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Comment by knowknow | Hacker News Reader

The worst part about this is that I immediately thought that it would be useful in awkward transitory moments. Everybody pulls out their phone on the bus, so you could fit in pretty well with this instead of staring outside.

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What’s wrong with looking outside? I’m at the point where I treat my phone like it’s radioactive, actively trying to limit each encounter with it. I think we should all be staring out the window more often.

The way the buses are laid out in my city is that the seats are directly facing each other. So staring outside could make it seem like your staring at people if it’s too crowded. So it’s more comfortable to pretend to use your phone.

People have a pretty good sense of whether you're staring at them or something just beside or behind them. Not really from the angle of your eyes but the way you react (or not) when the other person looks back.

I wouldn't worry about that so much. And I worry about a lot of social things :)

That’s kind of the weird trap, isn’t it? That it feels like there’s normative social pressure to do your phone too, right at the moment that everyone who would notice you doing or not doing so has turned their attention elsewhere?

One of my hobbies when visiting London is smiling whilst taking the Tube somewhere. Oftentimes I am the only person in the carriage not wearing a glum or flat expression.

Ha ha, I remember I was beaten in USSR when I was a teenager and smiled on a bus without a reason for some time (was daydreaming about some random things).

Was approched with “why are you fucking laughing?”

You can simply scroll and tap a black locked screen. No one’s going to ask anyway.

What's so awkward about that?

Do you also tip just because there's a line behind you and the self-service cashier tells you the machine "is going to ask you a question"?

I feel like I should program an easter egg into one of those that occasionally asks people the question "do you like me?" and then has two boxes to tick that say Yes or No.

Just yell instead.

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