I Don't Like Smartphones (2016)
devever.net
devever.net
IMO the real reason smartphones suck is that they are attention sucking, dopamine delivery systems. A logical evolution of a slot machine. I hate mine yet here I am yelling into the internet on it...
I think he did make this same argument, in point 1:
> Smartphones are unapologetically devices for consumption
Bonus is your battery should never be dead when you really need it.
In the end it's up to the person to practice self-control, passing the buck to the government just ends up in less freedom and more black markets.
It's a methodological error to overestimate the power of humans as animals to resist reward systems such as these.
Yes, it can be done, but it's difficult, and most will fail (and there are other factors making it even more difficult, e.g. people tired from work, depression, children that have less developed self control or sense of purpose, etc).
Instead of the user limiting time on their own phone, you want the government to? Or you want the government to restrict certain practices from certain app makers?
There are many many many things people abuse and many many many industries that make their products as addictive as possible, that's the world we live in.
Go after the caffeine and sugar industry if you want to rid the most humans of addiction.
I've been siting here for five minutes, trying to think about something, anything, that is good and doesn't fit that description. Everything people like, from exercise to socializing, shopping to charity. Literally everything that i do and that i like can be summed up as some form of attention sucking, dopamine delivery system.
Yes, many pleasurable experiences deliver dopamine—it's a perfectly fine brain function. What's problematic are products that take advantage of this very specific bug in our psychology to trick us into performing a repetitive action for no long-term fulfillment.
So your problem is things that trick us into short term dopamine hits, and you want more things that trick us into long term dopamine hits.
I suppose i understand.
"I'll know it when I see it."
I realize that's a bit of a cop-out answer, but I also believe it's the correct one. It really isn't that difficult to figure out whether your product is exploitive.
What goals are you optimizing for? If the answer is: "I want people to spend as much time looking at my product as possible," that's going to lead you to bad places. If, however, you explicitly want to help people do X as efficiently as possible, as be done with it, you're probably on the right track.
If you're making an entertainment product, the calculous is a bit different, but still similar. Are you telling a compelling story that will teach us something about the world, or exercise our minds in new ways?
also, I'll know it when i see it is the same as saying I'll know it when i get a hit of dopamine -which was my substituted answer.
Edit; can't respond so will here..
>experiencing stories, learning new skills..doesn't take advantage of this very specific slot machine bug
But it does, it just does it in a way you approve of, which i think is fine, except when you think others should value what you value..
Dopamine is fine, it just isn't enough by itself. Playing a slot machine for days on end feels crappy in hindsight, even for the addicts who can't stop themselves from continuing to play. I'm concerned about how much of modern life is effectively becoming a normalized slot machine.
If you want to call experiencing stories, learning new skills, and forging new connections "long term dopamine", fine, maybe that's what it is. However, it doesn't take advantage of this very specific slot machine bug in our minds in order to become compulsive.
But have you considered that you may have failed the first criteria, something that you like? People who actually like these things tend to get a dopamine hit by doing them rather than just by finishing them...
First ever computer I used was a Sinclair ZX 80 - the computing power, storage and connectivity of current mobile devices seem like something out of a science fiction story compared to that.
My POV and i guess the author's is from people who do not really use smartphones much (personally i never use any app, i only use twitter and other social sites from the desktop via the web browser and that sporadically, i never allow any site or app to push notifications and my only use for my smartphone outside being a phone to make and receive calls is to read websites and ebooks).
But i suspect if you consider smartphones an essential part of your life (i don't, i only carry it with me just in case something happens since i am in a foreign country, but at my home i could regularly forget it at my place - even forget to recharge it for days) then you can see other negative aspects past those mentioned in the article.
So essentially, it isn't really that "smartphones are shitty computers with too many limitations" vs "smartphones are sucking, dopamine delivery systems" but "smartphones are shitty computers with too many limitations and sucking, dopamine delivery systems". It is only your POV that changes which one you see as worse.
After all, my computer can't call a rideshare, it can't navigate, it can't call my mom, it can't connect to the Internet outside my home or a coffee shop, it can't take photos and videos, it can't fit in my pocket, it can't pay for things in a store, it can't deposit checks, it can't measure objects in my house, it doesn't know where north, south, east, west, up, or down are, and it can't stay in a useful standby mode all day without draining out the battery, it can't get wet without damaging it, it can't play music for me while I'm outside exercising, it can't scan QR codes, it can't be used as a boarding pass or show ticket, it can't tell my security system when I've left the house...
