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>rise of smartphones was also the rise of “phubbing”, i.e. when people go on their phones instead of paying attention to the people around them Got a few tips

>rise of smartphones was also the rise of “phubbing”, i.e. when people go on their phones instead of paying attention to the people around them Got a few tips for this, first obviously if you’re meeting with people never do it yourself, one person doing it always causes chain reactions. If you’re meeting with one person and they start doing it never use it as an excuse to check your own phone just sit there in silence waiting for them if they’re distracted by it. This works surprisingly well and it’s funny how often people apologize, when if you check your own phone it’s always considered fine you don’t get the apology. If you’re in a group and talking about something factual like when a movie came out or a directors name and someone reaches for their phone to google because of the compulsion and just desire to stare into their phone is getting too much, just say “it’s not important” and move on or actually I’m going to start just lying I mean it doesn’t really matter we gain nothing from having the exact answer and actually sometimes the conversation is better and the answer comes to you if you don’t check. This one bugs me a lot because like all you get is someone messing around on their phone and then announcing “it was blah blah” then everyone going “oh ok” like the act of checking the phone added nothing to the conversation, we can talk around ideas without knowing exactly who or when what happened. It just made that person addicted to their phone get their fix.

brainzap 4y ago
shame is a powerful emotion that can even break some addiction
- hn92726819 4y ago
  I don't think so. You should check out Brenee Brown's research/books on shame. Her claim is that guilt can be a useful emotion, but shame is pretty ineffective at everything. I tend to agree with the take and I think it's useful to differentiate between the two. > "Guilt is cognitive dissonance. Guilt says, I've done something or failed to do something that is aligned with my values. And it feels awful. I need to make amends, make a change and hold myself accountable. I need to fix it." > Shame, however, is a lot more damaging according to Brown, as it says "you are a bad person", and as a social species, "shame is death". From: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-02/brene-brown-ted-talk-emotions-shame-guilt-misconceptions-covid19/100669362 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-02/brene-brown-ted-talk-...
  - naravara 4y ago
    TBH I think our political system and most of our OpEd pages could benefit from an infusion of shame. Many of them are bad people and continue having prominent roles due to their complete lack of shame. Maybe in psychologically healthy people it’s ineffective, but we do live in a world stalked by psychopaths and I have to believe the shame response evolved to put a check on them.
    - pjc50 4y ago
      I feel that the big mid-2015s transition was that shaming reached such critical levels that a whole chunk of public figures flipped to shamelessness, like antibiotic-resistant bacteria. "Oh you're pointing out something I've done that doesn't align with my stated value system or common decency? Who cares, and I'll do it again"
  - jodrellblank 4y ago
    The Last Psychiatrist blog was obsessed with narcissism, their model of it was that people have a self-image such as "I am a great man", "I am a good mother", "I am a proper Christian", "I am a success with a nice house and sports car and attractive blonde partner" and their main priority is making sure that everyone else has the same image of them as they have. That things which damage the image anger narcissists more than anything else. In that model, shame is "I wish you hadn't caught me doing that because you will think less of me and I can't accept that". Guilt is "I wish I hadn't done that because it harmed other people and other people matter" which extreme narcissists don't feel. That is, the child who has torn clothes and one parent worries that the child might be hurt under their watch, compared to the parent who punishes the child for making them look like a worse parent to all the bystanders. And that pattern is something to see everywhere, from internet arguments to international news. i.e. guilt is [1] "Greek transport minister Kostas Karamanlis has resigned following a rail crash which killed at least 38 people; Mr Karamanlis said he felt it was his “duty” to step down “as a basic indication of respect for the memory of the people who died so unfairly”" Shame is [2] Turkey blocking social media immediately after the recent earthquake and arresting people who posted things which made the government look bad. Instead of first thought being to the injured or the corruption, it was trying to control how the government looks and punishing those who hurt that image. Guilt is not something social media can encourage - the other people are names on a screen, far away. But a focus on your image, the image you present to the world, the perfect life you live, the perfect friends you have, the beautiful places you go, the clever knowledge you have, the busy Github commit log, the witty Twitter stream, those kinds of things are what social media promotes uncomfortably well. When someone sees you crying or without makeup, that's not the macho or beautiful Instagram image you've cultivated, harm done - to you, to your image - shame shame shame emergency response damage control, post something which puts it in context and explains it, attack back. When you call someone an unfunny moron on Twitter, no harm done but when someone calls you an unfunny moron, damage control - the world must think of me as witty and inciteful because that's all I have on Twitter and if I lose that, I'm nobody, attack back. i.e. the phones are a proxy, reading a book with other people around instead of talking to them can still feel sociable. Seeing beautiful people on a billboard advert has been a thing for decades. The projection of yourself to the world, text, pictures, videos, blogs, streams, to an internet where all there is is a projection of you which you have to control, seems like more of a problem. [1] https://www.wandsworthguardian.co.uk/news/national/23356731.greek-transport-minister-resigns-deadly-train-crash/ https://www.wandsworthguardian.co.uk/news/national/23356731.... [2] https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/twitter-down-in-turkey-as-earthquake-response-criticism-mounts-101675876212180.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/twitter-down-in-tu...
