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‘Luddite’ Teens
- dredmorbius 4y agoDoes anyone know if the "Luddite Manifesto" referenced written by Logan Lane is available online, and if so where?
- Kaibeezy 4y agohttps://archive.ph/gsqDH https://archive.ph/gsqDH
- LinuxBender 4y agoIf this is a real thing then maybe I feel there is hope for at least a small pocket of society. Good on them for taking back some control of their lives. Color me impressed.
- floren 4y agoI admire the hell out of these kids. If I had a little more strength in my own convictions, a little more willpower, I would probably go flip-phone only too. Yes, they're kind of posturing and pretentious, but in ways that remind me of myself in high school; I feel like I get them. Your average high school kid is a lot more confusing to me these days. I did have to laugh at this: > "I talked to my adviser, though, and he told me most revolutions actually start with people from industrious backgrounds, like Che Guevara." I wasn't sure what they meant by "industrious backgrounds"; apparently it means "wealthy" based on Guevara's wikipedia page. She's in good company, though... Ho Chi Minh and Lenin grew up privileged too.
- 082349872349872 4y agoTry flip an hour a day and work up. We used to only have landlines and phortress phones, and yet somehow still survived. I always liked how 1984's Goldstein said that in principle Inner Party children did not automatically become Inner themselves.
- derwiki 4y agoWhat is a phortress phone?
- 082349872349872 4y agohttps://www.google.com/search?q=pay+phone+booth&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=pay+phone+booth&tbm=isch a pay phone (phortress, because it was safer to phreak from than a home phone)
- MonkeyClub 4y agoFor the nostalgia of it: https://www.2600.com/payphones https://www.2600.com/payphones
- rootusrootus 4y ago> We used to only have landlines and phortress phones A few weeks ago I was at our local train station and there was an honest-to-god payphone. Walked up to it, picked up the receiver, and got dial tone. I had figured they were all gone now but apparently not quite yet.
- lzauz 4y agoYou just have to look at the pictures of the article to see that they have money.
- adingus 4y agoI don't get the 'classist' argument at all. You don't need to be rich to want to stop doomscrolling, or to put your phone down for an hour. It sounds more like the kids who call it 'classist' understand phone addiction but don't want to face the fact its actually bad for them... like when an overweight person says 'Id rather enjoy life than eat that salad, I bet that in-shape person is a bore to be around!"
- threads2 4y agoI think everyone's just getting sick of rich kids
- floren 4y agoOh, absolutely. When I was a teen, you'd be called some sort of homophobic slur for refusing to go along with the current zeitgeist. Now, it's more effective to force conformity by calling people classist/racist/etc., and the kids know it too.
- civopsec 4y agoAlthough not Stalin
- hindsightbias 4y agoWhat flip phones work now that 3G is getting dropped?
- floren 4y agoYou can buy 4G flip phones these days. Poke around the corners of the displays at an AT&T store or a Best Buy, there's usually one or two hiding somewhere.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- MandieD 4y agoWhile not, strictly speaking, a dumbphone, this one sold under various branding can be used as one, and my never-smartphone-using dad and aunt are satisfied with it: [0]https://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone/schok-flip https://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone/schok-flip [1]https://www.consumercellular.com/shopping/details/link_II/videosandmanuals https://www.consumercellular.com/shopping/details/link_II/vi... It has proven reliable in middle-of-nowhere West Texas over the past few months on both T-Mobile and Consumer Cellular, likely using T-Mobile’s network. I have no idea how any of the other functions stack up, but neither my dad nor my aunt care about anything other than making and taking dialed phone calls.
- ydlr 4y agoThings are going to get interesting in a few years when these kids get jobs and can practice their machine-breaking in earnest.
- 082349872349872 4y agoa little more difficult now that no one wears those wooden shoes anymore, though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabot_(shoe) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabot_(shoe)
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoThey'll still stick it to the man when their employer expects them to provide a personal phone for 2FA and don't have one.
