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Comment by exe34 | Hacker News Reader

I use my phone to look up words/concepts/references all the time while reading - I couldn't do without it, flipping through a dictionary or walking up to a computer to read a quick Wikipedia intro to a concept/person/place/etc would just get me far more distracted.

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There’s always a reason why we “need” our phone at all times, isn’t there?

For the purposes of public policy (where schools are concerned), or even holding a meeting at work, what should be the best recourse?

I find an eink tablet with no browser or a digitizing pen good for taking notes in this tech era.

Weelll....

I did that, and I use my Remarkable 2 mostly for reading epub novels and even leave the pen at home by now... :(

Okay, knowing myself I never thought I would use it much for creative work to begin with (and I was right).

I still think I did my best programming and learning about computers when I did not actually own one. East Germany, 1980s, I was in school. All programming happened with my head and paper,

oh no.

do you have a case so it's convenient to have the pen with you?

I got the cheap standard case of the very first iteration (I was an original pre-order customer for the RM 2), not expecting to carry it around much (I was working from home most of the time anyway). I have to stick the pen somewhere else in the bag.

I just looked, they don't even have that cheap model anymore.

yeah I have something like https://a.co/d/3JUuMjd so the pens harder to lose

Let the schools make rules, just like they do for a thousand other things.

If you make it a “public policy” issue, it will become another partisan football for the authoritarians among us to create drama about.

I imagine when books became available, there were people who complained that people no longer take the time to just contemplate anymore, they always have an excuse for having a book in their hands.

> For the purposes of public policy (where schools are concerned), or even holding a meeting at work, what should be the best recourse?

teach them to use it. it's a tool. teach them how marketing works. teach them how susceptible to misinformation the human mind is. teach them how companies behave as if they are only beholden to shareholder profit and how said companies sell them fast food, sugar, porn and yes, engagement for profit.

the psychological weaknesses of the human mind have been well documented for over a hundred years, and yet the only people we teach that stuff to is marketing students. why is that?

Yet somehow we all survived before smartphones. If you have a question and raise your hand to ask, everyone else benefits from getting the answer as well.

we also survived before books. plenty of books are useless or downright dangerous. would you support banning books in the classroom?

Sometimes when I'm reading a paper book I miss the easy access to a dictionary that I get on my ebook reader, but I have found I can just keep reading and infer enough to not interrupt my reading. I keep notes on a post-it and I check those later.

I'm not suggesting you do the same, is just that I felt identified with your comment.

Nonetheless I did it all the time as a kid and it was fine using a dictionary. Is it much easier on a phone? Absolutely, but then I also get caught up reading the etymology, looking up on Wikipedia the Greek roots of the word, ending up at some Greek wars' battle in 500BC and what's the current geopolitical situation of the region, how did they vote on the last Greek Parliamentary election, etc.

For my curiosity it's amazing, not so much for getting shit done.

outside of work, I read for entertainment about 70% of the time I'm not doing biological necessities. I don't see the problem with the scenario you've outlined.

I think you've missed what I meant... Read the parent and my response, not my response in a vacuum.

we are in violent agreement.

Do you think that's useful? The old school way would be to jot down notes about questions and followups. I'm curious if the old school way relates to better retention of both the questions and answers. My suspicion is yes. I should do this myself more.

Write those down on a list and look them up every 15 minutes.

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