trabant00 4y ago
> If you’re meeting with one person and they start doing it [...] just sit there in silence waiting for them if they’re distracted by it. This works surprisingly well and it’s funny how often people apologize I've tried everything to get people off phones when we meet, this included. It works for the first couple of times but then they get desensitized to any form of feedback and go back on their phones. Which causes the chain reaction you mentioned and more people go on their phones. So now I simply don't meet people who do this. Fool me once and so forth. I tried to be understandable about it, I tried to not to feel bad when they do and not take it personally. But this is draining and I always end up feeling uncomfortable and having negative thoughts. So now I only meet with people who are interested in interacting with me. Problem solved.
- matwood 4y ago
  I'm too old to waste time, so I just ask them to stop. And, if we're 1:1 that's just really rude.
rhymeswithjazz 4y ago
I did a two week experiment where I carried a small notebook and a phone with almost every app disabled. Whenever I would find myself wanting the answer to some question and couldn't just look it I would write it down in my notebook and then look the answers up later, if at all. It was sort of fun, maybe I should revisit it.
matwood 4y ago
> just say “it’s not important” and move on Admittedly I'm a bit older, but with my friends I explicitly say lets argue it out. That's part of the fun of debating when something came out or who was in what movie. But, I didn't have a cell phone growing up so wondering about something and trying to reason it out was normal.
- jrumbut 4y ago
  I'm so sorry but this one is nails on a chalkboard for me. My family collected reference books but they would still do this. I would spend entire holidays sitting there and listening to them debate whether Mack the Knife was still #1 on the charts on January 1st, 1960. I never heard anyone listen to Bobby Darin ever, but his career was discussed ad nauseam. Just look it up or move on! It's the conversation equivalent of a rain delay.
  - emsixteen 4y ago
    Oof, this makes me sad. Sure it's always good to have the facts at hand if actually necessary, but open discussion is great and sorely missing from a lot of modern interactions.
    - jrumbut 4y ago
      It's not open discussion though. All avenues are closed except ones that can lead to figuring out a piece of trivia about someone who isn't there! I guess it works if everyone is equally into a subject but that's pretty rare and by this point I've been put out by it so many times even if I am interested, I'm not interested.
      - emsixteen 4y ago
        The unknown isn't something to be scared of. It's alright if something isn't settled in stone, you don't need to resolve every little question. You don't even need to resolve the big ones!
screwt 4y ago
> If you’re in a group and talking about something factual A good rule of thumb for this that a few of my circles use: you can check, but only after 10 minutes have passed. Of course, 95% of the time by then no-one cares, as you say. Occasionally it's still relevant after 10 minutes, and so checking makes sense.
NikolaNovak 4y ago
It's tricky. I agree thay phones are phenomenal distraction, but, they can be used for good or evil. Until fairly recently, I got extremely dirty looks or even a talk from my boss, for bringing a laptop into a meeting. It was of course fine to bring your notepad and pen, but I type about 10 times faster than I write, and I can actually read it later. It ends up just being Luddite discrimination. A few times I tried taking notes on a phone. It's always with me, the notes are electronically connected, but prejudice of me "not paying attention" was too strong to overcome (even though I'd send structured and summarized notes to everyone). So in turn I've developed this weird distaste of notebooks and their (over-)privileged status in our society :-D
- ricardobeat 4y ago
  90% of the time people will use their laptops to look at instant messaging, forums, emails, or event try to get some work done. So your boss is not wrong. You might wanna get an iPad as it is, at least for the moment, socially acceptable in meetings, even with the keyboard cover :)
  - NikolaNovak 4y ago
    You're not wrong that it's more socially acceptable. It's insane though. IPad is fundamentally a media consumption device. I'm a touchless, fast, organized typer on my laptop (I used to be primary screensharer when I was ops manager). All that socially acceptable iPad would do is handicap me severely :-/
    - piaste 4y ago
      If you can type touchless, try putting the laptop off to the side, and typing your notes without looking at the screen. The presenter might feel much less ignored if he still has your eye contact.
      - bathtub365 4y ago
        If they can type touchless their laptop doesn’t even need to be within arms length.
quitit 4y ago
A similar issue: finding a photo relevant to the discussion. Photo searching has come a long way but it's often not fast enough to keep up a discussion. It really blunts the flow. I just say "I'll send it later", and often I forget because it was unimportant.
naravara 4y ago
I actively shame people when they reach for the phone to answer those questions. If the conversation hits a point where the exact answer is actually important, then we can relent. But I would rather settle a bet by tapping a stranger on the shoulder and asking them to guess, Family Feud style, than check IMDB or whatever.
stewx 4y ago
Smart watches are perfect for this. You can activate the voice assistant and ask "What year did The Godfather come out?" without pulling out your phone and perhaps without breaking eye contact with your friends.
- pretendscholar 4y ago
  Lol I think you are missing the point. It could even be better to not know and argue about it for the purpose of conversation.
  - red-iron-pine 4y ago
    Exactly. It's like that quote about being angry: if it's not something you'll be mad about 6 weeks / 6 months / 6 years from now, why be mad? Unless it's the point of the conversation, like you're discussing dev salaries and you want to pull up levels.fyi or layoffs.fyi to compare, who cares? Will anyone be better off if they knew which actor you were talking about 6 weeks from now? Meanwhile once I heard about levels.fyi I've been checking it compulsively every month since then...