- ender341341 4y agoSeveral people at my work refuse to install work software on personal phones so the company bought them yubikeys to use instead.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoI held out on this after a factory wipe on my phone invalidated my authenticator keys. The IT guy ended up using his own phone because cheapskate companies won't pay for real security.
- factsarelolz 4y agoEh just offer a hard token or yubikey and be done.
- UncleSlacky 4y agoIf my employer expects me to use a phone for work, I expect them to provide the phone.
- LucyEverylove 4y agoI've been experimenting with a "no phone" protocol for a few months now. It has been amazing. Only occasionally problematic/inconvenient, mostly miss the GPS and music. Most things I used to do on phone I simply do on a laptop. But not constantly grabbing for a phone and staring at a screen... priceless.
- 543g43g43 4y ago>But not constantly grabbing for a phone and staring at a screen... priceless. And once the spell is broken, you find yourself staring at people stumbling around, tied to their tiny screens.
- null0ranje 4y agoOne of the big things keeping me from going down this road is the need to carry around a phone for 2FA purposes. Is there anything that can fill that gap?
- jjav 4y agoTOTP if at all possible. Then you can run the code calculator on your laptop or wherever most convenient for you, not them.
- 082349872349872 4y agoyubikey type things? we were using little blackberry-format devices for 2FA in the previous century.
- factsarelolz 4y agoHard token, yubikey
- glogla 4y agoYeah, around here (EU) every bank decided you need to have an app to be able to do anything with your account or pay using card online. You don't need just a phone, but a smartphone.
- latchkey 4y ago
- gsatic 4y agoIt's a sad story. I was at a coffee shop yday and made the mistake of sitting next to their huge decked up christmas tree. Wasn't crowded but there was a constant stream of teen girls shooting selfie with the tree. Each one taking literally hundreds of pics to get the 'right' one.
- falcolas 4y agoI appreciate that they’ve recognized they have choices, and are being supported in the choices they’re making. It’s not a choice I’ll make (I lived that life without a choice for several decades; I’m good), but I still like that they can.
- themadturk 4y agoI agree. I'm Team Smartphone, but those who want and can do without have my admiration.
- barbinbrad 4y agoI don't have a phone. It's fine.
- falcolas 4y agoThis is definitely an option; we as a society did it for centuries. It will impact your social life, but you can mitigate that if you put in the effort. The worst for me when I don’t have my phone while driving. It’s an odd anxiety.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- lzauz 4y agoIn these discussion threads I always see people mixing call/gps functionality (which is genuinely useful, especially in case of an emergency, and not addictive) with social media. You can have one without having the other. Instagram didn't come with your phone, you installed it. So, don't.
- rootusrootus 4y agoThere's a lot of people who show up in these threads whose only coping strategy is to go cold turkey. Maybe that's good advice, but it's not the only advice. There's no reason you can't carry a smartphone in your pocket without it becoming a pacifier.
- karaterobot 4y agoDevil's advocate here: addiction is tricky. There's no reason you can't carry around a pack of cigarettes and not smoke them, either, but in practice that strategy would not work for many smokers. Cold turkey isn't the magic bullet, but try whatever you suspect might work.
- sedeki 4y agoI want to start doing this too. I bought a flip-phone some time ago, but it never stuck. My usage is pretty much: listen to music, use (Google) calendar, texting, FaceTime. Any surfing is plain doom scrolling and not productive. Recommendations for me? Analog/simpler substitutes? For ppl that has gone down this path - how do you feel now?
- kayodelycaon 4y agoYou could use the parental controls to lock it down. iOS has Screen Time, which allows you to set limits on how much you can use an app. I'm sure there is some equivalent on Android. I made the mistake of purchasing FTL (a game) and had to add a Screen Time rule for it. :)
- sedeki 4y agoYeah, I have it activated. But I want to experiment with the idea to abolish my phone as much as possible.
- psychphysic 4y agoBetween texting and FaceTime is pretty much the entire functionality of a modern smart phone.
