Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

I'm 37, and I have never really had a smartphone, because I don't want one. I know I tend to be addicted to the internet (I can't resit my laptop when it's nearby with wifi), so I think it's more healthy for me to just not have a smartphone than to resist temptation (like an alcoholic simply not going into bars).

I'm a Software Engineer and I've never downloaded or used an "app" on a smartphone.

I did buy a new Android one for $20USD in Guinea, but I just use it to tether my laptop and it doesn't have a single app on it. I've never browsed the web on it or made a phone call because the interface sucks.

It's interesting to watch how addicted people are to their phones, and how much it invades everyday life. I think I have an interesting perspective looking from the outside in.

Whenever I'm out for drinks or dinner, every single other person checks their phone about every 1-2 minutes, often spending at least that long doing nothing other than staring at their phone, oblivious to those around them. During those times I really enjoy looking around to see who else isn't on their phone, and I make eye contact and smile to see what kind of human responses I can get. I have previously been at a table of 10 people and I'm the only one not staring at a phone.

I get that they can make life much easier in certain situations (coordinating meetups with people, locations, timing, etc.), but to be honest the more I observe from the "outside", the more I'm convinced the negatives outweigh the positives.

Of course everyone needs to make their own choice, and I'm by no means saying everyone should ditch their phone or that phones are stupid.

In my current job I'm almost daily going by subway and see most people fumbling on their phone all the time. Many can't even stop when hopping on/off the train. Now when I carefully look at just what it is that captures their attention, it's mostly cheap games or endless-scroll taboola-style crap. A guy sitting next to me the other day simultaneously phoned and frantically clicked on random crap on his phone with no chance of actually reading anything on there. I've noticed some are even staring caustically at the phone's home screen or settings panel after having consumed everything being offered online for the time being.

I don't know, but IMHO these people should go see a therapist, and we should seriously get a move going to call out and stop this pathological addictive behaviour.

There isn't much else to do on public transportation. You either fumble around on your phone or stare blankly at the wall. When I took public transit regularly I would read sometimes but there was too much noise and movement around me to really focus. Clearly you find yourself bored as well since you're looking over people's shoulders.

It’s a miracle people suffered transit at all in the years before the invention of handheld networked devices.

Weren’t people reading books/newspapers before, or playing paper-based games (crossword, sudoku, etc)?

In most public transports the noise would make any conversation impossible anyway even if it would be considered acceptable and normal.

Boredom leads to inventions. Transit must've led to so many great ones.

There are also those rare moments when you can strike up a conversation with someone else on the train and those can be nice if that's your cup of tea

Depends on where you live. Doing this here would irritate most people a lot.

Thanks, I hated it.

> Clearly you find yourself bored as well since you're looking over people's shoulders

Observing people can be quite fascinating and illuminating.

In Europe the outdoor seating at cafes face the street so you can easily people watch without straining your neck.

Or you could simply think. We live in an era where there is a nonstop stream of information and at times it seems that people have adjusted to this by becoming more and more passive consumers of it all. I mean if you just consider the headlines you've read in the past week you probably have enough to occupy your mind for many months! And this is still 'driven' thinking, as opposed to more creative thinking on whatever happens to interest you.

I am not picking you here. I think your view is increasingly common. In my opinion there do seem to be cognitive consequences to longterm 'smart' device usage. I would not be surprised if people in 50 years we look back on smartphones as we now look back on cigarettes. After all there was a time when most of everybody also just viewed cigarettes as a mostly harmless recreation and pleasure in times when you'd otherwise be doing nothing. That they were severely damaging your body over decades of use is probably something that did not really surprise that many people, but it was also something that was far from entirely certain. Similarly to today, I doubt many people would be especially surprised if there were indeed cognitive or other consequences from longterm 'smart' device usage, but it's still something that's far from entirely certain.

We think from the moment we're born to the moment we die, whether it is conscious or not. There is a false premise in this thread that states staring idly at a phone screen means there are no other thoughts going through your head.