  - falcolas 4y ago
    > It could even be better to not know and argue about it for the purpose of conversation. This very concept is foreign to me, and having been in too many of these "conversations", I would rather leave entirely than sit through one. Figure out the answer to the question and switch topics. There's billions of topics to talk about (and that's without getting into polarizing topics like religion, sex, and politics), so why do we waste time arguing over trivia that doesn't matter and could be answered in seconds?
    - pretendscholar 4y ago
      Basically the point is to be funny about it or use it as a generator for a new topic. Skill at conversation is almost topic agnostic. Entertaining people can be entertaining about almost anything.
moremetadata 4y ago
> >rise of smartphones was also the rise of “phubbing”, i.e. when people go on their phones instead of paying attention to the people around them I remember when there werent just a few dominant phone manufacturers, so down the pub people used to show off their phone simply by placing it on the bar or table bench in the beer garden. As there were so many different phone's it was harder to steal because you might have been one of only a few in your town with the same type of phone. Today, nearly other person has an iphone so there's nothing to show off about, and because there are so many, stealing them to order and then reverse engineering and hacking them has got cheaper, in order to get people's data for further criminal exploits.
tasuki 4y ago
> If you’re in a group and talking about something factual like when a movie came out or a directors name Funny, in most my friends groups someone checks their phone and I'm glad they do. Why would we be talking about this if we didn't care about the truth of it? > we can talk around ideas without knowing exactly who or when what happened Sure. Then perhaps talk about the ideas and don't mention who/when or just say you're not sure, and then of course people shouldn't check :)
- dorchadas 4y ago
  > Funny, in most my friends groups someone checks their phone and I'm glad they do I hate it, it just completely disrupts the conversation, as OP said. > Why would we be talking about this if we didn't care about the truth of it? Because often it doesn't matter. The truth of who plays in a movie really doesn't matter as much as people think it does, even when discussing the movie itself. And if it's not important enough to remember, I say it definitely doesn't matter as much as whatever else was going on in the conversation surrounding it.
  - xmprt 4y ago
    > Because often it doesn't matter. I guess the parent commenter and I don't understand why the specific fact is even mentioned if it doesn't matter. In other words, in what situation would you mention "X acted in that movie" but that detail doesn't matter to the broader point that you're trying to make. If it's important to get right then you should verify and if it's not important then don't specify the detail and instead only say the necessary details which add to your point and that you're confident about.
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      Good advice for a presentation or debate, but I think this is a terrible approach to casual conversation.
    - kamikaz1k 4y ago
      Sometimes to tell a story you add a bunch of extra details, that are not critically relevant to whatever you are trying to say. Maybe you're saying you love Michael Bay movies, and then you list off a bunch of movies. And the other participant in the conversation might be like: actually I don't think Michael Bay did The Notebook. You might engage in the dispute, or move past it. Or if it's a very casual conversation, turn it into a rhetoric exchange where you try to convince it must indeed have been Michael Bay. Point being, just be aware of why you're having the conversation. If for you it is an exchange of facts, fine, do the dive (sometimes, I do this). But often, it doesn't seem to matter for the larger story you are trying to tell - I love boom boom Michael Bay movies, share your favourite boom boom movies. Last thing is, sometimes people come across as totalizing in text but they're really just saying something broadly. This is good conversational style, kinda like this thread, where you go through a collaborative exposition. Vs someone who nails all the details from the get go, and also manages to capture the relative weightings of each scenario in a way that read lightly. Okay, maybe I am rambling a bit now...what was Michael Bay's last movie again?
foobarbecue 4y ago
My friends and I have a system: each person is allowed 2 googles per gathering. Or something like that; the "rules" are always changing but the point is to acknowledge the tension between not wanting to phub and wanting to be able to bring information into our banter.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  My friends and I have no formal, agreed-to system about this. But what we actually do is never use our phones during a conversation, even to search for things -- unless, as sometimes happens, the group collectively decides an authoritative answer is actually needed. Then we select someone who is the official "searcher" and they look it up. This isn't a conscious thing, it's just the pattern of behavior that has naturally emerged.
swader999 4y ago
Give it a bit more time and you'll see people settling arguments with ChatGPT and acting like its the final authority in any matter.
Buttons840 4y ago
> just say “it’s not important” and move on or actually I’m going to start just lying I mean it doesn’t really matter we gain nothing from having the exact answer This reminds me of some relatives who like to bring up political topics, they bring it up so I participate. By the time I'm ready to Google search something factual (most recently it was how much the US spends on defense), they're shutting down. Their political interest is one of their main interests in life but doesn't extend to actual facts. You probably know the type. I find it frustrating.
- eru 4y ago
  Well, for most people politics is about tribal affiliation, not about facts. See https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9weLK2AJ9JEt2Tt8f/politics-is-the-mind-killer https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9weLK2AJ9JEt2Tt8f/politics-i...
- Mountain_Skies 4y ago
