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In college, when cell phones were just becoming a thing (the old dumb ones - yes, I’m old), I resisted on similar grounds. I disparagingly referred to a phone a

by yojo 4y ago

In college, when cell phones were just becoming a thing (the old dumb ones - yes, I’m old), I resisted on similar grounds. I disparagingly referred to a phone as a “leash,” arguing that the mere presence of something that can interrupt you at any moment takes you out of the here and now. Fast forward 20 years and I always have my phone in my pocket, and it feels like I’m on a leash. Being able to communicate with anyone at any time is an amazing superpower. But not being able to be reached when you were out in the world was also really valuable. Especially as a young person exploring the world. I know we can’t go back to that era, but it makes me sad that my kids won’t have the sensation of freedom that comes from bouncing around town with their friends, only searching for a pay phone when it was time to get a ride home. Tl;dr: The lived experience of childhood seems to have gotten a lot shittier, and I think phones deserve some of the blame.

lisper 4y ago
I don’t get this at all. If you don’t want to be reached just leave your phone at home. Or turn it off. Or switch it to airplane mode. It’s not like owning a phone forces you to actually use it 24/7.
- yojo 4y ago
  There is a social expectation of reachability. I get texts from friends trying to make plans for <2 hours in the future. My wife asks me to pick up things at the store, or do something for her in the house. You can turn your phone off or leave it behind, but you are opting out of modern society. My father in law still doesn’t have a phone, and it drives his wife crazy. For kids? Parents of older children use “taking the phone away” as the ultimate punishment. As I understand it, being a teen without a phone is basically being a pariah. I can turn my phone off, but I can’t make the rest of the world do it too. Which leads to the scenario described in the article. You can’t amble around and meet people; they’re already busy.
  - xboxnolifes 4y ago
    The social expectation of your reachability is learned by the people you interact with (and those they interacted with prior). If you frequently immediately respond, people will assume you will immediately respond in future events. If you do not, they will not have the expectation that you will always be immediately reachable. I am not an immediately reachable person a lot of the time. Not necessarily intentionally, but I can and will go many hours without checking my phone. Everyone in my social circle knows this about me, and yet I still have a social circle. Will you probably not end up being friends with those who demand plans to always be done last second? If you are always unreachable, maybe. But it's not like you're always going to be unreachable. You might miss out on some spontaneous events once in a while if you're intermittently unreachable... so what? If you are always slow to reach, you just end up around people who don't only do last second planning. Oh no, isn't that what you wanted?
    - yojo 4y ago
      Your point is valid, but assumes I have a deep enough social pool that I can drop friends and replace them with more compatible communicators. That might or might not be true, but I’m hesitant to test it. I like my friends, other than their stubborn refusal to embrace my anachronistic tendencies. I think by talking about myself I distracted from my intended point though, which is the experience of being a child in the age of smart phones. The sense of freedom and adventure of being a teen away from home seems incompatible with having an internet connected device on one’s person. An anecodte: My neighbors are totally reasonable people. Their teenage daughter was an hour late home from school one day, and not answering her phone. They started canvassing the neighborhood, driving her usual route home, checking to see if any neighbors had seen her. She was fine, she went to get a burger with some friends and her phone was out of batteries. Nothing about that story strikes me as unreasonable today, but when I was a teenager it would have seemed a ridiculous overreaction. Kids had impromptu hangouts regularly. Rarely would they phone home. Most parents were gone until after 5:00 anyway. Our culture has changed in a direction that feels sad to me. I feel like something has been lost. It’s clear that this is a minority view on HN. Hopefully that means the average person experiences phone culture as a positive change.
      - 4y ago
  - Bakary 4y ago
    I understand your frustration. On the other hand, this reachability seems to be a form of spontaneity. Isn't a text from a friend with an imminent plan pretty spontaneous?
  - lisper 4y ago
    > you are opting out of modern society Yes. That's the whole point. You have a choice. Not only do you have a choice, but you can switch back and forth whenever you like. How can that be a bad thing? > You can’t amble around and meet people First, that's not really true. There are plenty of places you can still meet people. Second, why would you want to "amble around and meet people"? The odds that you will have anything in common with some rando you meet on the street is pretty small. You're much better off using Meetup if you want to meet people. (And the difficulty of meeting people nowadays has a lot more to do with covid than it does with cell phones.)

by yojo 4y ago

lisper 4y ago

I don’t get this at all. If you don’t want to be reached just leave your phone at home. Or turn it off. Or switch it to airplane mode. It’s not like owning a phone forces you to actually use it 24/7.

yojo 4y ago
There is a social expectation of reachability. I get texts from friends trying to make plans for <2 hours in the future. My wife asks me to pick up things at the store, or do something for her in the house. You can turn your phone off or leave it behind, but you are opting out of modern society. My father in law still doesn’t have a phone, and it drives his wife crazy. For kids? Parents of older children use “taking the phone away” as the ultimate punishment. As I understand it, being a teen without a phone is basically being a pariah. I can turn my phone off, but I can’t make the rest of the world do it too. Which leads to the scenario described in the article. You can’t amble around and meet people; they’re already busy.
- xboxnolifes 4y ago
  The social expectation of your reachability is learned by the people you interact with (and those they interacted with prior). If you frequently immediately respond, people will assume you will immediately respond in future events. If you do not, they will not have the expectation that you will always be immediately reachable. I am not an immediately reachable person a lot of the time. Not necessarily intentionally, but I can and will go many hours without checking my phone. Everyone in my social circle knows this about me, and yet I still have a social circle. Will you probably not end up being friends with those who demand plans to always be done last second? If you are always unreachable, maybe. But it's not like you're always going to be unreachable. You might miss out on some spontaneous events once in a while if you're intermittently unreachable... so what? If you are always slow to reach, you just end up around people who don't only do last second planning. Oh no, isn't that what you wanted?
  - yojo 4y ago
    Your point is valid, but assumes I have a deep enough social pool that I can drop friends and replace them with more compatible communicators. That might or might not be true, but I’m hesitant to test it. I like my friends, other than their stubborn refusal to embrace my anachronistic tendencies. I think by talking about myself I distracted from my intended point though, which is the experience of being a child in the age of smart phones. The sense of freedom and adventure of being a teen away from home seems incompatible with having an internet connected device on one’s person. An anecodte: My neighbors are totally reasonable people. Their teenage daughter was an hour late home from school one day, and not answering her phone. They started canvassing the neighborhood, driving her usual route home, checking to see if any neighbors had seen her. She was fine, she went to get a burger with some friends and her phone was out of batteries. Nothing about that story strikes me as unreasonable today, but when I was a teenager it would have seemed a ridiculous overreaction. Kids had impromptu hangouts regularly. Rarely would they phone home. Most parents were gone until after 5:00 anyway. Our culture has changed in a direction that feels sad to me. I feel like something has been lost. It’s clear that this is a minority view on HN. Hopefully that means the average person experiences phone culture as a positive change.
    - 4y ago
- Bakary 4y ago
  I understand your frustration. On the other hand, this reachability seems to be a form of spontaneity. Isn't a text from a friend with an imminent plan pretty spontaneous?
- lisper 4y ago
  > you are opting out of modern society Yes. That's the whole point. You have a choice. Not only do you have a choice, but you can switch back and forth whenever you like. How can that be a bad thing? > You can’t amble around and meet people First, that's not really true. There are plenty of places you can still meet people. Second, why would you want to "amble around and meet people"? The odds that you will have anything in common with some rando you meet on the street is pretty small. You're much better off using Meetup if you want to meet people. (And the difficulty of meeting people nowadays has a lot more to do with covid than it does with cell phones.)