- nvr219 4y agoWhen I attempted this I did a flip phone and transitioned the rest to my laptop. As a result, I just carried my laptop around all the time. Didn't solve the problem!!!
- overthemoon 4y agoI'd be curious as well. I realized in the last few months that I rarely enjoy looking at anything on my phone. I like it when my friends and family text me. I like the discord group I have with my friends, especially now that we all have kids and have moved away. I started by deleting apps that weren't essential, keeping the utilities or the things I don't do compulsively, or do situationally. With Twitter in particular, I don't know a better way to find artists, writers, and podcasts. I have never enjoyed Twitter less than I do now, but it is unfortunately the best way I currently know. I guess it's time to start digging.
- psychphysic 4y agoThese fads always remind me of this Ali G skit. https://youtu.be/xx5t5ps-bwc https://youtu.be/xx5t5ps-bwc
- antihero 4y agoHow is wholesale rejection of the shitty companies and websites that prey on your attention span to sell adverts in favour of good literature and genuine connection a “fad”? I’ve deleted social media from my phone and it’s been…amazing. I don’t know what to do and end up staring into space instead of giving into my cravings for fresh content. You start to pay attention to your surroundings and think. It’s wonderful.
- seanw444 4y agoBoredom is crucial. Boredom creates will. Your body hates boredom, because traditionally, it meant you weren't doing anything to better your life. Today, we won't die if we're not filling our boredom with farming/hunting our meals by hand. It's too easy to live nowadays. Now, we plug that hole with social media and entertainment. Rather than adapting that caveman survival instinct to something else: improving knowledge, personal health, or real relationships. That's not to say these things as a whole need to be banned entirely. Like all things, they can be enjoyable in moderation. But too much is unhealthy. Even water has this caveat. The problem is we don't moderate. Rather than doing/creating something useful and/or memorable, you're stuck scrolling a feed, watching other people improve. It's actually quite sad.
- weregiraffe 4y agoYou are mistaken. Hunter-gatherers, and even medieval farmers, worked less hours on average than we do today.
- seanw444 4y agoI should have been more detailed. I don't mean just the hunting and gathering. My primary point was that it was a harder overall life. Upkeep on your living space and belongings (now we just buy a new one online or, God forbid, drive to the store), preparing food often (no such thing as long-term preservation at the time), adults actually had families to take care of (increasingly more people are single / childless)... There were more, urgent responsibilities to tend to.
- Finnucane 4y agoThe kids are alright.
- browningstreet 4y agoMy college aged son refuses a phone. Uni gave him an iPad, he rarely uses it -- he has his laptop. He has no social. None of his classmates care one way or the other. It's all good.
- alphabettsy 4y agoI have a good friend like this, he works remotely now after graduating and moving and he’s pretty lonely. Won’t be true of everyone of course.
- browningstreet 4y agoAre you suggesting a link between his lack of phone and his loneliness, or his moving and his loneliness? I know our generation (you can guess) is painted with the "too obsessed with social" habit.. and I'd say the preponderance of people staring at their phones during all moments of life (driving, shopping, dining with their partners) makes them no less lonely. You can pretend you're not lonely as long as you have a graph to pulldown-reload. I have a phone, no one has called it in years, I wouldn't say I'm lonely. Even if they're orthogonal, there's something seemingly off with people staring at their phones all the time, during every moment in life. My last gf would pick up her phone the minute I paused a show to pop into the kitchen or go to the restroom. That didn't bother me.. what bothered me is when she didn't notice my return and put the phone down so we could return to our show or movie. I'd have to do the "I'm back" cough or shoulder tap. It became increasingly objectionable.