  Google is just as capable of providing misinformation as it is of providing facts. Maybe some people shut down when confronted with political opinion being stated as fact. Even something as seemingly objective as the percentage of the federal government's budget spending on the military becomes tribal when one side wants the percentage to be based on the budget that includes entitlements and other side insists that's not allowed because those are non-discretionary funds.
  - XorNot 4y ago
    And if that was a point someone wanted to make, then they're free to be specific about what they think should be included - which is also widely and publicly available information because the US budget is in fact not secret in it's volume of spending by category, it's annually published information by law.
- renewiltord 4y ago
  That's about knowing the conversation you're having. When I'm talking with my gooner friends there is a tenor to the conversation. In addition to the fun of the games, we're tribal bonding. Often you'll find new fans on /r/soccer who don't know what conversation they're having. "I'm an Arsenal fan, too, but I don't think Henry was better than Ronaldo." You moron. What are you doing. False chenzeme. We're bannering our colours here you idiot. Out with you. Anyway, it's not about whether the police have been defunded or not or whether The Handmaid's Tale has come to America or not. It's about waving the appropriate flag and feeling the tribe strength wash over you and the energy of pure unity lift you skyward.
deleted 4y ago
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mapierce2 4y ago
> If you’re in a group and talking about something factual like when a movie came out or a directors name Check your phone, but lay the phone flat on the table or hold it so everyone can see the screen—this makes it about the group doing a fact check, instead of about one person diving into their phone away from the group.
- deleted 4y ago
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- whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  I just don't think it adds anything to the conversation and the fact never needed to be checked anyway, its just a compulsion. At this point I actually would rather not know than have to have someone googling it for me. Also I now believe by googling it you're denying someone the pleasure of remembering it.
Kerrick 4y ago
I'm fascinated by the concept of "phubbing" as a new and negative phenomenon. People would previously read/scan the newspaper in most situations that people scroll on their phone today: at the table, on public transit, and in casual group settings. But, importantly, it was considered a highly interruptible task. If you were in a group setting but nobody was talking, somebody would probably start to look for interesting things in the paper to prompt discussion (as one might today on a phone). Rarely did anybody take that to mean they shouldn't talk to the person. If something more interesting or urgent came up, or even if somebody just felt like talking about a new topic, they'd just... bring it up. They'd have no qualms about interrupting the newspaper-holder, who also took no offense to being interrupted.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > Rarely did anybody take that to mean they shouldn't talk to the person. I've always taken that sort of thing as a social cue that the person doesn't want social interaction.
  - renewiltord 4y ago
    Interesting. People on BART ten years ago would read over my shoulder or borrow a section. Or talk to me about the book I'm reading. I like holding books up at eye level rather than looking down at them in my lap just for neck strain. That makes the cover more visible for sure, but I don't think it's a significant factor in the interrupting. Just in the noticing. I never minded.
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      How strange. I wonder if this is a SF thing? Or a recent development (10 years ago counts as "recent" to me)? In my part of the country, anyway, that sort of behavior has always been considered extremely rude (or at least over my entire lifetime). I wouldn't even consider doing it, and the few times it happened to me, it was exceedingly irritating.
      - 4y ago
fleddr 4y ago
I think the scenario you describe is the least of smartphone problems. You already are meeting physically with a friend. That's a good place to be in. The far more impactful issue is that meeting simply not happening at all and contact being almost exclusively digital. And in the rare case when people go out in the physical world, to still be on their phone. To experience nothing of it and to be unapproachable by others.
bernawil 4y ago
But that's not a real conversation between a group of actual humans. Nobody talks about easily checkable facts. An actual group conversation I had last week: - Remember early 2000s when that team had that insane defense? - Yeah, what was that other team they lost against one time for that other tournament? - X team. Yeah back when PlayerX was still playing. Remember that guy? - Ah yeah. Lol, remember that time that dude posted a picture of his fridge with his pictures on the beach printed on the panels? - What? I need to see that. *checks phone* *shows it around* [conversation goes on for another hour about the logistics of getting your pictures printed on the panels of a refrigerator] just checking something gives you something to keep the chat going.
scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago
This also applies to all screens in a work environment. They hypnotize, they distract, they give an easy way out, all of it. Some of the best and most influential work I have ever done in my brief career as a PM was that one time we had a power outage.
furyofantares 4y ago
> when a movie came out or a directors name and someone reaches for their phone to google (realizing I've cut off some context, this isn't necessarily contradicting you) My friend group seems to have adopted a habit of someone suggesting someone else look something up. For example if I think looking up something about a director would add something to the conversation, I point to someone who I think is also interested, and who isn't the person primarily speaking, and say "ooh, you wanna look it up?" This makes it feel like a group activity, a defined task that's approved by more than one person and the result is meant for the whole group. Sometimes the other person says "nah" or someone says "it's not important" like you said, and sometimes the conversation continues and then there's a natural point for the person to interject with what they found

