6 ms·

Turning away from smartphones: 'We need to go places and touch things'

67 points by priyankanath 2y ago

cjk2 2y ago
At this rate of headlines, The Grauniad will be shutting their app and web servers down shortly and moving back to movable type and newspaper boys covered in soot. My phone helps gets me to places I can go and touch things. And take photos with it. It's just a tool. Encourage those uses. It's not the device, it's the users' choice in how they use it.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  Cocaine is a tool too.
  - eimrine 2y ago
    Dear SJWs, stop downvoting the parental post if you just don't know the mentioned substance is a really good local anesthetic with short but powerful effect and having close to zero post-effects after a singular use.
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      I appreciate your appreciating my targeted metaphor. <3
- fergonco 2y ago
  Technology enters because it's useful. Stays because it's addictive. You can praise all good usages of technology. Then you make a pie chart of real usages and the biggest piece of the cake will be porn, violent content, etc.
- mrjh 2y ago
  If you've never picked up your phone to do one thing and half an hour later found yourself trawling through Instagram, having forgotten what you originally meant to do with your "just a tool", you are in a tiny minority of incredibly focused people. The majority of us, through no fault of our own, find these 'tools' regularly sucking us into a vortex of distractions and time-wasting. The struggle against cheap dopamine hits is real.
  - redeeman 2y ago
    > you are in a tiny minority of incredibly focused people. oh please... > The majority of us, through no fault of our own it is called "personal accountability", I know its very hated on in the modern world, but please... > The struggle against cheap dopamine hits is real Yeah.. try go back 500 years or 1000 years and explain your struggles to the people there.
    - LoganDark 2y ago
      > > The majority of us, through no fault of our own > it is called "personal accountability", I know its very hated on in the modern world, but please... Look, I get the point you're trying to make, but as stated, this is incredibly insensitive. There are plenty of scenarios where someone should be held personally accountable for getting distracted or losing time, but this is not one of them. It's entirely possible and quite common for certain kinds of content to trick and manipulate the brain. It's not their personal fault for falling victim, just as it's not someone's personal fault for getting robbed. Plus, not everyone can focus or resist distractions the same. Not everyone can expect to even be able to. Many people who suffer from ADHD, for example, have a particularly hard time with this.
      - danielbln 2y ago
        I get the feeling OP is one of those who tells people with depression to just stop feeling sad...
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        redeeman 2y ago
        you are wrong, I am however one of those people who say that if you are allergic to peanuts, you do not get to scream "make peanuts illegal", but you instead accept that you have a task of making sure what you stuff your face with does not contain peanuts.
- namaria 2y ago
  Not acknowledging the dark patterns and the addictive economics of free apps and the advertisement economy is disingenuous. I'm glad your iron will isn't affected but pretending like there isn't a huge societal problem because it doesn't affect you is just arrogant.
  - redeeman 2y ago
    theres a problem because people have been raised to be idiots in front of the pictocube.
    - d3w3y 2y ago
      So you admit that technology is inherently harmful to human beings' cognitive development?
- sumtechguy 2y ago
  > It's not the device, it's the users' choice in how they use it. This right here. But I take it in a different way. That tool is mine. I get to chose how it is used. Advertisers seem to think they own some of my time to get 'free things'. Application makers seem to think they own some of my time to try to get more money out of me thru the use of dark patterns. The phone companies seem to think they own some of my time and sell my data because I pay them. Other people seem to think they own my time because I have the thing and should be on call 24/7 whenever they want to get ahold of me. When they first came up with the idea of the current smart phone. It was really cool. Then I have realized that everyone is using it to grab my time from me. All of them seem to get mad when I set the thing down on a table somewhere and ignore it and enjoy the things I want to do.