My original idea was to write a critique of the article going down each complaint, but I decided against it due to length/time. My thoughts briefly/not-so briefly:
- By the author's definition, an Arduino is an "unequal" device because you can't program it from itself. And yet it's a very popular fully open source embedded computer.
- A smartphone user might consider the fact that their laptop to "not be a real network device" since it can't connect to the Internet outside of WiFi range. The complaint about battery usage applies 100% to any sort of laptop computer - if you leave your IRC client running you will most certainly eventually run out of battery. There are plenty of IRC clients for iOS and Android.
- Centralization was happening without smartphones, because it's a convenience feature for non-technical users. It's fine to criticize someone like me for backing up my photos using iCloud, but it's also important to recognize that before these centralized services existed, non-technical users really didn't have options. And there was plenty of centralization in the years leading up to smartphones: AOL, AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Flickr, Xanga, LiveJournal, etc.
- They have ruined web design, says the author with the webpage from 1995 with a giant obstructing background image.
- If there are no secure smartphones, is a PC with a proprietary BIOS really secure? Is a PC tricking non-technical users to install unsigned code, toolbars, and fake anti-virus programs secure compared to a centralized app store? There is no 100% secure system, is there? It's about mitigating and reducing risk.
The tl;dr of this is that, the real flaw of this article is the author's perspective. I respect the author for holding these idealogical viewpoints, but they'll only hold weight with a tiny, tiny subculture of computing purists. There are 3 billion smartphone users out there, and many of them will never own a computer. Most people never write a line of code. This is all OK.
I'm sure there's some kind of ideological win that refraining from smartphones rewards a person with, but to me it just feels like someone who's not using the new thing because they don't understand it and want to resist change. Like how my grandparents still drive to the bank, walk up to the teller, and withdraw cash from a human. I'm sure it's nice in some ways but it's also a massive waste of time, effort, and resources.
Unfortunately KaiOS at this point is so buggy and partially so annoying that it's borderline unusable (for example, after a software udate it can't do umlauts, which is pretty bad for the German language region and there are literally dozens of such bugs and annoyances).
I'm still hanging in there, but the frustration level is so high that I'll probably need to switch phones. An idea, which I loath.
What I will do if there's just no other way I decided not to install any apps (except for the absolute minimum, i.e. banking), let alone games.
Another option would be to switch back to a seriously dumb phone, but the problem there is that I couldn't find any one that offers a 4G hot spot. And that would be a minimum requirement.
In addition to what you describe, and which I think is the most important reason to dislike smartphones, there's the privacy landmine to consider.
To solve this, I deleted any apps with infinitely scrolling content, leaving my phone to include only utilitarian functionality, maps, and tools for music creation.
Because I know myself and my vices, I went so far as to add Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit to the "Restricted Content" list.
I bookmarked text.npr.org and mprnews.org and use those as my quick, bullshit-free gateway to local and national news.
With my phone in utility mode, I no longer experience false vibrations or that feeling of a phone burning a hole in my pocket.
Finally, I joined a meditation center and attend weekly.
My relationship with my phone is improved. It's great.
Always looking for more suggestions.
I think its clear they have been designed from the ground up to be merely shiny toys / gadgets, and not useful pocket computers.
The key fundamental flaw in their design is the touchscreen. Eg. Press a 'button' which is just an image on the screen and has 0 haptic feedback, so the only way to locate it is by looking at it, but your finger is obscuring it (as you are moving to press it with your finger) so you cant see it. It is oxymoronical design.
Also my mother who is very very tech illiterate can intuitively use the iPad. It's just so much easier to point and press at something rather than using a mouse to navigate a small cursor.
All in all, a phone is a lousy computer. But it is brilliant if you are in a random place and need to get some work done. It is slow, but slow is better than having to go out and find a real computer somewhere.
The big problem at the moment is that we are mostly stuck with some horrible consumer operating systems on our phones. But that is problem that can be fixed.