brainzap 4y ago

shame is a powerful emotion that can even break some addiction

hn92726819 4y ago
I don't think so. You should check out Brenee Brown's research/books on shame. Her claim is that guilt can be a useful emotion, but shame is pretty ineffective at everything. I tend to agree with the take and I think it's useful to differentiate between the two. > "Guilt is cognitive dissonance. Guilt says, I've done something or failed to do something that is aligned with my values. And it feels awful. I need to make amends, make a change and hold myself accountable. I need to fix it." > Shame, however, is a lot more damaging according to Brown, as it says "you are a bad person", and as a social species, "shame is death". From: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-02/brene-brown-ted-talk-emotions-shame-guilt-misconceptions-covid19/100669362 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-02/brene-brown-ted-talk-...
- naravara 4y ago
  TBH I think our political system and most of our OpEd pages could benefit from an infusion of shame. Many of them are bad people and continue having prominent roles due to their complete lack of shame. Maybe in psychologically healthy people it’s ineffective, but we do live in a world stalked by psychopaths and I have to believe the shame response evolved to put a check on them.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    I feel that the big mid-2015s transition was that shaming reached such critical levels that a whole chunk of public figures flipped to shamelessness, like antibiotic-resistant bacteria. "Oh you're pointing out something I've done that doesn't align with my stated value system or common decency? Who cares, and I'll do it again"
- jodrellblank 4y ago
  The Last Psychiatrist blog was obsessed with narcissism, their model of it was that people have a self-image such as "I am a great man", "I am a good mother", "I am a proper Christian", "I am a success with a nice house and sports car and attractive blonde partner" and their main priority is making sure that everyone else has the same image of them as they have. That things which damage the image anger narcissists more than anything else. In that model, shame is "I wish you hadn't caught me doing that because you will think less of me and I can't accept that". Guilt is "I wish I hadn't done that because it harmed other people and other people matter" which extreme narcissists don't feel. That is, the child who has torn clothes and one parent worries that the child might be hurt under their watch, compared to the parent who punishes the child for making them look like a worse parent to all the bystanders. And that pattern is something to see everywhere, from internet arguments to international news. i.e. guilt is [1] "Greek transport minister Kostas Karamanlis has resigned following a rail crash which killed at least 38 people; Mr Karamanlis said he felt it was his “duty” to step down “as a basic indication of respect for the memory of the people who died so unfairly”" Shame is [2] Turkey blocking social media immediately after the recent earthquake and arresting people who posted things which made the government look bad. Instead of first thought being to the injured or the corruption, it was trying to control how the government looks and punishing those who hurt that image. Guilt is not something social media can encourage - the other people are names on a screen, far away. But a focus on your image, the image you present to the world, the perfect life you live, the perfect friends you have, the beautiful places you go, the clever knowledge you have, the busy Github commit log, the witty Twitter stream, those kinds of things are what social media promotes uncomfortably well. When someone sees you crying or without makeup, that's not the macho or beautiful Instagram image you've cultivated, harm done - to you, to your image - shame shame shame emergency response damage control, post something which puts it in context and explains it, attack back. When you call someone an unfunny moron on Twitter, no harm done but when someone calls you an unfunny moron, damage control - the world must think of me as witty and inciteful because that's all I have on Twitter and if I lose that, I'm nobody, attack back. i.e. the phones are a proxy, reading a book with other people around instead of talking to them can still feel sociable. Seeing beautiful people on a billboard advert has been a thing for decades. The projection of yourself to the world, text, pictures, videos, blogs, streams, to an internet where all there is is a projection of you which you have to control, seems like more of a problem. [1] https://www.wandsworthguardian.co.uk/news/national/23356731.greek-transport-minister-resigns-deadly-train-crash/ https://www.wandsworthguardian.co.uk/news/national/23356731.... [2] https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/twitter-down-in-turkey-as-earthquake-response-criticism-mounts-101675876212180.html https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/twitter-down-in-tu...

trabant00 4y ago

> If you’re meeting with one person and they start doing it [...] just sit there in silence waiting for them if they’re distracted by it. This works surprisingly well and it’s funny how often people apologize I've tried everything to get people off phones when we meet, this included. It works for the first couple of times but then they get desensitized to any form of feedback and go back on their phones. Which causes the chain reaction you mentioned and more people go on their phones. So now I simply don't meet people who do this. Fool me once and so forth. I tried to be understandable about it, I tried to not to feel bad when they do and not take it personally. But this is draining and I always end up feeling uncomfortable and having negative thoughts. So now I only meet with people who are interested in interacting with me. Problem solved.

