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Comment by datapunk | Hacker News Reader

I hate screens, constant connectivity, but could not live in today's world without them.

So much of the world is fixated on our addictive devices and trying to find ways to live without them are difficult, even damaging in some ways.

I really do miss those days I could leave the house with just keys and wallet, and had the world around me to provide my entertainment. Today, I am constantly pulling out my phone at the first inkling of boredom.

Finding balance is crucial for all aspects in life, our devices are the same, and developing enough discipline to shed our serotonin inducing toys for a few hours a day is a challenge we will all have to face. Otherwise we will be hollow and hunched over glowing screens for the rest of our lives.

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> I really do miss those days I could leave the house with just keys and wallet, and had the world around me to provide my entertainment. Today, I am constantly pulling out my phone at the first inkling of boredom.

This is such an idyllic revisionist take.

I remember having to take wallet, keys, extra cash and coins for things you couldn't pay with card or with the phone, street guide (cause there's no way I'm remembering the dozens of bus lines that run in my city), pocket calendar, pencil, random paper scribbles, and a book or two.

For the things you needs keys and wallet things are exactly the same. For everything else, the amount of crap I need to lug around has dropped dramatically. Hell nowadays I can travel to foreign countries and not even go through the hassle of going to an exchange rate, getting maps, asking for directions and getting lost going the wrong way, etc.

> I remember having to take wallet, keys, extra cash and coins for things you couldn't pay with card or with the phone

Today you take your extra cash and coins and throw it away because nobody accepts it anymore. Digital payments only. That’s how it works in Sweden.

Sweden is atypical in that regard, most places are not nearly so cash-hostile.

I never stopped carrying and using cash. I'm even a bit perplexed that carrying cash is seen as a a hassle... it goes into my wallet, which I carry around anyway for my ID,etc. It's just a bit of paper, it takes up virtually no space and weighs virtually nothing.

My ideal wallet would be no wallet. Cash makes my wallet too thick. I keep some non-daily cards in there (like debit card, Rx card) because I’m too forgetful to manage continually adding and removing cards. There are phone based solutions but I don’t want to be reliant on a charged battery for absolute essentials. Cash is funny because I am super hesitant to break a large bill, and then very eager to get rid of the smaller ones, and where I live, it’s generally a good idea to carry one larger bill as a fallback.

That’s exactly how I do it. Small plastic sleeve as a wallet for grouping cards together and a single larger bill as a fallback.

Is this gokd or bad, I mean what is your stand? In Austria pocket money is ubiquitous and everywhere acdepted.

I would detaste living in a digicash only world

I like it. My wallet today is a plastic sleeve for a few cards, visa, ID etc. weighs like 25g in total.

It also fits a single folded high value banknote. Never to be used but is there in case of emergency.

In some cities here in the U.S., it's common practice to keep cash on-hand so that in the event of a robbery, you can avoid giving your phone/other valuables or having to say "I don't have anything" and getting shaken down further or shot

> I remember having to take wallet, keys, extra cash and coins for things you couldn't pay with card or with the phone, street guide (cause there's no way I'm remembering the dozens of bus lines that run in my city), pocket calendar, pencil, random paper scribbles, and a book or two.

Everyone has a different every-day-carry. I didn't take the bus or carry books daily, so I was less burdened than you.

The conveniences and benefits our devices provide are apparent. But the pervasiveness of our devices have conditioned us to rely on them for much more than these daily conveniences.

I remember driving around with a giant pile of maps in my glove box.

These days, it feels pretty liberating that I could pack a few changes of clothes, jump in a lyft, head to the airport booking a flight along the way to a city I've never been and being able to explore with little effort or preparation.

Hell, when I was in India last, I was surprised at how easily I was able to make my way around Bangalore.

Things have changed for certain, some for the better, others for the worse. As a society, I'm sure we'll adapt.

You don't still have those maps? My phones have malfunctioned or lost service often enough that I still own paper maps and have even sometimes used them. I'd hate to be without paper maps as a fallback (and they're hardly an inconvenience, the only reason they leave my passenger seat pocket is if I need them.)

I have them, and I download a region on my phone for offline use too.

Despite navigation being very good, I still will invest a couple hours just driving around a new city. Worth it. Having done that, the map is gold.

Over time, I've gotten good by doing that too. I can drop into a city, roam around a bit and get a good feel for the place.

The maps are long gone.

My phone is important enough to my vocation that if it malfunctioned, I'd replace it immediately. I also use an ipad mini as a navigation tool. One makes a great backup for the other.

Exactly - not to mention the anxiety: is there a phone booth? Do I have coins? Will anyone let me use a regular phone? Where can they pick me up, I don’t know this part of town! Did I lose my travel pass? Where is my ticket? Did I tell my parents where I was going? Etc etc...