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    I apportion blame a bit differently. App makers (and mobile phone companies) are competitive marketplaces with alternatives. They're trying to find viable business models to fund feature development and make a profit. Can't fault them for that: users can pick another option. Who I can fault is mobile OS/platform owners. It's a duopoly, and they've repeatedly and strategically made user-hostile decisions that strip choice away from mobile device owners. All of the ills you mentioned wouldn't be ills if OS features enabled user control of them. Google is obviously the more egregious (user freedom features and need to boost quarterly profits are inversely related), but I don't think Apple would be taking a pro-privacy stance if it conflicted with their business model and they didn't see it as a strategic differentiator.
- mrweasel 2y ago
  The article have an ad for a cooking app, by The Guardian it think. Seems a little out of place on an article like this.
infotainment 2y ago
Glad to see there's some traction on moving away from smartphones. While the devices themselves are ostensibly neutral, so many of their apps and features are designed to maximize engagement with myriad dark patterns. Then again, maybe it's better if everyone spends 100% of their free time repeatedly checking for new Reels™ on Instagram. You never know, there might be a good one this time.
spacecadet 2y ago
Hacker news is my last smart phone "thing", Ive now been logging out after usage and waiting progressively longer to log back in... only time before I just dont... and then its done.
mrweasel 2y ago
Someone pointed out in a similar discussion: "It's not the phone itself that they issue, it's the content." Yesterday there was a debate locally about screen time, both for adults and children, and how much is to much. It's always about the phone, the iPad or the TV, never about the content. At this point I'm leaning more towards, well, we tried social media, streaming, online gaming and funny meme site and our monkey brains can't deal with it, so let's just kill it off already. Ban the whole thing. Many companies, especially those supported by ads, apparently can't help themselves, they will exploit any weakness in human psychology to make a quick buck of our attention. So you know what, let's just ban all of it and admit it was a mistake and keep the proven good part. You're not going to be doom scrolling your banking app, your TOTP app or your home automation. Keep those apps and just ban attention stealing algorithms, apps and websites so that we can move on.
- politelemon 2y ago
  > It's not the phone itself that they issue, it's the content." I don't think that's true, at best it's both. It's the phone that enables a more frictionless access to the content. Having a speed bump to access the same content would make a large difference which is why the alternatives in the article are proving effective, the act of accessing something is less mindless, and more deliberate. I think the point they're making is that not everyone has the discipline or motive to evaluate and remove things.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    Bingo. For people like me my phone is indispensable, not as a source of endless distractions (though I dabble like anyone) but I put everything in my phone. It's literally an extension of my brain, because my brain is bad at remembering things, so every last thing goes in the phone. Plans with friends, important dates in relationships, birthdays, I have calendar reminders for practically everything going on in my life, and even a bunch strictly for work. My reminders app is packed to the gills with everything from random little to-dos to full-bore projects I'm working on, with notes and documentation in other apps to boot. It's one of the reasons I'm still an ardent Apple user, the fluidity I have between my tablets, phone and Mac is essential for my workflows. I just couldn't use a PC full time, even if I wanted to.
watershawl 2y ago
How can we use our smartphones to "go places and touch things"?
owisd 2y ago
Shout out for "Apple Configurator" for Mac, if a dumb phone appeals to you but can't because there are some apps you really need, I hardly ever see it mentioned in articles like this. It's designed for IT departments to configure all their company phones, but you can also use it to dumb down any iPhone by whitelisting a specific set of apps, it's way better than the parental controls / screen time options.
- cubefox 2y ago
  How hard/easy is it to circumvent the whitelist? Moreover, do you whitelist the whole browser?
  - owisd 2y ago
