How not to be alone | Hacker News Reader

How not to be alone

nytimes.com

124 pointsgjenkin74 comments

As somebody who seldom carries a mobile phone, figures out local directions with an address and paper map, etc., this editorial resonates strongly with me, and the author illustrates his point beautifully. His expression, "diminished substitutes," captures a feeling I've had for a while about the 4G lifestyle, or even one that just takes place too much on the internet.

In the past 3-4 years, when smartphones completely hit the mainstream, I have noticed a very significant change in those around me, even in some people I am close with. They seem more ... robotic! I am certain if I moved in different circles, I would've noticed a similar pattern years before among BlackBerry users, who were the butt of the "CrackBerry" joke ca. 2004.

I'm not sure how else to describe somebody completely fixated on a small device, resorting to it almost like some security blanket when an everyday problem needs solving. Portable video games like Game Boy, and traditional mobile phones, which no doubt have been similarly derided in the past, offer a poor comparison for their limited scope. The small screen provides some strange tunnel vision I don't care to encounter.

Internet browsing is the ultimate retreat because it provides an infinite stream of novelty. Having that an unconscious reach away at all times is so potent. Indeed a completely different class to something like a video game which is both contained and usually has diminishing returns in extracting its novelty.

To the well trained mind reality provides an infinite stream of novelty. I suppose it's all down to perspective and what rewards you attune your brain to.

It's odd that you're on hackernews if you don't have a phone and use paper maps. That just seems like an odd combination.

I actually find it very hard to believe that someone who develops for a living wouldn't use google maps, which are far superior to paper maps (traffic, for one thing). I'd be very suspicious of your code!

Regarding mapping, note I said I don't rely on point-A-to-B directions for local trips. For long trips where I am not familiar with my destination, I typically plug it into Google Maps (that might change now, though I know of no appropriate substitute) and study the route, comparing alternatives. I write my route, both ways, on a single piece of paper. By studying my route, I am aware of confusing interchanges and such ahead of time. If I think a turn will sneak up on me, I write down the preceding streets intersected. Often the act of writing my route down means I never have to refer to the paper on the trip, a nice perk. I always could call the place if I get a little lost.

On not using smartphones and being on this website ... I don't see the contradiction. I am a software developer, mainly working on sever-side software and some desktop development tools. The skills I claim to know (Erlang, JavaScript, Python, software design in the large ...) I know very well. No conveniences or lack thereof are going to change that. I don't really develop for mobile, except incidentally. My computing happens at a desktop or on a laptop, and I don't feel my experience or knowledge are limited, except in the mobile sphere. Even if all consumer computing were to move to mobile, there would still be lots of server-side software to be programmed.

There's a whole lot of computing that happens outside of desktops, mobile devices, and networked services. I know little about firmware development and manufacturing software as well, for instance.

I noticed you suggest you wouldn't care for my code ... it's true that best software I've written has not been open source, and I have a nasty habit of pulling down any project I am not very proud of. Peruse at your leisure: https://github.com/oinksoft

From http://fieldnotesbrand.com

"I'm not writing it down to remember later, I'm writing it down to remember now." – Unknown.

(Not the original commenter.) I'm a fan of interactive maps and use them much more than paper maps, but I've been rediscovering an appreciation for traditional fold-up maps lately, especially when traveling.

A few reasons, some of which only apply in some situations:

1. When traveling in Europe without data-roaming, I printed out some maps ahead of time to navigate. I sort of liked the experience; compared to doing point-to-point routing on demand, it was more of a lay-of-the-land thing where I studied the map to get a feel for how things fit together, where I should be heading, and how I could recognize where I was. It felt like I got an idea of the area faster, whereas when routing is always available it's like when you're following someone else who's navigating: you don't really learn how things fit together because you're just following them.

2. Having done that, I found that, while sometimes unwieldy, a traditional fold-out map is typically much better designed than the collection of one-page views I printed off of Google Maps. For one thing, a good one will have some useful insets, visible landmarks both marked on the map and in an index, and much more reliable printing of street names (if you print out a map from Google Maps, the names of streets will infuriatingly often be left off, depending on the zoom level and density).

3. The online maps' data quality is often worse than a paper map for an area. A few weeks ago I was using a Google Maps map to navigate in Crete, and the "road" I thought I would be taking dead-ended and turned into a footpath with a gate, resulting in an inconvenient 5-point turn and detour. The transition from road to footpath wasn't marked on Google maps, which showed the whole thing as a thru road. A paper map of Crete I switched to did not have this mistake. Sometimes—in areas with many editors—OpenStreetMaps is better in this regard, especially if you want to find footpaths or stairs, which Google Maps often omits. But in Crete the OSM data was not good either.

4. I find it easier to discuss locations with other people by pointing to a paper map than by us both looking at a smartphone screen. Admittedly, the larger screen of a tablet might solve this problem.

to 1. For hitchhiking in Europe, that's all one needs - one coarse map with the main roads so one can figure out which roads can be taken and what to tell potential rides ('Are you going to Paris? - doesn't make sense if you're on a road to Rome.').