- trgn 4y agoMost of the handwringing about tech is the middle-aged projecting their anxieties on their children. It's not necessarily the kids who are threatened by social media. It's them, whole fucking 40 year olds, scrolling on tiktok (wtf!) and feeling queasy about it. Kids these days yeah right. Listen to this kid subtly rubbing it in: > “I still long to have no phone at all,” she said. “My parents are so addicted. My mom got on Twitter, and I’ve seen it tear her apart. But I guess I also like it, because I get to feel a little superior to them.” Anyway, that aside. The article is complete cringe though. NYT really is 95% lifestyle branding and 5% factoids. Also, these kids, I don't know if they realize, but it's always just that little skeevy (not necessarily in a sexual nature, more generically, as-in, unseemly, too familiar, think "cool teacher"), when adults - journalists, artists, ...- worm their way in kids culture, package their growing up for the entertainment of jaded, passe 50 year olds.
- Archipelagia 4y agoIt reminded me of one of pg's old essays – http://paulgraham.com/addiction.html http://paulgraham.com/addiction.html. Highly recommended. On a personal note, it's also something that worries me for the day when I'll finally have my own children. I wouldn't want them exposed to modern cyber-addictions from young age, but at the same time, I'm not sure how to protect them, when I can expect that all their peers will be on whatever social app's gonna be popular at that time.
- verdenti 4y agoYou protect them by not giving them a smart phone. My daughter is 2 and she hasn’t seen a screen yet.
- lisper 4y agoYour comment was downvoted to death but I vouched for it, and leaving this followup comment to make it less likely to get killed again, because I think this is the Right Answer (or at least a big part of the Right Answer).
- Archipelagia 4y agoI'm not sure that's a good long term solution. Like, once they see that all their friends have a smartphone, I think it's natural they'll feel jealous. What are you thinking of doing at that point?
- mixmastamyk 4y agoYou avoid as long as you can; not exactly rocket-science.
- nickthegreek 4y agoSounds pretty easy to do at that age. But how long are you going to protect them? Until their 18? Or 16? Or 12? When do you see yourself allowing a phone. Are you keeping iPads away too? Some of my friends with kids gave them cell phones around 12-14. But most of the kids had iPads prior.
- sequoia 4y agoThis is interesting but I can't help but notice how intensely performative these kids are as well, at least how they're characterized in this article. They're wearing Carhartt (an unusual choice for a metropolis like NYC), reading Dostoyevski and gathering to "listen to the wind." I will say most teens are like this and I certainly was myself, but I hope they are careful not to cultivate their own "artisan" brand of snobbishness (as I also did as a young punk). One thread they're touching on that I think is healthy and good is the DIY aesthetic, and the resistance to tools and media that primarily serve to make you a passive consumer, and to choose and live ones values more consciously & proactively. These features are (or ate least were) prominent in the punk scene, but also in many other subcultures including many religious groups. I am glad to see "the kids" continuing to question & challenge and try to take more control of their own lives, so this is great in my opinion. A bit of pretentiousness is a small price to pay in my opinion.
- heavyset_go 4y agoTo me, this feels like you're criticizing kids for being kids. You grew out of it, so will they. It also might be you projecting. It's entirely possible they genuinely enjoy their choice of clothing and literature and it's not a performance.
- dieselgate 4y agoDoes one always risk a bit of "pretentiousness" if they act/live contrary to the "main stream"? Just by having a flip phone, for example, someone will be called a "hipster" or whatever name. It's like a group social phenomena or something - just by being vegetarian (or being more "pretentious" by being vegan) people experience this sort of stuff
- ravenstine 4y agoBasically, yes, because a lot of people don't really know what being pretentious or a hipster actually means. The passage of time has lead to both terms being misunderstood and simultaneously conflated. In order for someone to actually be pretentious, there has to be a pretense. Being purposefully non-mainstream doesn't make someone pretentious as much as a more normal individual would like to believe. Hipsters aren't necessarily pretentious, even when they have a pattern of rejecting the mainstream. A hipster might be pretentious if their image is disingenuous (ex. wearing some article they don't actually identify with, pooh-poohing something publicly while appreciating it secretly), but that doesn't have to describe all or most hipsters. I get called a hipster because I often reject or have no interest in many things that most people consider good on that basis alone. When something becomes mainstream, I like it less because I believe something going from unknown to mainstream is usually a bad sign, and that instinct is almost always right. Breaking Bad was way better until everyone started slobbering over it and chanted "get back to cooking meth bruh", and look how it ended. Such a long way for a ham sandwich. haha
- mromanuk 4y agoI'm glad, some teens are doing this, I hope it become a mainstream trend. It's marvelous that each generation question everything and start this type of counter-trends. I have three young kids and I do my best to keep them away from smartphones. This gives me hope that my older daughter, when she becomes a teenager, will not ask me for a smartphone.