matwood 4y ago
I'm too old to waste time, so I just ask them to stop. And, if we're 1:1 that's just really rude.

rhymeswithjazz 4y ago

I did a two week experiment where I carried a small notebook and a phone with almost every app disabled. Whenever I would find myself wanting the answer to some question and couldn't just look it I would write it down in my notebook and then look the answers up later, if at all. It was sort of fun, maybe I should revisit it.

matwood 4y ago

> just say “it’s not important” and move on Admittedly I'm a bit older, but with my friends I explicitly say lets argue it out. That's part of the fun of debating when something came out or who was in what movie. But, I didn't have a cell phone growing up so wondering about something and trying to reason it out was normal.

jrumbut 4y ago
I'm so sorry but this one is nails on a chalkboard for me. My family collected reference books but they would still do this. I would spend entire holidays sitting there and listening to them debate whether Mack the Knife was still #1 on the charts on January 1st, 1960. I never heard anyone listen to Bobby Darin ever, but his career was discussed ad nauseam. Just look it up or move on! It's the conversation equivalent of a rain delay.
- emsixteen 4y ago
  Oof, this makes me sad. Sure it's always good to have the facts at hand if actually necessary, but open discussion is great and sorely missing from a lot of modern interactions.
  - jrumbut 4y ago
    It's not open discussion though. All avenues are closed except ones that can lead to figuring out a piece of trivia about someone who isn't there! I guess it works if everyone is equally into a subject but that's pretty rare and by this point I've been put out by it so many times even if I am interested, I'm not interested.
    - emsixteen 4y ago
      The unknown isn't something to be scared of. It's alright if something isn't settled in stone, you don't need to resolve every little question. You don't even need to resolve the big ones!

screwt 4y ago

> If you’re in a group and talking about something factual A good rule of thumb for this that a few of my circles use: you can check, but only after 10 minutes have passed. Of course, 95% of the time by then no-one cares, as you say. Occasionally it's still relevant after 10 minutes, and so checking makes sense.

NikolaNovak 4y ago

It's tricky. I agree thay phones are phenomenal distraction, but, they can be used for good or evil. Until fairly recently, I got extremely dirty looks or even a talk from my boss, for bringing a laptop into a meeting. It was of course fine to bring your notepad and pen, but I type about 10 times faster than I write, and I can actually read it later. It ends up just being Luddite discrimination. A few times I tried taking notes on a phone. It's always with me, the notes are electronically connected, but prejudice of me "not paying attention" was too strong to overcome (even though I'd send structured and summarized notes to everyone). So in turn I've developed this weird distaste of notebooks and their (over-)privileged status in our society :-D

ricardobeat 4y ago
90% of the time people will use their laptops to look at instant messaging, forums, emails, or event try to get some work done. So your boss is not wrong. You might wanna get an iPad as it is, at least for the moment, socially acceptable in meetings, even with the keyboard cover :)
- NikolaNovak 4y ago
  You're not wrong that it's more socially acceptable. It's insane though. IPad is fundamentally a media consumption device. I'm a touchless, fast, organized typer on my laptop (I used to be primary screensharer when I was ops manager). All that socially acceptable iPad would do is handicap me severely :-/
  - piaste 4y ago
    If you can type touchless, try putting the laptop off to the side, and typing your notes without looking at the screen. The presenter might feel much less ignored if he still has your eye contact.
    - bathtub365 4y ago
      If they can type touchless their laptop doesn’t even need to be within arms length.

quitit 4y ago

A similar issue: finding a photo relevant to the discussion. Photo searching has come a long way but it's often not fast enough to keep up a discussion. It really blunts the flow. I just say "I'll send it later", and often I forget because it was unimportant.

naravara 4y ago

I actively shame people when they reach for the phone to answer those questions. If the conversation hits a point where the exact answer is actually important, then we can relent. But I would rather settle a bet by tapping a stranger on the shoulder and asking them to guess, Family Feud style, than check IMDB or whatever.

stewx 4y ago

Smart watches are perfect for this. You can activate the voice assistant and ask "What year did The Godfather come out?" without pulling out your phone and perhaps without breaking eye contact with your friends.