This lay-of-the-land feeling you're talking about is really important when you're not in control of your own vehicle and have to make decisions such as where to get off. It's like some fun game, really.

footnote: I don't recommend hitchhiking for anyone who's not sure they want to do it. It's dangerous. (For others though, I can definitely recommend, since it's great fun and the amount of lone people driving their cars all over the continent for business appointments is insane. Sometimes you get a tour guide intoduction to the local landscape, sometimes there's an in-depth introduction to elevator construction in dams.)

Tech worker here. I discarded my smartphone in favor of a brick dumbphone. I have a car GPS unit that I use sometimes, and I also use Google Maps, but I am starting to use paper maps quite frequently. Both for the backcountry, and driving around in the backcountry.

Personally, I am trying to be selective about the technology I employ, based on what I get out of it. Vacuums? Check. Digital cameras? Check. Smartphones? Not sold on it, and I had one for a few years.

There's more of us than you think, and we don't appreciate the jab at the quality of our work.

Luddites among us! Run for the hills...

A smart phone is a digital camera.

Paper maps are like horse drawn carriages - sure they still work, but they are outdated, inaccurate and a relic of the past. It's like saying you still pull out an encyclopedia.

You can argue all you want about how hipster it is to use a dumb phone, and you're entitled to reject any technology you want, but I'm still highly suspicious of your work, out of band Luddite tendencies are a red flag.

A smart phone is a digital camera.

You show me a smart phone with a telephoto lens, and I'll show you a smart phone that is a camera.

they are outdated, inaccurate and a relic of the past

Paper maps don't run out of batteries at the least opportune moment. At the very least, they are a good backup for your tech in the backcountry.

ou can argue all you want about how hipster it is to use a dumb phone

You make this much too complicated. A smartphone costs more money, and offers me no added value that I care about. Is that Luddite-ism? Or is the Luddite-ism the part where I don't feel compelled to tweet or "check in" every where I go?

I lost my smartphone about a month ago. I bought a cheap 20 euro dumb phone as a quick replacement until I decided to buy a new iPhone. To be honest, I'm loving the dumbphone. And the fact the battery lasts more than a week in a single charge is just the icing on the cake.

I'll probably end up buying a new iPhone as I develop for it, but for now, I'm quite happy with it.

Why must a camera have a telephoto lens specifically? Maybe you meant to say "interchangeable lenses" but that would still ignore the vast majority of cameras, point-and-shoot cameras with a built-in zoom or fixed lens.

Maybe a cell phone camera would not be useful to you but I reject your snobbish assertion that a "camera" is defined by anything beyond its ability to capture and store photon information.

Btw they make lots of clamp-on lenses for iPhones et al. Some are even telephoto. I suppose it's still not a camera because it doesn't have a prism or a hot shoe or some other nonsensical thing you want to fixate on.

Hah, you are really feeling quite insulted aren't you!

I suppose I should clarify; a camera I can use. I didn't mean to say "interchangeable lenses", although I like those too. Certainly other people get by with smartphone cameras, but they do not meet my needs. Is that so hard for you to accept?

Google Maps is quite useless for navigating in the backcountry, especially now that they appear to be dropping the "terrain" maps. But that doesn't mean all digital maps are useless.

I don't quite get that "security blanket" comment. If the phone is a useful tool for solving a problem, why not use it? Are we supposed to use old techniques just because the new ones aren't strictly necessary?

My experience in that regard has been pretty much the opposite. People are still stuck in a pre-smartphone mindset where you have to give people directions instead of an address, where you have to remember the locations of businesses you haven't visited in a long time instead of looking them up, where you have to guess about traffic conditions instead of just checking, etc.

It amuses me to no end when a crowd of techies get into a discussion about driving directions these days. No longer necessary!

Sure, there's no problem with you and I agreeing to disagree. I'm of the opinion that the mind operates like a sort of muscle, and that you can be in or out of shape for a particular thing, mentally. As the mapping example goes, any convenience I might gain from turn-by-turn directions, delivered on demand, does not outweigh the tremendous benefit I receive by thinking about where I am going, figuring out cardinal directions by the sun, and other things like that. The latter will seriously save you when you lose reception, phone is out of battery, you're in a place where online maps are out of date, etc. It's a real, applied skill.

So, what you see as a simple task I see as more of a practice, a way of living. This is just how I am about most things, being something of a perfectionist. And that's fine!

OK, I can buy that. However, I have to ask, why use a map? Wouldn't it be better practice to ditch that as well?

Yea, definitely! That's why, like I said in another comment, for local routes I don't really use a map unless it's some place I haven't been before. If I know how to get to the road the place is on, and can figure out where it is reasonably based on the address, there's no point in using a map.

But I'd find a traveler foolhardy to not at least consult a map ahead of time when visiting some very new, distant place. The good thing is that it's normal in the US for gas stations to all carry local maps. So I'm usually not more than a few minutes from being able to stop off and get my bearings if needed -- last I had to do that was in a tricky part of NC (damned business/non-business routes) in 2007.