- freemanofthewan 4y ago"They marched up a hill toward their usual spot, a dirt mound located far from the park’s crowds. Among them was Odille Zexter-Kaiser, a senior at Edward R. Murrow High School in Midwood, who trudged through leaves in Doc Martens and mismatched wool socks." Wow, these kids sound like the new beatniks. "The club members cite libertine writers like Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac as heroes," and there's Jack..
- wara23arish 4y agoI don’t think beatniks particularly wore the equivalent $150+ Doc Martens. Tangent, I really enjoyed reading On the Road
- LarryMullins 4y agoWhat did they wear? Sandals or something? I tried birkenstock sandals before but they only lasted about a year before they became too gross to wear. $150 doc martens seem like good value to me. They last about 5-8 years at the rate I wear through them, or about $20-30 per year. Certainly more efficient than any sneakers.
- wara23arish 4y agoMaybe Im missing out but Ive never felt the need to spend so much on shoes. There’s countless of alternatives to boots/shows that aren’t name-brand Doc Martens with that aesthetic. Personally, I just shop at the clearance sections or sales (ive never seen doc martens there ime) I always feel like a fool if i drop money on something expensive. From reading On The Road, I just remember that they were always broke, drunk, drugs and chasing experiences and not aesthetics. at least thats what I took out from the book
- qup 4y agoBoots are a good thing to look for in thrift stores. I got a $220 pair of redwings in good shape for $12.
- karaterobot 4y agoSo many of these NYT pieces are a character study framed as though it were describing a small part of a larger movement. I'd like this sentiment to be widespread and robust among the upcoming generation of young adults, but will it be? It's difficult to believe.
- djaouen 4y agoThis is a unique form of privilege. Most people don’t have the choice to “disconnect”. It’s engage or die. Not that I think technology is the be all and end all, but I think we are lucky if we are in the position to be able to shun it. That’s all I am saying. Edit: OK, I am probably wrong about this. Sorry for the stupid opinion :(
- floppydiskette 4y agoHow is it engage or die?
- djaouen 4y agoImagine, for example, applying for a job with no social media presence. OK, maybe “engage or die” is not the right phrase, but you get the gist of what I’m saying.
- mitchdoogle 4y agoThat's a bit of a stretch. They have phones (some of them still have smart phones - the article mentioned them putting away their iphones when they met). I think a phone is as much as you need to get by in the world and get a job
- dudeofea 4y agoif what you are saying is that any deviation from the norm incurs a cost to your life, I agree. Some people are already abnormal so they can't pay that cost, but others can't pay simply because of some of the other choices they have made. I personally wouldn't call the latter a lack of privilege
- djaouen 4y agoMaybe. I’d have to think about it some more to formulate a more solid opinion. Thanks for the criticism!
