6 ms·

Do people really want to quit their smartphone? I certainly don’t. It connects me to people, provides information, and lets me capture information when I want t

Do people really want to quit their smartphone? I certainly don’t. It connects me to people, provides information, and lets me capture information when I want to. I do not feel overwhelmed by it. I do restrict notifications to specific apps and people. The rest, I check on a couple of times a day. Why would I want to quit?

darth_avocado 3y ago
People don’t want to quit smartphones, they want to quit what’s in them and that can be hard. Sometimes you just have apps that are a time sink. You can obviously delete them and call it a day, but sometimes you want to keep it around for a small use case, but then want to limit your usage to a minimum, which can be hard because these apps are literally designed to make you spend as much time on them as possible.
- XorNot 3y ago
  This triggers my "learn some self-discipline" instinct. It's such a learned helplessness statement "oh no, I can't possibly not open the reddit app 30 times a day. Save me from myself." Like, I get it, it's not easy but it's also a pretty basic part of being an adult. Like brushing your teeth, eating healthily or doing exercise (which is to say: if you think "I have problems with those too" then the problem really isn't your smartphone).
  - lethologica 3y ago
    This is like saying to addicts “Just stop smoking crack”. Everyone knows smoking crack is bad for you. A lot of people want to quit but are unable to no matter how much “self discipline” they have. And app developers have teams of people dedicated to making sure you stay on these apps longer and longer. Now imagine your dealer is in your pocket 24/7.
    - skidd0 3y ago
      Except crack and other drugs form physical dependencies which leads to withdrawal. Smart phone addicts have a more psychological battle. That's the willpower/self-discipline part. How do you build discipline? Practice! So, yeah, it can be as simple as telling yourself "just stop using the apps" as often as you can to build up the skill.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - vonjuice 3y ago
        If you think addiction is about chemical dependence you need to deepen and broaden your knowledge on the subject.
        skidd0 3y ago
        Addiction has many factors. I was pointing out that crack and other drugs can form chemical dependencies that apps and screen time cannot.
        vonjuice 3y ago
        Conversely there's aspects of screens that are not present in crack, such as widespread acceptance and even encouragement, hijacking of our most prioritized sense organ, etc. If you were to design a visual drug, as a concept, you wouldn't get very far from the current state of affairs.
        skidd0 3y ago
        Completely agree.
      - Erratic6576 3y ago
        Psychology takes place in a physical organ or network of physical organs
  - yunwal 3y ago
    I’m not sure what your point is here. The adult thing to do if you’re an addict is to move as far away from your addiction as possible. That is what self discipline looks like.
  - phs318u 3y ago
    It's now well known and accepted knowledge that "addictions" have heritable elements (specifically in the transition from initial to problematic use). This has been proven by repeated studies of families and twins. The preponderance of substance abuse addicts in recovery that "swap the witch for the bitch" and adopt behavioural addictions also support the genetic basis for addictability (my word). I am a behavioural addict in recovery (4442 days today) and when I consider my siblings, parents, their siblings and their children (my first cousins), there's a >50% incidence of addiction to either smoking (>2 packs/day), alcohol, sex, food, gambling, or drug use. Half of that cohort have more than one addiction and among those almost all share a substance addiction with a behavioural addiction. I appreciate that this is just one family and is statistically irrelevant. However because I've been around people dealing with their addictions for so long and spoken to so many, this is not an uncommon familial pattern among addicts. I'd also add that in my clan there are many instances where one sibling is an addict and another isn't. This is not learned behaviour (though the introduction to addictive pathways/behaviours etc is often as a result of environmental and psycho-social factors).
madaxe_again 3y ago
I think a more accurate statement of the need is that people want their lives back, and the smartphone is a clear symbol of the ever-connected world, where not noticing a message for 15 minutes can turn into disaster, where you are expected to Always. Be. Available. That’s what people want out of, in my observations. We talk about habituated phone users - people who sit there refreshing their social feed for 14 hours a day - and while these are troubling cases, I don’t think they represent the majority of people who say they want to give up their smartphone.
- BirAdam 3y ago
  I’ve been off and on into conlanging since I was a young child, and when the smartphone started becoming a thing with later Blackberries, Treos, and then with iPhone and Android, I began using the same word to mean leash and phone in most of my languages.
  - madaxe_again 3y ago
    I literally call mine “the shackle”
- XorNot 3y ago
  In which case there actual issue would be worker's rights, and once again a bunch of people have run off to fight the wrong battle because they're scared or can't even conceive of the real one. Meanwhile in France: https://www.upworthy.com/under-french-law-businesses-cant-email-employees-after-work-hours-rp https://www.upworthy.com/under-french-law-businesses-cant-em...
- Tagbert 3y ago
  I have never allowed anyone to expect that kind of responsiveness from me, especially 24x7. The closest you get would be phone calls from my spouse and even then, if I’m in meetings I may not respond an hour or so and that’s not a cause for concern. At work, I have all notifications turned off except for badges or meeting notices. Even then I only check things like Slack or email at most once an hour.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

darth_avocado 3y ago

People don’t want to quit smartphones, they want to quit what’s in them and that can be hard. Sometimes you just have apps that are a time sink. You can obviously delete them and call it a day, but sometimes you want to keep it around for a small use case, but then want to limit your usage to a minimum, which can be hard because these apps are literally designed to make you spend as much time on them as possible.

