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Comment by Night_Thastus | Hacker News Reader

Most of these 'issues' are not with phones themselves, but just personal discipline and habits. Not to say they're not real problems, though.

However, having world-brains in our pocket isn't just quality of life and convenience any more - it's become foundational and isn't going away soon. Reliance on them is only going to increase as time goes on. (Until they are replaced by something even more powerful and useful)

I admit fully that the erosion of privacy is a problem, but it's one that we're just going to have to deal with IMO. It's the cost of being a part of modern civilization. If you want to live in the middle of some woods on your own water and power, fine. Otherwise, I'd say you just need to deal with it.

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> just personal discipline and habits

Obesity can universally be resolved by eating less, a matter of discipline and habits. And yet it has increased everywhere! Have people become less disciplined or has the world become better at undermining our discipline?

Does it really make sense to assign individual blame to a universal phenomenon? We didn't blame the weakness of individuals for the public health issues surrounding cigarettes. We banned children from using them and put warning labels on every pack.

Where do you draw the line?

Where is the line that separates individual responsibility and culture from the responsibilities of governments? I don't know. It's very fuzzy. There's a mountain of good data, advice, and substitutes that can let someone eat healthy and avoid obesity. The resources and help are out there - yet obesity happens regardless. Can it really be said to be the fault of the whole?

Just because the problem is widespread doesn't mean it's not individual responsibility.

As for phones, that's more complicated. There's less clear-cut about how best to tackle those problems compared to obesity.

Who cares where you draw the line. Do you care about outcomes?

Blaming obesity on individual responsibility has not worked to lower occurrence and morbidity.

If this is an area you're actually working on, you can ride a high horse about how it's individual responsibility, but you'll have to work on systems if you want the numbers to come down.

If you're a disinterested party that just wants to judge people, think whatever you want.

I share the same mindset. I think that even though you'll eliminate distarctions from your phone there's no way you can eliminate every other form of distraction, no matter if it's comming from the digital world or somewhere else. You just have to adapt your brain to it. It's like the system, as some wise person once said - stupid people hate it, the smart use it for their advantage.

> it's become foundational and isn't going away soon.

It's not foundational yet, at least in the parts of the US I go to. Being without a smartphone is occasionally less convenient, of course, but it's hardly a serious impediment.

In the future? Who knows. I can see a day when I may have to carry a burner smartphone that is only brought out and powered on to do the occasional important thing.

> Most of these 'issues' are not with phones themselves, but just personal discipline and habits.

IMO that's a limited way to look at it.

Sin occurs at the intersection of desire and opportunity. One is easy to change, the other is hard.

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