There's also the symptom that almost our entire society is addicted to staring at their phones for at least 4 hours a day. Go literally ANYWHERE and just look at the people around you if you don't think so.
20 years ago everyone on suburban trains would be looking at a newspaper, magazine or book throughout their journey. Then they would watch a couple of hours of TV at home. Why is 'looking at a phone' such a problem, when most of the looking replicates those activities, with much of the rest being basic utilities which didn't exist previously - consulting a map, ordering food or shopping, looking up timetables or schedules?
Really struggling to imagine people talking on the subway during their morning commute in Japan!! Culture changes.
I had the same experience of meeting people in the same way in Shanghai in 2004 (bus and subway). And before that, in France，the bus line I took near my university was filled with students.
There is no engineered addiction to reading the New York Times, so people just put it down when something else wants their attention.
Looking at a phone is a problem to the extent that it cuts you off from real interactions in society. It is a problem to the extent that the attention you pay to the phone does not go toward solving real problems.
It can be a problem because it allows kids to escape from uncomfortable situations like struggling to learn something, and the Instagram-perfect view of the world makes their own lives feel inferior.
If the problem is games, social media, or porn, why don't we identify those as social problems and try to fix them? Rather than blaming the device.
If we just stuck to the same NY Times articles we would have read in the paper that would be fine. But very few of us have the will power to pick up our device and not wonder into social media apps.
Tell that to all the absolute news addicts out there. News is very clearly addicting, just like loot box games.
There's a lot of commentary addicts and such. Cable "news" started this, the internet has magnified it even more. "Screens" wouldn't be the problem if we all used them for mental enrichment, but instead they've been taken over by "engagement"-hunters trying as hard as possible to get you to see just one more ad... and then another one... and another one...
They are repeated many times with slightly different wording to create appearance of many news, since they aren't limited by print.
> Looking at a phone is a problem to the extent that it cuts you off from real interactions in society.
Final comment about paper vs digital newspapers: I much prefer paper because the adverts are print-only (no motion/animation) and there are no auto-play videos. It is much less distracting.
Some folks did this, others chatted with the 'regulars' that they sat with that had the same schedule as them. There were television series based on this:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_48
Some folks didn't want to chat, and in the Toronto-area commuter rail there are designated zones for that:
So it was a weak background distraction at most. Course, different places had different accepted levels of conversation - London tubes aren't chatty - but there's a difference in brain activity, patterns, anxiety, etc sitting in silence with your thoughts vs having the phone constantly trying to get "engagement" with attention-grabbing provocations.
Similarly, watching TV at home was more "background" than "constant binge." The types of shows reflect this - intentionally repetitive, fairly low stakes, things are back to normal at the end of the episode, because most people weren't so hooked that they watched the same stuff every week at the same time.
"Background phone use" is much more conversation-killing.
The secondhand socials are driving me nuts
My dog stares up at someone until they acknowledge him. Then I end up talking to the person. And everyone has a nice interaction. Usually they get a nice serotonin bump.
I'm pretty sure there's an awful lot more to it.
And the worst part is that that made sense to me for a few days.
Big screen = professional tech person. Small screen = phone addicted loser.
HN tabs open on both.
I've started leaving my phone at home when my wife and I go places together.
It's not a problem without solutions, of course. It just takes an amount of discipline that feels unreasonably burdensome to me (as in "ugh why is this so hard?!").
I'm not certain about that. I remember spending enough breakout time on my iPod that I had to replace the battery.
(Most HN use arguing with strangers is not that. Clearly I'm guilty too.)
Ironically for the "you'll rot your brain" panic of the eighties and nineties, a lot of video games are similarly better. Invest 60 hours into a complicated game and you've worked your brain out MASSIVELY more than 60 hours scrolling or watching tiktok.
Hell, at this point making it through a pre-2000s TV show or movie can be an attention-span challenge. Where's the constant payoff every 30 seconds like with memes??
But yes, I agree. A regular computer offers more "productive" options than a phone. It's just that in my case, I'm an alt-tab away from going back to brain rot, and I am very good at hitting alt-tab.
While not everyone agrees with all the precepts/concepts, may be worth noting the first step:
> 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-step_program
One of the reasons 'God' ("as we understood Him") is invoked because you are admitting that you do not have it with-in you to control things (anymore) and that you need 'something' external to help you clamp down on your behaviour.
5 years free of doom scrolling and never been happier or more productive in my life.