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Comment by btipling | Hacker News Reader

My smartphone has changed the way I feel about waiting. Instead of dismay I now can look forward to a lengthy pause. It never really feels like waiting for me anymore.

Unless it's in my car and I can't use my smartphone. Another exception is when I am with people and it is socially unacceptable for me to focus on my phone. If we have nothing interesting to talk about, the wait is as painful as ever, perhaps even worse if I am jonesing for my phone.

Standing up a long time can cause physical pain, so that part doesn't go away even if I have a phone.

Also I wonder if smartphones have decreased impulse buys of candy and that other stuff in supermarket lines.

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Personally, to the contrary. With a smart device you'll end up going and doing something all the time, and you get used to that keeping you going and going through the day. And this means you never stop doing and start being.

I don't have a smartphone and I probably won't get one until I need some of its functions desperately enough. I like waiting and doing nothing: it's the time to be, it's time for myself. I never run for the bus or tram or train, instead I walk as if it was waiting for me forever. If it leaves before I hop in, I just consider it some time for not-doing.

Actually, this removes the meaning of "waiting" and "pause". If the "pause" doesn't actually break anything in your day then you're not "waiting" either. It's just your day, sometimes going forward, something stalling, sometimes going backwards, like a little toy boat whirling along in a stream. There's nothing to pause from and nothing to wait because everything just is.

> I don't have a smartphone and I probably won't get one until I need some of its functions desperately enough.

My smartphone has only one essential function. Provide access to the internet. I consider that a necessity. Apparently you do too or I wouldn't be reading your comment.

> I like waiting and doing nothing: it's the time to be, it's time for myself.

I can understand not wanting to be connected all the time. However, for myself, I only want to disconnect when I'm with other people ... when I'm by myself, I want to spend that time on my interests, which are conveniently found on the net.

On the latter point, I find it useful to disconnect to read and take notes sometimes. I find that if the internet is available, any resistance/difficulty in thought results in an instinctive impulse towards alt+tab (or the mobile equivalent). Whereas if I'm sitting out in the park with a book and notepad and I run into a stumbling block, I just stare into the distance, or maybe walk around a bit, until something comes to me.

> I consider that a necessity. Apparently you do too or I wouldn't be reading your comment.

This doesn't follow. Commenting on HN doesn't imply that the commenter requires the internet. It doesn't even imply that the commenter likes the internet or thinks that overall it is a net-gain.

I toggle between reaching for my smartphone and not-doing, but not doing is better. We all have inner wisdom but it's often ignored in favour of reading the latest comment or opinion on HN. We need to switch that priority around.

Where the smartphone gets in the way is when you want peace or when a situation is slightly uncomfortable but we retreat to the smartphone out of mindless habit. We use smartphones to not only connect with people but also to avoid people.

> "it's the time to be, it's time for myself"

This seems like a weird and arbitrary use of the word be that is not defined in the dictionary that I have. So I do not understand what it is you are saying.

When it's time for myself I like to use my smartphone. Because it's interesting to me. I can read interesting articles, I can distract myself with books, catch up on emails and online discussions. I like these things. I can also choose to not use my smartphone if I'm not interested in what my phone has to offer. Owning a smartphone does not mean I am required to use it, but not owning a smartphone makes it impossible to use one if you wanted to.

Being yourself is the time where you're thoughtful and analyzing the information that's already in your head, instead of desperately probing the world for something you might have missed from someone else. At least that's how I see it.

If I put you into a refrigerator box with pencils, pens, watercolors, paper, and light, then after a day cut a slot in it, what you passed out to me would be you.

The vast majority of people spend the vast majority of their time lazily consuming the synthesis of others, getting vicarious doses of the feeling of discovery, a pale imitation of actual, original discovery through reflection on what they have already incorporated into themselves.

th-d;dr* information consumption without reflection isn't learning, it's cataloging. Proper consumption/reflection ratio: 1:10, median: 100:1.

*too hippy-dippy; didn't read.

This seems like a weird and arbitrary use of the word be that is not defined in the dictionary that I have. So I do not understand what it is you are saying.

Thanks for pointing it out! I meant "being" as opposed to "doing". Some people use "not-doing" instead but that sounds even weirder.

Being means... well, just that. You just are, you don't have anything to work on or focus on. You just be and see later what came out (if anything). It might sound like zen stuff but most people do that naturally if only they occasionally stop themselves from doing something.

If I'm sitting in a bus I'm likely to just be: I don't think anything in particular, I just watch and observe without analyzing, I might think about something but then I gleefully forget about it. An internet connection or a smartphone in general would just distract me. The moments of just being are worth a lot of gold in my life and I'm enough aware of them that I actively try not prevent them. Thus my smartphone policy.

Your not doing it just being state is very well known in the East, you might want to check the Zhuangzi. But your explanation is not very accurate. You'd go to this state more easily if you do something you don't need to think about, like housework, hiking, or even coding - but when you're in the zone. The main thing ifs to be without intention, without internal mental supervision. Then you are your real self, and you are happy, like fishes in the river.

It is good to you to be able to be yourself in the lines, and shows you will be able to handle the "distractions" of a smartphone easily.

I think I actually achieve this state playing Temple Run, which is an utterly mindless game that involves no thought at all, just doing.

Second that. As long as I've got my trusty electronic device with me, any wait below 2 hours is nothing to me. With the charger and internet connection, make that 2 days ;)

Of course, if you don't have such an electronic device, some people say a thing where entertaining or illuminating texts are permanently fixed to a pieces of processed plants, also known as "book", often helps. I've used that remedy many times too, and can vouch for its effectiveness.

I remember when the swine flu was a big deal, and there was a huge line for public vaccinations in my town. I was waiting in that line for at least an hour, but it didn't feel that way, because I wasn't waiting in a line. I was reading a paperback book that I had brought with me, in a line. It was only a peculiarity of circumstance that there were long lines of people on either side of me during this whole process, and that my reading session concluded with a needle in my arm.

Surprisingly pleasant! I just wish that books tended to be more trivially portable, so I could carry them with me all the time. Cell phones with books on them are nice, but the tiny, backlit screen is less than ideal.

Kindle?

It may be true that smartphones and books can get you through a long queue, it does not solve the problem though, only makes it worse.

Queues can be indicative of a more serious issue - indifference. Government offices have earned their way up to the top of this list. Government queues could very easily be improved by either getting larger offices, hiring more officers, optimizing queue lines, estimating times and allowing you to return after 3 hours instead of making you wait and a hundred other ways any of you could come up with in less than 5 minutes.

The problem is not the queue but the organization.

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