The Phone

[Bram]

I was at the Denver airport last weekend and estimated that, at any given second, 75% of the people were on their phone.

Everywhere I go, it’s the same thing.

It feels like, especially in the past two years, this has gotten worse.

Thoughts and opinions?

[lenny]

I don't know if it's worse than before Covid, but I see a lot of kids here walking around looking at their phones. I remember about 15 or so years ago being in LA, and some people were talking loudly on their cell phones while walking on the sidewalk. A friend said then that a lot of people were not aware of their surroundings due to those things. I was in the Newark airport probably in 2009, and a lady on a cell phone loudly said, "My husband left me for his secretary." I was the only around and couldn't believe it. Somebody told me over 35 years ago that people show so much it's like you get to see what they're chewing. About ten years later, my closest friend said, "It's not like that anymore. They show you what's coming out of their asses."

I'm grateful I was a kid without all this technology, which I'd probably have been addicted to. I'd have to drive to a university library in high school to read books (I couldn't take them out) for term papers. I try to stay off my phone as much as possible. At times, I feel like I'm in a world of science fiction compared to what it used to be. On the other hand having a cell phone internet connection can be great. A friend from Athens Greece who I first met in 1967 skyped me on my phone this morning. For him to call home from Manhattan in 1967 cost 9.75 for 3 minutes. He had to put in 39 quarters. There was a phone on campus that gave them all back. I predicted that people would have computer chips implanted in their brains at birth a long time ago. Unfortunately, something like that might happen if the human race survives.

[Bram]

I’m glad I dodged it as a kid too.

And like you said, there are a ton of benefits! I pay for Spotify and get ad-free music of a gazillion albums, use the map/GPS function often, and can look up anything I can think of instantly.

[Bram]

Aside from the good parts of phone use, I see it from three different perspectives:

1. It’s fucking sad! Holy shit, are people disconnected.
2. It’s kind of cool! I have worked really hard at finding balance with my phone usage. Now, I feel like I have a huge advantage over the gen pop in terms of free time.
3. The future is grim. It’s kind of like obesity keeps ticking up. Exercise and a good diet still work, but less people are choosing to do them.

[Boris]

It's gotten worse. I don't know how many times I have to give a courtesy honk to get people off their phones at traffic lights, but it feels like really fucking often.

We've retarded a generation of kids and don't seem to give a shit. If I could go back and not give my kid a phone until he was 15, I'd do it even if it made him an outcast.

[Ronald RayGun]

I lucked out and happened to be born in a fucking sweet-spot. I didn't have steady, bootlegged internet until I was 13. Saw what mobile tele-bullshit did to people WAY early. Even with pagers. Don't need it, so I don't fuck with it.

[Bennyonesix1]

It's gotten worse. I don't know how many times I have to give a courtesy honk to get people off their phones at traffic lights, but it feels like really fucking often.

We've retarded a generation of kids and don't seem to give a shit. If I could go back and not give my kid a phone until he was 15, I'd do it even if it made him an outcast.

Agreed. It's absolutely horrible and without any redeeming value.

I'm absolutely addicted and can't use one in moderation.

I simply can't have one.

And I am not a luddite in any way. But this stuff is horrible.

In one of his books Samuel R Delaney wrote about tech like this causing planets to go into what he called "cultural fugue" and suddenly and totally collapse.

The things our culture has done to the two most recent generations via chemicals and drugs and phones is unspeakable.

Dune's Butlerian Jihad is prob the only way to deal with this.

[lenny]

I'm really grateful not to have young kids. I don't know how you can raise them to be healthy in the world they're in. My kids had to have cell phones due to terrorism in Israel. If there was a terror attack near them, we wanted to know if they were safe. There weren't smart phones before they went to university. My son wasn't on facebook till engineering school which was used to distribute course information. Someone from his class offered to set him up on facebook in junior hi and he declined.