I agree. But, you can't practically put a mouse on a phone. (At least, I have no idea how it could work—if you have a brilliant idea, I'd be interested to hear it.)
I think touch is the best input we have available for a device the size of a phone. On tablets, the lack of a mouse makes less sense, and I think it's notable that tablets haven't replaced laptops to the extent some predicted when the iPad was first introduced.
Edit: There is one alternative mechanism I can think of—a stylus. Still touch, but offers much more precision and in turn allows interfaces to be designed with smaller buttons that take up less real-estate.
The downside is that styluses get lost, take time to extract from the slot, and cannot be used in the same hand that holds the phone. Also, to truly reap the benefits of stylus input, the UI would need to be wholly stylus-focused. A hybrid UI will need to work with the lowest common denominator.
Handheld gaming devices are actually often well designed, eg. Gameboy, PSP.
Gaming consoles have a long heritage of being able to navigate complex menus and perform complex tasks on with just a controller (eg. Mario-maker, LittleBigPlanet)
Phones / tablets are fine for just faffing about on, but that is all they have been designed for imo.
I think a pocket computer designed for actually doing stuff on might resemble a weird Blackberry / PSP hybrid.
Little Big Planet worked impressively well with buttons, but I wouldn't consider it ideal, and it's notable that the spiritual successor, Dreams, is designed around a mouse-like, gyroscope-controlled pointer. Media Molecule chose this option despite the fact that it feels awkward on a dualshock and requires frequent re-centering.
I do miss slide out keyboards, but I don't think they're a complete solution. Similar to a stylus, sliding out a keyboard takes precious seconds, and they introduce a mechanical failure point. If you go full-on Blackberry, you loose valuable screen real-estate.
Ok, well 'street fighter', you need to input very complex and precise controls. Or pokemon on the gameboy, or a JRPG with its labyrinthine menus and options + 100's of complex difficult games.
* sliding out a keyboard takes precious seconds
As opposed to the minutes you lose fumbling with a 'keyboard' you cant feel (or see, cus ure finger is in front of it)
* If you go full-on Blackberry, you loose valuable screen real-estate.
If that 'real estate' is also trying to act as a physical interface, then its not valuable real estate anymore, its garbage-land, its acting as the worst interface imaginable. Ive heard that expression before and I think what the phone designers mean when they say it is: if you add a keyboard it no longer looks like a cool shiny sci-fi gadget.
I dont get how people are ok with touchsceen interfaces, they're a haptic nothing. People were livid about the IBM PCjr's chiclet keyboard. Even that is infinitely better than 0.
A modern-day equivalent would probably be gemini by planet computers, but I still haven't gotten around to getting one.
I prefer extreme computing devices. Either big desktops, with great ergonomics and power, or tiny non-intrusive wearables.
I hope we get true autonomous watches soon, that can silently track some biomarkers and offer some smartphone-like capabilities for occasional use (maps, calls & IM) without apps nagging for your attention.
Visit any restaurant and you'll find example after example of people worshiping at their private electronic altars despite the presence of friends and family.
Or try having a conversation with almost anyone with a smartphone. The minute a notification goes off, they're gone. Master calls, bye.
It's a vicious cycle. Greater isolation leads to greater dependence on the fake bullshit being spewed.
It's kind of comical to see geezers doing this. But to see it in young adults is terrifying. They're going to fight this addiction until the day they die. Most won't even know what's wrong with their lives because they've never seen anything else.
I feel like that's something every older generation says about the younger generations. Why should the younger generations care about ways of living that are no longer relevant to them? If nobody knows that they're doing it wrong, then are they really doing it wrong?
I know technology isn't inherently good or bad. In most circumstances, it's a matter of how it's applied. However, I feel something that could be best described as disdain for it. For instance, I've been able to read several books on my phone but I feel that doing so might throw me in the same category of people who use their phones for what might be one of its most common uses, self-reinforced and mindless consumption. For instance, I honestly cannot think of something I hate but I truly despise those bite-sized videos with the loud music which are even auto-scrolling and it seems almost everyone watch/listen to them everywhere (subway, bus, etc.).