XorNot 3y ago
This triggers my "learn some self-discipline" instinct. It's such a learned helplessness statement "oh no, I can't possibly not open the reddit app 30 times a day. Save me from myself." Like, I get it, it's not easy but it's also a pretty basic part of being an adult. Like brushing your teeth, eating healthily or doing exercise (which is to say: if you think "I have problems with those too" then the problem really isn't your smartphone).
- lethologica 3y ago
  This is like saying to addicts “Just stop smoking crack”. Everyone knows smoking crack is bad for you. A lot of people want to quit but are unable to no matter how much “self discipline” they have. And app developers have teams of people dedicated to making sure you stay on these apps longer and longer. Now imagine your dealer is in your pocket 24/7.
  - skidd0 3y ago
    Except crack and other drugs form physical dependencies which leads to withdrawal. Smart phone addicts have a more psychological battle. That's the willpower/self-discipline part. How do you build discipline? Practice! So, yeah, it can be as simple as telling yourself "just stop using the apps" as often as you can to build up the skill.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - vonjuice 3y ago
      If you think addiction is about chemical dependence you need to deepen and broaden your knowledge on the subject.
      - skidd0 3y ago
        Addiction has many factors. I was pointing out that crack and other drugs can form chemical dependencies that apps and screen time cannot.
        vonjuice 3y ago
        Conversely there's aspects of screens that are not present in crack, such as widespread acceptance and even encouragement, hijacking of our most prioritized sense organ, etc. If you were to design a visual drug, as a concept, you wouldn't get very far from the current state of affairs.
        skidd0 3y ago
        Completely agree.
    - Erratic6576 3y ago
      Psychology takes place in a physical organ or network of physical organs
- yunwal 3y ago
  I’m not sure what your point is here. The adult thing to do if you’re an addict is to move as far away from your addiction as possible. That is what self discipline looks like.
- phs318u 3y ago
  It's now well known and accepted knowledge that "addictions" have heritable elements (specifically in the transition from initial to problematic use). This has been proven by repeated studies of families and twins. The preponderance of substance abuse addicts in recovery that "swap the witch for the bitch" and adopt behavioural addictions also support the genetic basis for addictability (my word). I am a behavioural addict in recovery (4442 days today) and when I consider my siblings, parents, their siblings and their children (my first cousins), there's a >50% incidence of addiction to either smoking (>2 packs/day), alcohol, sex, food, gambling, or drug use. Half of that cohort have more than one addiction and among those almost all share a substance addiction with a behavioural addiction. I appreciate that this is just one family and is statistically irrelevant. However because I've been around people dealing with their addictions for so long and spoken to so many, this is not an uncommon familial pattern among addicts. I'd also add that in my clan there are many instances where one sibling is an addict and another isn't. This is not learned behaviour (though the introduction to addictive pathways/behaviours etc is often as a result of environmental and psycho-social factors).

madaxe_again 3y ago

I think a more accurate statement of the need is that people want their lives back, and the smartphone is a clear symbol of the ever-connected world, where not noticing a message for 15 minutes can turn into disaster, where you are expected to Always. Be. Available. That’s what people want out of, in my observations. We talk about habituated phone users - people who sit there refreshing their social feed for 14 hours a day - and while these are troubling cases, I don’t think they represent the majority of people who say they want to give up their smartphone.

BirAdam 3y ago
I’ve been off and on into conlanging since I was a young child, and when the smartphone started becoming a thing with later Blackberries, Treos, and then with iPhone and Android, I began using the same word to mean leash and phone in most of my languages.
- madaxe_again 3y ago
  I literally call mine “the shackle”
XorNot 3y ago
In which case there actual issue would be worker's rights, and once again a bunch of people have run off to fight the wrong battle because they're scared or can't even conceive of the real one. Meanwhile in France: https://www.upworthy.com/under-french-law-businesses-cant-email-employees-after-work-hours-rp https://www.upworthy.com/under-french-law-businesses-cant-em...
Tagbert 3y ago
I have never allowed anyone to expect that kind of responsiveness from me, especially 24x7. The closest you get would be phone calls from my spouse and even then, if I’m in meetings I may not respond an hour or so and that’s not a cause for concern. At work, I have all notifications turned off except for badges or meeting notices. Even then I only check things like Slack or email at most once an hour.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]