    You need to be back at your Mac to install a new profile to circumvent the whitelist, you can't do it from inside your phone. Yes the whole of Safari can be white/blacklisted, although the way I have it set up if you're in an app with a webview it's still using Safari under the hood, and if that web view lets you browse to an arbitrary site then it can be circumventable that way. You can presumably lock it down further to prevent this, e.g. force the phone to use a specific VPN that you can then control to whitelist certain domains.
  - alamortsubite 2y ago
    Every time I use Safari on iOS it seems somehow kneecapped by default, so maybe whitelisting the browser is no problem.
- sudoanon 2y ago
  > "Apple Configurator" for Mac ... way better than the parental controls / screen time options Ok, so this sounds very interesting & useful. I'll be reading up on this, but if you have time to pass along any pointers or tips around using this for personal/household use it'd be much appreciated.
RamblingCTO 2y ago
Honestly, I don't get why this is a problem. The iPhone has these focus modes that switch automatically. And I disable notifications for everything irrelevant. I just get emails, messenger stuff, X, banking and podcasts notifications. I always have a focus turned on, I don't ever get a vibration or sounds off of any notification.
Simulacra 2y ago
I think it's more of an issue of availability. My smartphone is incredibly useful, but I spend too much time on it. Sometimes I just have to leave the phone at home, or put it on charger in a drawer somewhere and try to forget about it. Once I'm away from my phone for a little bit, my brain finds other things that are interesting.
incomingpain 2y ago
[flagged]
- forgotacc240419 2y ago
  What social crisis is this that you're on about? The major one in the west seems to be about the inability of young people to afford a home; which causes obvious issues in building up community when you're not permanently placed in any specific neighborhood (e.g. the real social net benefits for an individual of locally volunteering can take years to generate significant return)
canuckthrow 2y ago
This reads like an early stage of depression setting in.
WhackyIdeas 2y ago
After what happened with Adobe, Microsoft and Sonos this past week, I have decided to try limit my use of American products. Don’t get me wrong, I love the USA - I have tonnes of family there and I have met some super nice people on my months long holidays there too… But. There is just too much poison coming out of Silicon Valley in my view. Awful choices in pursuit of our personal information, ‘Recall’ demonstrates how Silicon Vally is sick in their pursuit of trying to get even more stinking rich. So yeah, I decided to try to remove as many American products and services from my life. It’s going to be tough. I have invested 5 digits in Apple tech over the past couple of years. It’s all to be sold now. Switched Microsoft for Linux and OpenBSD, and I have a lot more tech to get rid of. I know this sounds extreme, but I don’t want to fund these companies. I am partly responsible for funding then as it is, and I am out now.
- alamortsubite 2y ago
  It's called late stage capitalism and the scary thing is I think we still have a way to go. Check out the explosion of PE into our healthcare system recently if you really want to feel some goosebumps.
  - eimrine 2y ago
    Wait a minute, why being a private equity for some healthcare institutes is bad?
    - rpgwaiter 2y ago
      Healthcare should be run by the government, PE is about as far away from that ideal as possible. Profit motives should rarely (if ever) mix with healthcare
- mark_l_watson 2y ago
  Real. I am a long term Linux user (first downloaded Slackware over a 2400 baud modem - you can ask your grandparents what that is) and in principle I would like to do what you have done, basically do a “100% Richard Stallman” but my productivity is higher when using specific tools on macOS/iPadOS/iOS. I fight back a bit by leaving my iPhone at home unless I want to take pictures. Instead my Apple Watch is my main driver when I am out in the world. It is fairly unobtrusive, in spite of the mountain of distributed tech behind it. BTW, I don’t think you sound extreme at all. After reading good books like Privacy is Power and The Surveillance Capitalism, you approach sounds real to me.
ethbr1 2y ago
Possibly relevant to readers' interests, so leaving these here. digitalminimalism: https://www.reddit.com/r/digitalminimalism/ https://www.reddit.com/r/digitalminimalism/ dumbphones: https://www.reddit.com/r/dumbphones/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dumbphones/
ortusdux 2y ago
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/touch-grass https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/touch-grass

