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This may be because I no longer live an isolated American lifestyle, but my impression in Taiwan is that adults are hopelessly addicted to their phones. This i

This may be because I no longer live an isolated American lifestyle, but my impression in Taiwan is that adults are hopelessly addicted to their phones. This is gonna come off as obnoxious but I can't help it, whenever my partner and I go out for a nice dinner we're unable to comprehend how literally every other couple spends basically the entire meal on their phones. Sometimes one of them even has a little phone holder and just watches videos while they eat. This plus absolutely mad levels of Instagram engagement makes me feel like we're at a critical era of phone addiction. You thought Americans were taking to IG and threads hoh boy go look up some Threads posts about the typhoon. Anyway when I use reddit, IG, and even this site too much I am unhappy, and yet I continue the behavior. Clearly addictive relationship. Am I just sick and have an unhealthy relationship with my phone and other people just use and enjoy their phones? Or am I just more aware of the harm it causes me?

deleted 2y ago
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latexr 2y ago
> whenever my partner and I go out for a nice dinner we're unable to comprehend how literally every other couple spends basically the entire meal on their phones. I used to play a game when out to dinner: If there’s another table with two people and you notice one of them getting up (likely to go to the bathroom), see how long it takes the other person to take out their phone. It stopped being fun pretty fast because everyone did it instantly. > Or am I just more aware of the harm it causes me? It’s that one.
- nicolas_t 2y ago
  My wife complains that I take my kindle to the bathroom and will read on the way and back. I'm nowhere near as addicted to my phone though.
  - medvezhenok 2y ago
    To be fair, pre-kindle we used to have a stack of magazines in the bathroom for toilet reading. And my chess instructor used to assign what he called "toilet puzzles", or chess puzzles that were thoughtless enough to be done on the can (as compared to the "actual" homework puzzles which were more cognitively demanding and required dedicated work) So it was definitely a thing pre-modern-tech too. Plenty of people used to read the newspaper on the can (and in the Soviet Union you would then use it to wipe afterwards - extra efficiency!)
    - nicolas_t 2y ago
      Oh yeah, in my parents house there were always magazines and comic books for toilet reading. We had a full shelf behind the toilet... So, yeah I guess I'm just continuing the trend :)

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latexr 2y ago

> whenever my partner and I go out for a nice dinner we're unable to comprehend how literally every other couple spends basically the entire meal on their phones. I used to play a game when out to dinner: If there’s another table with two people and you notice one of them getting up (likely to go to the bathroom), see how long it takes the other person to take out their phone. It stopped being fun pretty fast because everyone did it instantly. > Or am I just more aware of the harm it causes me? It’s that one.

nicolas_t 2y ago
My wife complains that I take my kindle to the bathroom and will read on the way and back. I'm nowhere near as addicted to my phone though.
- medvezhenok 2y ago
  To be fair, pre-kindle we used to have a stack of magazines in the bathroom for toilet reading. And my chess instructor used to assign what he called "toilet puzzles", or chess puzzles that were thoughtless enough to be done on the can (as compared to the "actual" homework puzzles which were more cognitively demanding and required dedicated work) So it was definitely a thing pre-modern-tech too. Plenty of people used to read the newspaper on the can (and in the Soviet Union you would then use it to wipe afterwards - extra efficiency!)
  - nicolas_t 2y ago
    Oh yeah, in my parents house there were always magazines and comic books for toilet reading. We had a full shelf behind the toilet... So, yeah I guess I'm just continuing the trend :)