- adingus 4y ago
- greenie_beans 4y agodamn i should've bet somebody that this would go mainstream one day
- filmgirlcw 4y agoI respect the teens that are doing this, for whatever reason, but I think reading too much into a trend piece is a mistake. I don't know these kids, and maybe they are 100% genuine, but the whole thing strikes me as being about the aesthetic and the fashion above all else. Wanting to be different to be different, and the best way to do that is to reject that digital society that we are all in now. When I was their age, I was similar -- down to wearing the trendiest of trendy clothing items (that were designed to not look overly trendy, but anyone in the know would know that they were), while still thinking myself some sort of "outsider." We had a communist club (despite all of us really being capitalists and having rich parents and benefitting immensely from capitalism), we rejected television as a lesser medium (despite secretly loving our favorite shows), upheld the virtues of "arthouse cinema" (which, you know what, fair -- I still love arthouse cinema) and we only listened to certain types of music -- on vinyl (some things never change) -- and this was just ahead of the vinyl resurgence. But secretly, a lot of us still listened to pop music on MP3s in our bedrooms, watched the same trash TV we claimed to reject, and enjoyed the same populist commercial films. It was an outward rejection, but not who we really were. It was aesthetic and fashion and came out of reading and loving Kerouac and Salinger and Thompson (authors I still love) and wanting to feel like we weren't part of the suburban bubble we were painfully part of. I look back at my pretentious, self-important 16 year old self and I don't feel pity or regret, but I see it for what it is, and it was about fashion and aesthetic and wanting to signify to the world that I was "different." But the irony is that feeling different is one of the most universal feelings a person can have. Again, I don't know these teenagers. And maybe they are completely genuine. I don't judge them or think less of them if it is all an aesthetic. Or if some of this is a purposeful troll. But there is still an irony about a Luddite club being profiled by the biggest media organization in the world and going viral on the very platform they claim to reject. I do dig the aesthetic tho. I would absolutely carry a flip phone for just the aesthetic today (you can tear my iPhone from my cold dead hands).
- spritefs 4y agoIMO the real problem here isn't the technology itself, but cultivating an unhealthy relationship with it and not using it maturely The most interesting thing in this article to me is the classist accusation. I wonder if this luddite trend is just some sort of counter signaling, where if rich kids decide to not use smartphones it's provocative (and they get flip phones from parents on a whim), but if poor kids don't it's because they're poor
- trgn 4y ago> the real problem isn't the technology itself I very much disagree with this. We like to think that technology is value neutral, and we, as Olympian gods, are just applying it in good or bad judgment. Technology (the actual material thing) shapes the world around itself, it creates the conditions of its use _in absence_ of our judgement. The very existence of a bleepy bloopy thing that fits in a pocket, which constantly grabs your attention with gossipy, antagonizing content. That _thing_ in itself creates the nurturing conditions for phenomena like cyberbullying, meme-addiction, declining attention spans, political polarization... Another example; the very existence of power tools created the aesthetic sensibilities where we aspire to large expanses of perfectly trimmed bushes and leafless virginal lawns. Our aesthetic desires did not proceed the technology. It is the technology that engendered it. Let's run down more: easy-to-obtain guns, heavy and fast-accelerating cars, cheap mass-produced food, disposable furniture and living arrangements ... They all shape the world (and our minds, our relations to others) in _their image_. We can be equal slave to the machine as well as master to the machine. Modernism is the submission to this slavery. Humanism is the celebration of our mastery. Now answer the question; do we live in modernist dystopia, or humanist utopia? A leading question to be sure, but I reckon the contrast is instructive. Technology sometimes _is_ the problem itself. Fixing the problem, in many cases, will mean forceful rejection of this technology, rather than just finding the correct application of it.
- nathias 4y agoweird, I bought the same one, I view it as the peak of mobile phone design and I mostly don't want to have a smartphone with me
- neonate 4y agohttp://web.archive.org/web/20221216204941/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/style/teens-social-media.html http://web.archive.org/web/20221216204941/https://www.nytime...
- makz 4y agoI guess Logan’s “Luddite Manifesto” is not on the internet…
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y agoCan't you keep the smartphone but ditch all the social media apps, to the same effect? I think maps or Uber are useful but not addictive or harmful.
- ryyr 4y ago#tedpilled
- huehehue 4y agoCan't say that I love the praise over Chris McCandless, given the amount of deliberate self-sabotage and the fact that hikers have literally died trying to recreate his pilgrimage. > We’ve all got this theory that we’re not just meant to be confined to buildings and work. And [McCandless] was experiencing life. Real life. Social media and phones are not real life. I'm nitpicking, just think there are way healthier examples. Overall I love the mentality and really hope the next generation or two embraces a major shift away from tech addiction. Feels like growing pains from head-spinningly rapid technological innovation and availability.