Regarding the conversation part, you hit the nail on the head. Notifications and phone engagement seem to be gaining a foothold and being prioritized over person-to-person communication. The following story is totally anecdotal but something I couldn't help but notice. In one of my college classes last semester, I estimate that roughly 80% students were immersed on their phones right from the start of the class up to the end with the occasional look to the whiteboard or writing something down. It went to the extent that even the professor remarked, ten minutes before the class starting, (and I'm paraphrasing here) that it was sad he didn't see the students sharing/talking with each other and I'm sure you might guess one of the reasons.
I don't know if this is only me but I for once don't like to grab the attention of people buried in their phones because I feel I'm being too intrusive and interrupting something intimate. And I understand this might not be at all true but that's the perception I get, which seems to be so different to other mediums. For instance, I might build up the courage and strike a conversation with someone reading a book because there might be a starting point of conversation but unless necessary, that's a no-no if the same person is using a smartphone.
With regards to that: maybe we should switch away from responsive designs? Modern phones have big enough screens that it s often better to navigate a medium-desktop site by zooming rather than by collapsing everything to an endless scrolling stream. I find often that trying to compromise things to fit in responsive design is annoying for little benefit.
> They have led to massive centralization
I really wish someone comes up with a successful home router that includes preloaded optional decentralized services like ipfs. It's a pity that we don't take advantage of can't take advantage of that always-on computing power in the era of crappy-battery tablets and phones.
Not all phones have big screens. Not all people want phones with big screens, and even though it's the current fashion that may change in a few years.
1) Maps/GPS for driving
2) Ride Sharing apps
3) Web browser for quick googling when I'm out
I can live without access to phone games or the reddit app, but it would be enough of a burden for me to not have access to these three things that I don't see myself dropping a smart phone any time soon.
They are unequal devices. - This is not a design flaw. The screen is just small.
They are not real network clients. - This is not a design flaw. It's the best batteries can do.
They have led to massive centralization. - No, high bandwidth and big data requiring centralized processing is what led to centralization.
They have ruined web design. - This isn't even a critique of smartphones, it's about desktops.
There are no secure smartphones. - Are they really worse than other computers?
They are devices of unclear alignment, or of clear malevolence. - Wait, what? You claim that your phone is not secure, then you want to root it, install arbitrary software, and do your online banking on it? wtf?
Well fixed headers are annoying, but I find that considering all sorts of screen sizes has actually improved web design in the most part.
Most sites are better in terms of accessibility and UX than they were 15 years ago, which could be attributed to more diversity in devices that developers need to deploy to.
Yeah, no. Considering all sorts of screen sizes usually means considering all sorts of mobile screen sizes and depending on your browser width, which oversized, overpadded elements will disappear.
And woe to you if you are using a low DPI desktop screen and do not want to have your browser window maximized, because suddenly your 23" or 27" monitor gets the shitty mobile UI.
However I disagree with the second point. Smartphones were optimized for power consumption, while PC were optimized for stability and functionality (depending on your operational flavor, the platform can be quite flexible, allowing such seemingly contradictory directions).
This "optimization for (reducing) power-consumption" is the only times it seems to have happened, and it is actually a good contribution to network design. We should actually embrace this process in general, not only mobility-based computers.
°: A future where your smartphone will be your transportable workstation, only docking on controls changing depending on your activity (screen + keyboard + mouse in general, screen / speakers for media consumption, joysticks for gaming). You'd arrive to work and dock your phone, start working, take it with you and being able to work from another office, another location, remotely (at home), etc.
1) as a tool to build real-world stuff (a level, camera to get reference pictures, measurement notes for when I go to the hardware store, measurement converter)
2) to regularly take better pictures of my kids than we get from "real" photographers with fancy, expensive cameras & lenses—and I barely even know WTF I'm doing, plus I'm like 2 generations behind on my iPhone,
3) to cook—measurement conversion, recipe book which I guess is consumption but I also use it to track results and take notes for the next time I cook something
4) I write messages to people. If that's consumption then so's letter writing which... can't be right.
5) Note-taking device for various personal projects, most of them having nothing to do with programming (thank God).
Further, if you asked me to film & edit a movie with a single device, you bet your ass I'd take a "consumption-only" iPad or (even) iPhone over a laptop or desktop. And so on for a bunch of other non-consumption stuff, for which the devices are anywhere from good-enough to much-better when compared with a laptop.