pretendscholar 4y ago
Lol I think you are missing the point. It could even be better to not know and argue about it for the purpose of conversation.
- red-iron-pine 4y ago
  Exactly. It's like that quote about being angry: if it's not something you'll be mad about 6 weeks / 6 months / 6 years from now, why be mad? Unless it's the point of the conversation, like you're discussing dev salaries and you want to pull up levels.fyi or layoffs.fyi to compare, who cares? Will anyone be better off if they knew which actor you were talking about 6 weeks from now? Meanwhile once I heard about levels.fyi I've been checking it compulsively every month since then...
- falcolas 4y ago
  > It could even be better to not know and argue about it for the purpose of conversation. This very concept is foreign to me, and having been in too many of these "conversations", I would rather leave entirely than sit through one. Figure out the answer to the question and switch topics. There's billions of topics to talk about (and that's without getting into polarizing topics like religion, sex, and politics), so why do we waste time arguing over trivia that doesn't matter and could be answered in seconds?
  - pretendscholar 4y ago
    Basically the point is to be funny about it or use it as a generator for a new topic. Skill at conversation is almost topic agnostic. Entertaining people can be entertaining about almost anything.

moremetadata 4y ago

> >rise of smartphones was also the rise of “phubbing”, i.e. when people go on their phones instead of paying attention to the people around them I remember when there werent just a few dominant phone manufacturers, so down the pub people used to show off their phone simply by placing it on the bar or table bench in the beer garden. As there were so many different phone's it was harder to steal because you might have been one of only a few in your town with the same type of phone. Today, nearly other person has an iphone so there's nothing to show off about, and because there are so many, stealing them to order and then reverse engineering and hacking them has got cheaper, in order to get people's data for further criminal exploits.

tasuki 4y ago

> If you’re in a group and talking about something factual like when a movie came out or a directors name Funny, in most my friends groups someone checks their phone and I'm glad they do. Why would we be talking about this if we didn't care about the truth of it? > we can talk around ideas without knowing exactly who or when what happened Sure. Then perhaps talk about the ideas and don't mention who/when or just say you're not sure, and then of course people shouldn't check :)

dorchadas 4y ago
> Funny, in most my friends groups someone checks their phone and I'm glad they do I hate it, it just completely disrupts the conversation, as OP said. > Why would we be talking about this if we didn't care about the truth of it? Because often it doesn't matter. The truth of who plays in a movie really doesn't matter as much as people think it does, even when discussing the movie itself. And if it's not important enough to remember, I say it definitely doesn't matter as much as whatever else was going on in the conversation surrounding it.
- xmprt 4y ago
  > Because often it doesn't matter. I guess the parent commenter and I don't understand why the specific fact is even mentioned if it doesn't matter. In other words, in what situation would you mention "X acted in that movie" but that detail doesn't matter to the broader point that you're trying to make. If it's important to get right then you should verify and if it's not important then don't specify the detail and instead only say the necessary details which add to your point and that you're confident about.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    Good advice for a presentation or debate, but I think this is a terrible approach to casual conversation.
  - kamikaz1k 4y ago
    Sometimes to tell a story you add a bunch of extra details, that are not critically relevant to whatever you are trying to say. Maybe you're saying you love Michael Bay movies, and then you list off a bunch of movies. And the other participant in the conversation might be like: actually I don't think Michael Bay did The Notebook. You might engage in the dispute, or move past it. Or if it's a very casual conversation, turn it into a rhetoric exchange where you try to convince it must indeed have been Michael Bay. Point being, just be aware of why you're having the conversation. If for you it is an exchange of facts, fine, do the dive (sometimes, I do this). But often, it doesn't seem to matter for the larger story you are trying to tell - I love boom boom Michael Bay movies, share your favourite boom boom movies. Last thing is, sometimes people come across as totalizing in text but they're really just saying something broadly. This is good conversational style, kinda like this thread, where you go through a collaborative exposition. Vs someone who nails all the details from the get go, and also manages to capture the relative weightings of each scenario in a way that read lightly. Okay, maybe I am rambling a bit now...what was Michael Bay's last movie again?

foobarbecue 4y ago

My friends and I have a system: each person is allowed 2 googles per gathering. Or something like that; the "rules" are always changing but the point is to acknowledge the tension between not wanting to phub and wanting to be able to bring information into our banter.

JohnFen 4y ago
My friends and I have no formal, agreed-to system about this. But what we actually do is never use our phones during a conversation, even to search for things -- unless, as sometimes happens, the group collectively decides an authoritative answer is actually needed. Then we select someone who is the official "searcher" and they look it up. This isn't a conscious thing, it's just the pattern of behavior that has naturally emerged.

swader999 4y ago

Give it a bit more time and you'll see people settling arguments with ChatGPT and acting like its the final authority in any matter.