Being deep in thought doesn't transport you into higher plane of existence. You still need somewhere to fix your eyes so you don't look like a lunatic on a packed commuter train where people are apparently judging your aptitude based upon where you're gazing.

Sounds more like the habits of an anxious individual to think random observers know what you're idly gazing at or care.

This entire comment thread started with OP talking about watching what people do on their phones while they try to pass the time on public transit and making judgements about them based upon what he saw.

Try looking at another person on public transit for more than a few moments and see how uncomfortable they get. It's not a question of anxiety it's just etiquette.

There are a lot of different sizes and kinds of thoughts. With very few exceptions I find that my staring-at-the-phone thoughts are small, fast thoughts.

When you get into the habit of filling every bored moment with whatever you can find in the phone, you start to lose the ability to stare off into space - maybe out of the window, maybe close your eyes - and let your brain put together bigger thoughts.

It doesn’t help that there are a lot of things on your phone designed explicitly to try and addict you to them, either. It can be hard to put down the phone even when you know damn well you’ve gone through everything interesting in whatever apps you’re addicted to.

I hope I am not the only one who appreciates the irony of people posting statements in opposition of unproductive smartphone use from their own smartphone or PC into such a deeply nested comment thread that maybe 5 people will read it.

Imagine if we could rework the public transportation culture to one that would generate spontaneous valuable interaction between the riders, things like topical discussions where multiple strangers could have a relaxed dialogue, impromptu games, and artistic performance and observation.

Good luck with that. Women are too worried about getting hit on or even molested by men to want to do anything like that, and commuters are too tired to want to interact with others.

Wow.

Before I was able to afford a car, I had a 2.5 hour commute to work involving 2 buses and a train and wait times. I can assure you that the last thing I wanted to add to my $50/week transit fee was an arbitrary seating system designed to encourage spontaneous interaction with others. Back then the magazines in my bag and Pro Evo 2008 on PSP were the only things keeping me going during those commutes.

I used to look at it as a great time to get lost in a book.

Before there was the iphone people would read the newspaper. People having their attention glued to some 'thing' is nothing new.

But were people mindlessly flipping the pages the same way?..

Yes. You'd be surprised by how much time people used to spend mindlessly flipping through the glossy coupon sections in the pre-smartphone days. People also used to read shampoo bottles while they pooped before they had phones out of sheer boredom.

I live in NYC and see the same thing. Many people seem to be reading emails in addition to the other stuff.

For me being on the subway is quiet time for me to think about software projects. When I give my mind a chance to wander I come up with good solutions to problems or new ideas to try. I have no interest in taking out my phone and ruining that.

>> frantically clicked on random crap

I had a girl like this next to me on a train. For the whole one hour journey she scrolled and switched between apps in a spasmodic manner. At times she would lay the phone down for a few secs then resume at once.

It looked sick. It looked like someone on amphetamines.

We made a mistake with this thing.

> It looked like someone on amphetamines.

The sad thing is, if this was in the US at least, there's a very good chance she was on prescription amphetamines like Adderall.

I have lived in Japan for the past 6 years and smartphone addiction is high. Mostly eldery people are the only ones reading newspapers or books. I've seen them just looking at nothing (falling asleep while playing some stupid game). The number of times I have come close to bumping into people is insane. My best preventative is to make loud claps and it snaps them out of the phone.

I think most people are stuck to the smartphone because everything (2FA, calendars, messages, phone calls) centers around your phone. I have missed my fair share of calls from the wife and others because I never check the thing regliously. I think it is how much you interact with people that kind of determines how much you will use the smartphone for communication vs entertainment.

I attended a basketball game recently and saw multiple people playing arcade puzzle games and one person watching a YouTube video of another basketball game.

All of this was happening while the live game was in play!

Cant blame them - you cant fast forward boring bits IRL.