They're not great for programming, sure. Phones are awkward for long-form writing, though tablets are fine with an external keyboard. They're pretty good—even great—for tons of other creative work. Programming is not the only thing computers are for. In fact we program only to make the computer let us do other stuff with it. From a certain perspective, programming's the worst creative thing you can use a computer for.
Just disable most of (or all?) notifications and don't use social networks. Observe yourself checking the phone compulsively, and disable distractions that cause this behavior.
Does anyone here think there's a demand for this type of service anymore. It seems a lot of folks just want talk and text with access to some information like news headlines, weather reports, sports scores etc. All doable over SMS.
Phones aren't even getting thinner anymore, e.g. the iPhone X is actually thicker than the iPhone 8.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11097994
(Shared for information purposes; not a dupe).
The only people who say this, as well as "Tablets are only for consumption" are those who lack creativity and imagination.
Movies have been shot on smartphones. Music has been produced on smartphones. Novels have been written on smartphones.
On a smartphone I have "created" or edited notes, videos, spreadsheets, photo slideshows, goofy songs for friends and family, and smartphones are a portal to a vast wealth of information that is infinitely more convenient and useful for my technical hobbies than a laptop or desktop PC.
Ham radio tools, astronomy tools, film photography light metering apps, the list goes on and on.
Using Star Walk to peruse the constellations at night while in your backyard "creates" knowledge and memories better than any astronomy program on a "computer".
If you're not using a smartphone (AND TABLET!) to "create", you are probably a very boring person.
There's no accounting for masochists I suppose. That's like saying its possible to beat Dark Souls with a Guitar Hero controller. It may be technically true but that doesn't mean anyone should ever do it.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLI4MuUyu64FsljRm8G0jr...
shakes head in bewildered admiration
Refugees and political prisoners have written books using smartphones because either they were not allowed PCs or would send out chapters one SMS message at a time using borrowed phones.
In the US, authors have written epic fantasy novels on their smartphone because it allows them to carry their drafts in their pocket and work on them as fancy strikes. 60% of "The Warded Man" was written on an HP iPaq, 10 years ago.
>I did the math once. Early on my publisher asked me that in an interview, and it was about 60 percent. About 100,000 words. But it wasn’t all on the train; sometimes I do it while in the park, or in-line at the bank, or while on a road trip where I’d sit in the passenger seat and just work.
The YA romance novel "After" was written on a smartphone and made its author a couple million bucks before turning into a movie that made $63 million.
Novels used to be written with pen and ink on paper, and later were typewritten. A smartphone is not as ergonomic as a physical keyboard but it is light years ahead of writing everything out by hand.
Cell phones are amazing tech hamstrung by operating systems designed to drain wallets and collect data.
I do not have a phone number and I use a lower end Samsung basically as an ipod with wifi support. It constantly annoys me that apps that have no reason to require a phone number will not even let you register without one.
This is interesting. I've never had a cellphone plan myself, however given that some apps (e.g., Telegram) and job applications require a phone number as you say, I've been using a TextNow [1] phone number with the caveat of needing wifi/cellular data. As of now, the only thing that worries me a bit is when I'm out and I need to contact someone but I don't have wifi access.
So how do you go about without a phone (mainly for calls)?
People explored the entire planet without phones, I can get by without WiFi for a few hours.
When I visit more civilized societies where people have the expectation of immediacy in communication I just plan my days when I wake up. My friends and family all know that when you make plans with me it is usually more detailed than "I'm not sure where we will be, I'll text you later."
I use apps for all of my day to day communication. Email is also one of my main communication channels.
Some apps like PayPal are basically unusable without a phone number, so I don't use them.
I get asked why I don't just buy a sim card when I visit other countries, and it really just boils down to liking being disconnected and bored of seeing people staring at their phones every time they are confronted with a problem.
95% of people who use phones don't need that much power and given how many people own phones they clearly find them extremely useful.
I guess he does not have "user" accounts on his PC and runs everything under the Administrator account
Right off the bat the author has embarrassed themselves. They seem to be oblivious to the fact that the majority of content on the most popular platforms is created using smartphones (Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat). Smartphones have actually democratized content creation and in a way that laptops and desktops never could. This should be obvious, not sure how this ever got upvoted.
Go take pictures with your laptop OP.