Buttons840 4y ago

> just say “it’s not important” and move on or actually I’m going to start just lying I mean it doesn’t really matter we gain nothing from having the exact answer This reminds me of some relatives who like to bring up political topics, they bring it up so I participate. By the time I'm ready to Google search something factual (most recently it was how much the US spends on defense), they're shutting down. Their political interest is one of their main interests in life but doesn't extend to actual facts. You probably know the type. I find it frustrating.

eru 4y ago
Well, for most people politics is about tribal affiliation, not about facts. See https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9weLK2AJ9JEt2Tt8f/politics-is-the-mind-killer https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9weLK2AJ9JEt2Tt8f/politics-i...
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
Google is just as capable of providing misinformation as it is of providing facts. Maybe some people shut down when confronted with political opinion being stated as fact. Even something as seemingly objective as the percentage of the federal government's budget spending on the military becomes tribal when one side wants the percentage to be based on the budget that includes entitlements and other side insists that's not allowed because those are non-discretionary funds.
- XorNot 4y ago
  And if that was a point someone wanted to make, then they're free to be specific about what they think should be included - which is also widely and publicly available information because the US budget is in fact not secret in it's volume of spending by category, it's annually published information by law.
renewiltord 4y ago
That's about knowing the conversation you're having. When I'm talking with my gooner friends there is a tenor to the conversation. In addition to the fun of the games, we're tribal bonding. Often you'll find new fans on /r/soccer who don't know what conversation they're having. "I'm an Arsenal fan, too, but I don't think Henry was better than Ronaldo." You moron. What are you doing. False chenzeme. We're bannering our colours here you idiot. Out with you. Anyway, it's not about whether the police have been defunded or not or whether The Handmaid's Tale has come to America or not. It's about waving the appropriate flag and feeling the tribe strength wash over you and the energy of pure unity lift you skyward.

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mapierce2 4y ago

> If you’re in a group and talking about something factual like when a movie came out or a directors name Check your phone, but lay the phone flat on the table or hold it so everyone can see the screen—this makes it about the group doing a fact check, instead of about one person diving into their phone away from the group.

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whywhywhywhy 4y ago
I just don't think it adds anything to the conversation and the fact never needed to be checked anyway, its just a compulsion. At this point I actually would rather not know than have to have someone googling it for me. Also I now believe by googling it you're denying someone the pleasure of remembering it.

Kerrick 4y ago

I'm fascinated by the concept of "phubbing" as a new and negative phenomenon. People would previously read/scan the newspaper in most situations that people scroll on their phone today: at the table, on public transit, and in casual group settings. But, importantly, it was considered a highly interruptible task. If you were in a group setting but nobody was talking, somebody would probably start to look for interesting things in the paper to prompt discussion (as one might today on a phone). Rarely did anybody take that to mean they shouldn't talk to the person. If something more interesting or urgent came up, or even if somebody just felt like talking about a new topic, they'd just... bring it up. They'd have no qualms about interrupting the newspaper-holder, who also took no offense to being interrupted.

JohnFen 4y ago
> Rarely did anybody take that to mean they shouldn't talk to the person. I've always taken that sort of thing as a social cue that the person doesn't want social interaction.
- renewiltord 4y ago
  Interesting. People on BART ten years ago would read over my shoulder or borrow a section. Or talk to me about the book I'm reading. I like holding books up at eye level rather than looking down at them in my lap just for neck strain. That makes the cover more visible for sure, but I don't think it's a significant factor in the interrupting. Just in the noticing. I never minded.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    How strange. I wonder if this is a SF thing? Or a recent development (10 years ago counts as "recent" to me)? In my part of the country, anyway, that sort of behavior has always been considered extremely rude (or at least over my entire lifetime). I wouldn't even consider doing it, and the few times it happened to me, it was exceedingly irritating.
    - 4y ago

fleddr 4y ago

I think the scenario you describe is the least of smartphone problems. You already are meeting physically with a friend. That's a good place to be in. The far more impactful issue is that meeting simply not happening at all and contact being almost exclusively digital. And in the rare case when people go out in the physical world, to still be on their phone. To experience nothing of it and to be unapproachable by others.

bernawil 4y ago

But that's not a real conversation between a group of actual humans. Nobody talks about easily checkable facts. An actual group conversation I had last week: - Remember early 2000s when that team had that insane defense? - Yeah, what was that other team they lost against one time for that other tournament? - X team. Yeah back when PlayerX was still playing. Remember that guy? - Ah yeah. Lol, remember that time that dude posted a picture of his fridge with his pictures on the beach printed on the panels? - What? I need to see that. *checks phone* *shows it around* [conversation goes on for another hour about the logistics of getting your pictures printed on the panels of a refrigerator] just checking something gives you something to keep the chat going.

scyzoryk_xyz 4y ago

This also applies to all screens in a work environment. They hypnotize, they distract, they give an easy way out, all of it. Some of the best and most influential work I have ever done in my brief career as a PM was that one time we had a power outage.

furyofantares 4y ago

> when a movie came out or a directors name and someone reaches for their phone to google (realizing I've cut off some context, this isn't necessarily contradicting you) My friend group seems to have adopted a habit of someone suggesting someone else look something up. For example if I think looking up something about a director would add something to the conversation, I point to someone who I think is also interested, and who isn't the person primarily speaking, and say "ooh, you wanna look it up?" This makes it feel like a group activity, a defined task that's approved by more than one person and the result is meant for the whole group. Sometimes the other person says "nah" or someone says "it's not important" like you said, and sometimes the conversation continues and then there's a natural point for the person to interject with what they found