67 points by priyankanath 2y ago

cjk2 2y ago

At this rate of headlines, The Grauniad will be shutting their app and web servers down shortly and moving back to movable type and newspaper boys covered in soot. My phone helps gets me to places I can go and touch things. And take photos with it. It's just a tool. Encourage those uses. It's not the device, it's the users' choice in how they use it.

ethbr1 2y ago
Cocaine is a tool too.
- eimrine 2y ago
  Dear SJWs, stop downvoting the parental post if you just don't know the mentioned substance is a really good local anesthetic with short but powerful effect and having close to zero post-effects after a singular use.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    I appreciate your appreciating my targeted metaphor. <3
fergonco 2y ago
Technology enters because it's useful. Stays because it's addictive. You can praise all good usages of technology. Then you make a pie chart of real usages and the biggest piece of the cake will be porn, violent content, etc.
mrjh 2y ago
If you've never picked up your phone to do one thing and half an hour later found yourself trawling through Instagram, having forgotten what you originally meant to do with your "just a tool", you are in a tiny minority of incredibly focused people. The majority of us, through no fault of our own, find these 'tools' regularly sucking us into a vortex of distractions and time-wasting. The struggle against cheap dopamine hits is real.
- redeeman 2y ago
  > you are in a tiny minority of incredibly focused people. oh please... > The majority of us, through no fault of our own it is called "personal accountability", I know its very hated on in the modern world, but please... > The struggle against cheap dopamine hits is real Yeah.. try go back 500 years or 1000 years and explain your struggles to the people there.
  - LoganDark 2y ago
    > > The majority of us, through no fault of our own > it is called "personal accountability", I know its very hated on in the modern world, but please... Look, I get the point you're trying to make, but as stated, this is incredibly insensitive. There are plenty of scenarios where someone should be held personally accountable for getting distracted or losing time, but this is not one of them. It's entirely possible and quite common for certain kinds of content to trick and manipulate the brain. It's not their personal fault for falling victim, just as it's not someone's personal fault for getting robbed. Plus, not everyone can focus or resist distractions the same. Not everyone can expect to even be able to. Many people who suffer from ADHD, for example, have a particularly hard time with this.
    - danielbln 2y ago
      I get the feeling OP is one of those who tells people with depression to just stop feeling sad...
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - redeeman 2y ago
        you are wrong, I am however one of those people who say that if you are allergic to peanuts, you do not get to scream "make peanuts illegal", but you instead accept that you have a task of making sure what you stuff your face with does not contain peanuts.
namaria 2y ago
Not acknowledging the dark patterns and the addictive economics of free apps and the advertisement economy is disingenuous. I'm glad your iron will isn't affected but pretending like there isn't a huge societal problem because it doesn't affect you is just arrogant.
- redeeman 2y ago
  theres a problem because people have been raised to be idiots in front of the pictocube.
  - d3w3y 2y ago
    So you admit that technology is inherently harmful to human beings' cognitive development?
sumtechguy 2y ago
> It's not the device, it's the users' choice in how they use it. This right here. But I take it in a different way. That tool is mine. I get to chose how it is used. Advertisers seem to think they own some of my time to get 'free things'. Application makers seem to think they own some of my time to try to get more money out of me thru the use of dark patterns. The phone companies seem to think they own some of my time and sell my data because I pay them. Other people seem to think they own my time because I have the thing and should be on call 24/7 whenever they want to get ahold of me. When they first came up with the idea of the current smart phone. It was really cool. Then I have realized that everyone is using it to grab my time from me. All of them seem to get mad when I set the thing down on a table somewhere and ignore it and enjoy the things I want to do.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  I apportion blame a bit differently. App makers (and mobile phone companies) are competitive marketplaces with alternatives. They're trying to find viable business models to fund feature development and make a profit. Can't fault them for that: users can pick another option. Who I can fault is mobile OS/platform owners. It's a duopoly, and they've repeatedly and strategically made user-hostile decisions that strip choice away from mobile device owners. All of the ills you mentioned wouldn't be ills if OS features enabled user control of them. Google is obviously the more egregious (user freedom features and need to boost quarterly profits are inversely related), but I don't think Apple would be taking a pro-privacy stance if it conflicted with their business model and they didn't see it as a strategic differentiator.
mrweasel 2y ago
The article have an ad for a cooking app, by The Guardian it think. Seems a little out of place on an article like this.

infotainment 2y ago

Glad to see there's some traction on moving away from smartphones. While the devices themselves are ostensibly neutral, so many of their apps and features are designed to maximize engagement with myriad dark patterns. Then again, maybe it's better if everyone spends 100% of their free time repeatedly checking for new Reels™ on Instagram. You never know, there might be a good one this time.

spacecadet 2y ago

Hacker news is my last smart phone "thing", Ive now been logging out after usage and waiting progressively longer to log back in... only time before I just dont... and then its done.

mrweasel 2y ago

Someone pointed out in a similar discussion: "It's not the phone itself that they issue, it's the content." Yesterday there was a debate locally about screen time, both for adults and children, and how much is to much. It's always about the phone, the iPad or the TV, never about the content. At this point I'm leaning more towards, well, we tried social media, streaming, online gaming and funny meme site and our monkey brains can't deal with it, so let's just kill it off already. Ban the whole thing. Many companies, especially those supported by ads, apparently can't help themselves, they will exploit any weakness in human psychology to make a quick buck of our attention. So you know what, let's just ban all of it and admit it was a mistake and keep the proven good part. You're not going to be doom scrolling your banking app, your TOTP app or your home automation. Keep those apps and just ban attention stealing algorithms, apps and websites so that we can move on.

politelemon 2y ago
> It's not the phone itself that they issue, it's the content." I don't think that's true, at best it's both. It's the phone that enables a more frictionless access to the content. Having a speed bump to access the same content would make a large difference which is why the alternatives in the article are proving effective, the act of accessing something is less mindless, and more deliberate. I think the point they're making is that not everyone has the discipline or motive to evaluate and remove things.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  Bingo. For people like me my phone is indispensable, not as a source of endless distractions (though I dabble like anyone) but I put everything in my phone. It's literally an extension of my brain, because my brain is bad at remembering things, so every last thing goes in the phone. Plans with friends, important dates in relationships, birthdays, I have calendar reminders for practically everything going on in my life, and even a bunch strictly for work. My reminders app is packed to the gills with everything from random little to-dos to full-bore projects I'm working on, with notes and documentation in other apps to boot. It's one of the reasons I'm still an ardent Apple user, the fluidity I have between my tablets, phone and Mac is essential for my workflows. I just couldn't use a PC full time, even if I wanted to.

watershawl 2y ago

How can we use our smartphones to "go places and touch things"?