I dropped my Galaxy A31 with a protective case in January and it died a slow death over a few days. A neighbor offered to let me borrow a phone and I thanked him and refused. I ordered a Pixel 6a which was supposed to come in a couple days. It took about 3 weeks. I enjoyed not having a phone. I don't have a house phone and have lived without phones in the past and would like to do so again, which very well may happen if the electricity goes out. I don't use my new cell phone anywhere near as much as I did with my old one where I'd check news. I did a news fast for about ten days (for 2 or 3 days I didn't even turn on my computers) and finally read news yesterday which is such a bummer. There is interesting information but so much of it is terribly depressing. Do I really need to know how many people were killed half way around the world? I can't do anything about it, as much as I wish I could. I have a facebook account but never look at it. I'm not on Tik Tok etc although I use Whatsapp to communicate with different people. You have to know how to use this technology. Getting addicted to it is a terrible waste.

[Bram]

Benny, do you have one and are addicted? Or not have one?

Great literary references, btw. I read Dune last year and had to google “Butlerian Jihad” to remember wtf it was

[motherjuggs&speed]

People don't realize how much time they're wasting and how much of their brain is being devoured and replaced. I'm no exception -- I waste so much time online and rarely zoom out and ask if what I'm doing is the best use of my time. The answer is almost always no. I only see it clearly when I come up for air, meaning taking some time to get away from the screen and read a good print book, the kind that requires thought. I feel so much better today for having read some good books this week. I used to inhale a book in a sitting, now it's a struggle to finish a chapter. I could use the excuse that they design all this stuff to make us want more, and in fact I do find myself wanting to watch pointless 10 minute clips of this and that, stuff that I know is bad for me. I find I prefer it in the moment, like being unwilling to stop eating a whole bag of chips. We should all stop the madness. We can make that choice every day. It's hard to do in moderation so it's better to not start in the first place. I suggest writing down exactly what you want to look at and why. I think we will all make better choices if we plan the trip into cyberspace ahead of time. Plan the dive, dive the plan, and stop at your designated stopping point. Having said all that I'll probably binge tonight but I'm going to get some more work done first, now that I've procrastinated by coming here.

[Bram]

Having heavily curtailed my internet use, I feel like the big thing is figuring out something worthy to replace it with.

This can take a while to get to, and some very unpleasant boredom seems inevitable. Here’s my current and previous routine.

Previous Morning: YouTube and social media, breakfast
Current Morning: make breakfast, go to local coffee shop with a few books
Advantages: more reading, met cool people, gotten a few dates, gotten a few personal training clients

Previous Day: YouTube and social media, browse internet, lunch and workout
Current Day: lunch, work, workout
Advantages: getting in more workouts, more focused on clients

Previous Evening: dinner, YouTube and social media, browse internet, play video games
Current Evening: dinner. kinda fucking bored! Once a week minimum have people over, but this is not figured out
Advantages: slightly more socializing

[Bennyonesix1]

Benny, do you have one and are addicted? Or not have one?

Great literary references, btw. I read Dune last year and had to google “Butlerian Jihad” to remember wtf it was

I went to a flip phone a while back. But the tech sucks. They are now worse than the early 2000 models. Unusable for texting.

I've had to go back to my old samsung and within a few weeks I was back to where I was as to time wasting.

Stereotypical addictive behavior.

I'm looking at getting a Light Phone.

I wish Blackberry still made text dominant phones. Or anyone did.

[Bram]

Yeah, it’s like giving everyone unlimited heroin and hoping they’ll use it responsibly.

[Bram]

I want to share an approach that’s been helpful for me with e-mail.

Block or unsubscribe from every e-mail you don’t want.

A quick Google search showed the average U.S. worker gets 121 e-mails a day. It’s 6pm, and I’ve gotten four today (all useful) and on a fairly old, well-travelled account. It did take months of doing this to get here.

[Bram]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wUW1wjlKvmY