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Comment by nabla9 | Hacker News Reader

Even when people are not looking at the phone, they need to know it's nearby.

Some young people feel anxiety without their phones to the level they don't go out even for a few minutes without a phone. They still lose their phone inside their homes, but they feel comfortable because they know it's nearby. But if you are asking someone to come to help carry something, takes max 2 minutes, and they refuse until they find their phone. It is same for taking out the trash, and visiting the nearby shop (5 min max).

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> Even when people are not looking at the phone, they need to know it's nearby.

Ugh..I felt like I was on the high ground until I read that.

I can't pay for anything without my phone.

Yikes. Sounds reckless. You don’t keep emergency cash?

In case my bank goes down? No.

Or perhaps if your phone goes down.

It wouldn't make sense to keep emergency cash in case my phone goes down because my money wouldn't go down with the phone.

Huh? If your phone goes down you can't pay for stuff, if you have cash you still can.

Oh you mean like if the battery runs out? I just make sure it never does. I thought they meant like if I lose my phone, but in that case I could just go home and grab my card and pay with my card.

So you're hobbling yourself to a phone for why exactly? Carrying a spare $40 makes your wallet too heavy?

I don't even have a wallet. Also, a big reason to avoid cash is that you never know who was its previous owner, and whether they washed their hands. Unless you can somehow get factory new cash.

Wow you're like the archetypal preferred corporate consumer. 100% voluntary opt in to being completely dependent on specific corporate products.

> Also, a big reason to avoid cash is that you never know who was its previous owner, and whether they washed their hands.

This is silly. By this same reasoning you should never touch a door handle in public.

That's correct. You should never touch a public door handle with your bare hands. And often you don't have to. Many doors would be opened for you if you just pushed them, and some would even open themselves on their own if they saw that you wanted to get through. But, hold on, let me blow your mind even further: you should also never eat food that fell on the ground, even if it was less than 3 seconds.

> That's correct. You should never touch a public door handle with your bare hands.

Honestly that's a miserable way to live life IMO, being afraid to that extent.

How old are you if you don't mind sharing? I'm wondering to what extent COVID may have impacted the development of your views here.

> let me blow your mind even further: you should also never eat food that fell on the ground,

Yeah, not really comparable to opening a door lol

> Honestly that's a miserable way to live life IMO, being afraid to that extent.

I know right. Ignorance is bliss.

> How old are you if you don't mind sharing? I'm wondering to what extent COVID may have impacted the development of your views here.

I'm 19, but no worries, when COVID happened I was not affected because I rarely went outside.

> I know right. Ignorance is bliss.

No ignorance here, quite the opposite. When you realize how low the odds are of the worst case scenarios you use to justify your behavior and do a cost/benefit analysis you'll find it isn't in favor of that level of mild paranoia.

> I'm 19, but no worries, when COVID happened I was not affected

Being afraid to touch door handles in public and being as attached to a smartphone as you are would indicate the pandemic did indeed affect your development. The question is to what extent is your development typical.

Even if you ignore the potential implications to your health, realising that dozens of homeless drug addicts touch that very same door handle every day justifies a small detour to find a better door, or at the very least using your sleeve to avoid direct contact. Also, I did leave my phone in the house when taking out trashes, so can’t say I’m that attached.

> Even if you ignore the potential implications to your health, realising that dozens of homeless drug addicts touch that very same door handle every day justifies a small detour to find a better door, or at the very least using your sleeve to avoid direct contact.

I'm not going to argue about door handles, I'm just going to point out this is objectively not normal, as in common, behavior - and that you think this does seem to have been due to you growing up while COVID was a threat.

> Also, I did leave my phone in the house when taking out trashes, so can’t say I’m that attached.

That might be setting the bar unreasonably low.

> I'm 19…

Say no more

Do you never travel? Go camping? Spend more than 12 hours away from a charging location? Seems so stressful for a minor benefit :/

Unfortunately I don't.

In case you need money and you can’t access it…

A power outage caused by a disaster. Lost phone and card. Any situation where you can’t ask the bank for permission to push a payment.

Be careful putting so much trust into institutions, especially in the year of our lord two thousand and twenty five, jesus

Do you need your wallet to take out the trash?

Ironically, I was taking out trash a couple hours ago, and left my phone in the house, and somebody called me, and when I got back they no longer needed me.

Sounds like a win? Why did they even call you if they could sort that out themselves in a few minutes.

I might have won this battle, but chances are I'm gonna lose the war.

Seems like a silly self-imposed limitation.

Wish I could make an NFC implant and pay like that. But probably not in this decade, since that would require merchants to have an eyelid scanner or something similar, so that people can't pay with your hand while you're not looking.

Or just carry a debit card?

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