That's interesting, I'm similar. I've just gotten my first smartphone. Weirdly I'm not that drawn to it. It feels a bit too passive for me compared to my laptop. And it's just too large and clunky. Used it twice for walks/maps so far. Which is the biggest draw for me. Many people around me are stuck in their phones. I do find reading on the laptop difficult, and thought the better screen on the smartphone might be easier. But my brain still doesn't like it compared to e-paper. Not drawn to any apps yet, and the thought of trying to key a message into it fills me with horror. Charging is a pain. Years back I'd have loved these modern incarnations, the tech is pretty great, even modern Android is usable and quite slick. Perhaps watching my partner pick up the phone every few minutes every night has been enough to put me off. I'll likely switch back to my old Nokia I think.

That's not to say that I don't waste oodles of time on my personal computer. I certainly have some addiction there. I've lost months to what amounts to not a lot through computer use.

It's funny, I feel the same way about smoking when I first tried it. What's the big deal? Why can't anyone just stop? It's only after years of building habits and life rhythms that you realize how deeply ingrained these things become..

I no longer smoke, but my relationship with my device is very choppy. Sometimes healthy (I'm in control, and I use my phone when I want or need to), and sometimes not.

Oh I've totally got an Internet problem regarding my laptop. So understand how that could translate to a mobile. Mine is just a little less conspicuous. I can type relatively easily on a keyboard after many years, whereas the barrier to text entry on a mobile is far higher for me. I think that's part of it. I notice my passivity more on the mobile. Or perhaps I think I'm more busy on the laptop. Whereas probably both are equally futile.

I was like you until I had kids. Then suddenly no phone implied me not knowing soccer was cancelled, my kids missing birthdays etc. At some point, too much of "real life" moved online, and the consequences of not having a phone overweighted my not very coherent "ideology". But I seriously applaud your efforts!

I have a smartphone. A Windows smartphone. I'd say at least 60% of websites fail to render using the (obsolete) version of Internet Explorer on the phone (but Hacker News renders fine). Windows Phone OS support ends in December 2019 so I'll have to switch to a new phone at some point.

Why do I keep using it? Familiarity and I like the simplicity of the OS. It does have a few essential apps like offline maps. Windows Phone OS is probably the best UI that Microsoft created. It's also refreshingly different compared to the converging design and behaviour of Android and iOS (grid of icons vs tiles).

Ironically, a little-used, dead-end OS with few apps available on the platform means you can't do a great deal on the phone apart from call or text people. Maybe a blessing in disguise?

Are you me? :)

With my Windows Phone I am immune from websites continually trying to push me to use their app ( take that, reddit! ;) ).

And it makes a great smartphone for my son... just enough capability to stay connected, but a lot of distractions are just not possible to indulge in...

>Ironically, a little-used, dead-end OS with few apps available on the platform means you can't do a great deal on the phone apart from call or text people.

This right here.

I am quite fond of how using a Windows phone replicates the early cellphone experience from the late 1990s/early 2000s. One only has what they need, but most of the time, it's exactly one would want anyway.

Most commonly used apps are being phased out as well, meaning one has no choice - there is no way to use them, so it's almost as if the passage of time strips the phone down to the barest essentials. Mine functions as an alarm, watch and flashlight. I must admit a VPN and Signal/Matrix/Riot would be nice occasionally, though, but WhatsApp, notwithstanding its ownership by Facebook, works well.

I was this until tmobile changed their network and it no longer connected to me L1520. I loved that phone. I stopped using it right around the time that WP really fell out of favor (End of 2015, when tmo dropped it) but I wish I could still use a current version. Microsoft somehow really got most things right with that UX, the UI was fun and made sense, there were small quirks that I didn't realize other people on iOS (which I switched to) didn't suffer from but for the most part it was a better experience.

By far my favorite thing was the home screen and folders. the ability to have different size tiles and folders made my homescreen unique and incredibly powerful.

I did try to resist for a long time (about the same age as you), but I finally caved in a few years ago.... But I'm thinking of going back without a pocket computer because the mobile companies can't be trusted.

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