Back in the ‘90s, you had to prepare to hang out in the city centre with a few friends. Nowadays you can literally improvise your life by the hour and everything will be alright. It’s incredibly liberating.

A problem for city kids maybe? My parents were smart enough to raise me somewhere more suited for children. All I ever took out with me was a wallet, house key and my bike - I never even used to lock my bike up, I'd just throw it in a bush or behind a wall so nobody could see it.

I don’t think I’ve ever read anything as patronising (and wrong) as this comment.

Cities can be great places for kids - you get tons of social skills very early, build knowledge, and make connections that can help you tremendously later in life. There is a reason “country boy” is typically used as a slur. If I could go back in time, I’d force my parents to live even closer to the city centre as possible.

I live in suburbia now and I fear my kids are not going to pick up enough street-smarts.

No idea what a country boy is.

I don't understand how you built social skills quicker than me? how did you build more connections than me and how did they help you later in life?

I lived in a medium sized village near a large town. I went to school like you, I was socialised like you, I left to work in London when I was 19 and now at 36 run the pre-sales practice for one of the worlds largest software vendors.

I can't imagine having to live in the city, can't ride anywhere, have to deal with too many people, no space of my own to grow up, no massive garden with a pool, nowhere near the beach. How can you ride your bike to the lakes with your friends and fishing rods if all you have access to is the underground and trams? How could bike anywhere? How could you just play ball in the street?

I take my 4 year old boy surfing every morning, he plays on my 1 acre property and loves the animals, we swim in our pool most days. I know people from London that didn't even learn to swim and have never seen an animal that wasn't a pet. My 7 year old girl goes to one of the best private schools in the state and is a straight A student, she has many friends and is part of many societies. Some of these things you can recreate in the city, most you cannot.

We moved to Australia and we live in the hinterland / country. I can't imagine a better for for my kids to grow up. What 'street smarts' are they not getting? What street smarts can they not get when I send them to a university in a city?

I see kids heading to the beach to surf with each other all the time, you don't get that in the city. Imagine subjecting your kids to city pollution so they can make some imaginary Connections .

My kids have a cinema room built for computer games, they have a music room where they can make as much noise as they want. They have learnt responsibility due to being in charge of the chickens that live in my garden. You learnt to ride the bus... my kids learnt to ride the bus too..

Maybe things are different in America? Maybe your country boys are not like our. Maybe your countryside is different?

Holy crap, mate, your arrogance is barely matched by your ignorance. If you are trying to demonstrate that being wealthy and being happy (or likeable) are not necessarily correlated, you are doing a sterling job. You’re doing great also in the “horrible salespeople stereotypes are rooted in truth” department.

Hint: there are places in the world where cities are (shocking!) not like London. They have beaches, they have amenities, and the upper classes live there rather than in little villages like the depressing London belt. Chances are you go there on holiday, because the weather in your corner of the world is significantly worse. (Well, maybe not now you’re in Oz, which is almost entirely countryside. I’m sure you know the stereotypes for Oz people too - or rather you’ll never learn them, like with country boy, because they’ll just whisper them to your back).

I am sorry you associate cities with misery because London sucks. You might want to splash some of your massive moolah on seeing the world. I hope your kids won’t grow up to be insecure pricks, god knows we have enough of those.

Sounds like you're the one that needs to travel.

You've made a lot of assumptions about me that simply are not true - hope you enjoy giving your kids asthma and cancer. Hope Trump let's teachers carry guns, might stop one of your brethren from blasting your kids away during morning classes.

Maybe piss off with your ignorance on Australia too. You know fuck all.

Dude, google me. You're way, way off base, and honestly, off your rocker too. I don't know what triggered you but you're clearly not in a happy place at the moment.

So you grew up in Italy - yeah I can see why you'd not want to be in the country side. I grew up in a town around Manchester and according to you that makes me some sort of country idiot? I had a great childhood and clearly ended up less bigoted than you.

Dude, you clearly carry a humongous chip over your shoulder, and you feel compelled to be very aggressive for reasons only you and your therapist will ever know. You started out patronising and snobbish, and have gone downhill from there, literally telling me to get cancer - and I'm the bigoted one?

If this is the effect of growing up around here (I live in Cheadle, btw, since you're familiar with the area), I'll ship out my kids to the Beautiful Country as soon as I can, fuck me.

>A problem for city kids maybe? My parents were smart enough to raise me somewhere more suited for children.

Implying that the only reason people with kids live in a city is because they're stupid? What in the world are you on about? I've read the below thread, and this is one of the most bizarre takes I've seen in a long time.

The problem with screen is that they improve productivity even though they are somewhat hurtful to human-beings... maybe we won't need them anymore when robots finally take over.

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