoustache 4y ago

Agree on this one. I went to a concert this week. When the concert started, thousands of smartphones were raised in the air and many people spent an awful amount of time grabbing ugly videos with saturated sound. I was guilty of grabbing a 1min one. Do we really enjoy the moment as well when grabbing everything. I doubt it.

bonoboTP 4y ago
Taking some pictures is great. Having some pics to look at a vacation years down the line is good for refreshing memories and emotions and to relive those moments. But that's achievable with a few pictures a day, whereas many people now take hundreds or more and never even look at them again. It's like hoarding behavior or bookmarking web pages or buying books you never end up opening.
- prmoustache 4y ago
  My experience is that taking pictures is only worth it if you print them quickly and put them in an album with comments. I and my daughters will very often grab a photo album randomly in the living room and enjoy remembering those moments. The digital albums? They only serve as a backup thanksfully synched remotely in case my house burn. Normal non pro photographs human beings have very little energy to organize/tag/process their pictures, they mostly lie forgotten until google photos remember them of those moments, more often than not showcasing the ugiest badly framed photos.
- jstarfish 4y ago
  There are two types of hoarders though-- those who take 1000 pictures of things they find interesting, and those who take 1000 pictures of things they think everyone else will find interesting. The former is a good way to relive any experience. It's literally training data for the photographer to reconstruct their own memories. The latter group will never have reason to look at the pictures they took. There is a lack of connection.
dazc 4y ago
When I think back to such experiences I tend to remember how annoying other people were rather than the event itself. As a consequence I rarely go to concerts, the theatre or the cinema any more.

bertr4nd 4y ago

Re: maps. Eh. Some people tend to romanticize the pre-GPS era with stories of serendipitous adventures, but that doesn’t match my experience at all. My recollection is that wandering around lost was time-wasting, frustrating, and sometimes downright scary. I’m not sure I can recall a single positive unexpected experience that resulted. I don’t miss it one bit. If the price is that I sometimes ask for directions to a place I’ve been before, I’ll take the trade.

m3047 4y ago
I used to do a lot of solo hiking / scrambling in the (PNW) Cascades. I rarely looked at maps when actually hiking, except to identify some landmark in the distance. I spent time (hours) casually perusing an open topo map laying somewhere at home; sometimes I'd discover that overflight photos were available at one of the libraries. =) When in the field I rarely looked at a map to see where I was going. I never carried a compass. Today I can get satellite photos on the internet, (quality? meh. some of the overflight photos were stereo. I suppose I could pay) but "up and down are forever".