owisd 2y ago

Shout out for "Apple Configurator" for Mac, if a dumb phone appeals to you but can't because there are some apps you really need, I hardly ever see it mentioned in articles like this. It's designed for IT departments to configure all their company phones, but you can also use it to dumb down any iPhone by whitelisting a specific set of apps, it's way better than the parental controls / screen time options.

cubefox 2y ago
How hard/easy is it to circumvent the whitelist? Moreover, do you whitelist the whole browser?
- owisd 2y ago
  You need to be back at your Mac to install a new profile to circumvent the whitelist, you can't do it from inside your phone. Yes the whole of Safari can be white/blacklisted, although the way I have it set up if you're in an app with a webview it's still using Safari under the hood, and if that web view lets you browse to an arbitrary site then it can be circumventable that way. You can presumably lock it down further to prevent this, e.g. force the phone to use a specific VPN that you can then control to whitelist certain domains.
- alamortsubite 2y ago
  Every time I use Safari on iOS it seems somehow kneecapped by default, so maybe whitelisting the browser is no problem.
sudoanon 2y ago
> "Apple Configurator" for Mac ... way better than the parental controls / screen time options Ok, so this sounds very interesting & useful. I'll be reading up on this, but if you have time to pass along any pointers or tips around using this for personal/household use it'd be much appreciated.

RamblingCTO 2y ago

Honestly, I don't get why this is a problem. The iPhone has these focus modes that switch automatically. And I disable notifications for everything irrelevant. I just get emails, messenger stuff, X, banking and podcasts notifications. I always have a focus turned on, I don't ever get a vibration or sounds off of any notification.

Simulacra 2y ago

I think it's more of an issue of availability. My smartphone is incredibly useful, but I spend too much time on it. Sometimes I just have to leave the phone at home, or put it on charger in a drawer somewhere and try to forget about it. Once I'm away from my phone for a little bit, my brain finds other things that are interesting.

incomingpain 2y ago

[flagged]

forgotacc240419 2y ago
What social crisis is this that you're on about? The major one in the west seems to be about the inability of young people to afford a home; which causes obvious issues in building up community when you're not permanently placed in any specific neighborhood (e.g. the real social net benefits for an individual of locally volunteering can take years to generate significant return)

canuckthrow 2y ago

This reads like an early stage of depression setting in.

WhackyIdeas 2y ago

After what happened with Adobe, Microsoft and Sonos this past week, I have decided to try limit my use of American products. Don’t get me wrong, I love the USA - I have tonnes of family there and I have met some super nice people on my months long holidays there too… But. There is just too much poison coming out of Silicon Valley in my view. Awful choices in pursuit of our personal information, ‘Recall’ demonstrates how Silicon Vally is sick in their pursuit of trying to get even more stinking rich. So yeah, I decided to try to remove as many American products and services from my life. It’s going to be tough. I have invested 5 digits in Apple tech over the past couple of years. It’s all to be sold now. Switched Microsoft for Linux and OpenBSD, and I have a lot more tech to get rid of. I know this sounds extreme, but I don’t want to fund these companies. I am partly responsible for funding then as it is, and I am out now.

alamortsubite 2y ago
It's called late stage capitalism and the scary thing is I think we still have a way to go. Check out the explosion of PE into our healthcare system recently if you really want to feel some goosebumps.
- eimrine 2y ago
  Wait a minute, why being a private equity for some healthcare institutes is bad?
  - rpgwaiter 2y ago
    Healthcare should be run by the government, PE is about as far away from that ideal as possible. Profit motives should rarely (if ever) mix with healthcare
mark_l_watson 2y ago
Real. I am a long term Linux user (first downloaded Slackware over a 2400 baud modem - you can ask your grandparents what that is) and in principle I would like to do what you have done, basically do a “100% Richard Stallman” but my productivity is higher when using specific tools on macOS/iPadOS/iOS. I fight back a bit by leaving my iPhone at home unless I want to take pictures. Instead my Apple Watch is my main driver when I am out in the world. It is fairly unobtrusive, in spite of the mountain of distributed tech behind it. BTW, I don’t think you sound extreme at all. After reading good books like Privacy is Power and The Surveillance Capitalism, you approach sounds real to me.

ethbr1 2y ago

Possibly relevant to readers' interests, so leaving these here. digitalminimalism: https://www.reddit.com/r/digitalminimalism/ https://www.reddit.com/r/digitalminimalism/ dumbphones: https://www.reddit.com/r/dumbphones/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dumbphones/

ortusdux 2y ago

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/touch-grass https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/touch-grass