- voisin 4y ago> given the amount of deliberate self-sabotage I never got the impression that it was deliberate self sabotage. I understood that he simply had over confidence going into the woods, and that he stayed a bit too long in an unfamiliar area and consequently couldn’t make his way back due to snowmelt flooding.
- Anthony-G 4y agoI loved film Into the Wild and read up on McCandless afterwards. If I remember correctly, he died within a day’s hike from a road but had he decided to bring a map with him, he would have known how to get to the road. I got the impression that he wanted to see how well he could survive on his own with the least amount of help from society. While I admire the spirit of the man and can sympathise with the romanticism of his endeavours, I would consider not bringing a map of the area or preparing adequately for life in the wilderness to be deliberate self-sabotage.
- didericis 4y agoWhat people describe as "tech addiction" is I think better described as "consumer product addiction". Technology has created an unprecedented opportunity for us to turn the world into a human friendly imaginative playground. That opportunity is squandered by people who think in the short term about control and money and status and grievance. Call me what you will, but I have a hard time watching old videos like this and not getting emotional -> https://youtu.be/Uz__bJTlOjk?t=37 https://youtu.be/Uz__bJTlOjk?t=37 Great engineers using the most advanced technology of the day to make childhood fantasies a reality is one of the most beautiful uses of our time on Earth I can think of. Tech could make the world the ultimate fantasy adventure. We have so much capacity to alleviate material want and create amazing dreamworlds and make people happy, but laziness, greed, ego, jealousy, and resentment all get in the way. Technological complexity obfuscates and entrenches a lot of existing problems and creates lots of room for abuse, but at root most modern problems are not fundamentally tech related. They're rooted in our difficulties cooperating with each other.
- fleddr 4y agoA simple tip to reduce usage. I would guess that a lot of smartphone usage happens within your home, which most people spent a lot of time in, even more so if you work from home. Put the phone in the next room. As simple as that. Break the convenience of having it with you. Working in a home office? Put it in the next room. Watching TV on the couch? Put it in the next room. Driving? Don't mount it. You'll still check it, during natural progressions of the day. Lunch. End of the work day. Before you go to bed. But that's still quite a lot better than the 100-200 times that people check it per day on average.
- nicbou 4y agoIt's absurdly effective. I leave my phone out of the bedroom. I end up reading a lot more.
- fancyfredbot 4y agoWhen I was a teen in the nineties it was the teens who really got computers and the adults who were the luddites. Being into computers wasn't cool but it was exciting to understand something that most of our parents didn't. Seems like things have come full circle now! As much as I admire the rejection of social media I hope this generation can still be fascinated by the possibilities computers can bring.
- jacooper 4y agoIts great that people are starting to wane off algorithmic money maximizing social media, but you can do this without switching to a flip phone. Just remove all social media and you will be set, even chat apps are OK, its really the rapid attention grabbing content that is the issue. Also the books and the weird connection to wanting to stop the industrial revolution is just r/im14andthisisdeep material > “I still long to have no phone at all,” she said. “My parents are so addicted. My mom got on Twitter, and I’ve seen it tear her apart. But I guess I also like it, because I get to feel a little superior to them.” This is an interesting way to put it.
- mistercheph 4y agoNothing more cringe than a young student reading great works of literature. What ever happened to hacking together an ecommerce side-hustle on the weekends? What has happened to our youth?
- AussieWog93 4y agoFor what it's worth, I know maybe 5 or 6 kids that age, and two of them have literally hacked together an e-commerce side hustle over the weekend. None of them have read Dostoyevsky and pretended to be deep.
- pipeline_peak 4y agoIt’s easy not to own a phone as a teen. Give me a revisit in 15 years…