Or, rather than stop at a gas station to buy an out of date paper map, you could get with the program and pull out your smartphone and have the worlds most advanced cartographic system at your finger tips.

Thanks, glad I asked.

I do similar stuff with mental arithmetic, to make sure I can, and exercise it.

I think the main reason I go straight to fancy electronics when driving is because I don't really like driving all that much,and want to make sure I get to my destination as quickly as possible. I'd rather save the pain and effort for other things.

Regarding this specific point: as someone who likes to backpack, I use a paper map for the following reasons

* Because I may not have an internet connection near my destination

* Even if I do, my maps app has a thing for taking me to the wrong place. Anecdote: some friends and I went biking through a popular bike road through the woods. When checking the route on their phones, all they could see was "you are here", and nothing else because apparently the road didn't exist.

* Paper is more reliable than electronics: a paper map will survive a fall, water and mud, and it will never run out of battery.

I don't deny the usefulness of electronic maps for daily use, but I honestly don't trust them for visiting unfamiliar places.

Memory will seriously save you when you're out of reach of your reference material, so why rely on flammable, fragile, heavy paper? Don't you see how mechanical people who rely on books are, always sticking their notes in their mechanisms to read words off wood pulp instead of pulling them out of their memories? How much better it would be if we abandoned print and went back to the simpler, better time of rote memorization!

Or is that maybe not what the human mind is best used for? Maybe, humans are best at being creative, and our tools help us at that task by freeing us of tedium and ignorance of simple facts.

True, some people misuse GPS technology by driving their cars into lakes. Some people misuse book technology by taking Von Däniken seriously. I'm not seeing a big difference between the two, moral or otherwise.

In my experience, it's vastly more likely that a mobile device loses reception, power, etc. than it is that my paper suddenly goes up in flames. I'd probably have bigger problems to deal with if that were to happen. Paper relies on any old light source and can be preserved for a terribly long time (Dead Sea Scrolls) in the right conditions. It can be torn and soaked and retain its message, being such a reliable medium.

I know that your post was sarcastic and that you were illustrating a point (and I agree with you). It is interesting, however, that Plato actually argued the same thing that you outlined in your post!

"for this discovery of yours [writing] will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves." [1]

[1] - http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Phaedrus#On_the_decline_of_Gre....

The interplay of memory and skill is something that interests me a lot, even though I claim no expertise in the field.

Historical evidence implies that it is true that the people who are able to leverage the tools at their disposal (be that actual tools like cell phones or just applying recent scientific breakthroughs) tend to do well in their life.

On the other hand, we have the idea that the mind is a muscle and it works best if we train it hard. In this mindset, we see objects as crutches that are best to be avoided in order to improve the mind as efficiently as possible.

I and people around me tend to focus on the first paradigm, leaving the second one unexplored.

One of the reasons may be that it is still largely philosophical: if you wanted to improve your memory, what would you do? There are books on people that use tricks to remember large digits and other chunks of data (the brother of Jonathan Safran, Joshua Foer, wrote one).

However, most of us believe that this is not the same type of memorization that can enable us to do pattern matching in our memories faster (which is what mathematicians need the most, being able to see parallels to math they've done before).

And even if we had a trick to pattern-match faster, in order to raise it from the level of "it was described in popular literature, but has no scientific basis" like mind maps and such, we would have to conduct very large studies to verify its validity, which is something that is not done at all in this area.

As a side remark, this is the same problem I have with nootropics. What works and what doesn't? For memorization and focus, it seems ADD medicine works somewhat. For Paul Erdös it was amphetamines which boosted his creativity -- is that better for us mathematicians? And what do these drugs do with us in the long term? Almost all evidence is anecdotal, and I'm not willing to risk my health to be a smarter scientist.

> On the other hand, we have the idea that the mind is a muscle and it works best if we train it hard. In this mindset, we see objects as crutches that are best to be avoided in order to improve the mind as efficiently as possible.

Those crutches frees up time to let one work on other muscles; muscles that might not have any known crutches (like practicing reading maps instead of practicing navigating by the stars some centuries ago).

And more programmer red flags!

Dead reckoning and using the sun will get you really far in navigation. Unless you're trecking across the tundra or sailing the high seas, you'll need something a little Mir modern.

This is getting stupid, you're insisting on using a horse and carriage in a time of motor vehicles. Fine, I will just pass you on th highway, tip my hat and be thankful for living in a country where we have the freedom to be as eccentric as we want.

How about walking or riding a bicycle in a time of motor vehicles?

In LA personal directions are still useful because google and/or apple maps will give you a choice of some obvious routes that will all be clogged with traffic. It really is like "The Californians" on SNL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLTkD8WI8VU

yeah, no kidding.

I just started working for a new company a couple of months ago and my co-workers are all techies. We all decided to carpool together (I wasn't driving) and the driver was aimlessly looking around for the location.

I asked him about using google maps and he looked at me like I was an alien. Nobody else in the car ever used Google maps (or any form of GPS) regularly.

When I don't know how to get somewhere, I use GPS.

I tend to agree with you. I am mobile developer and have been since the days of WAP. I used to get excited about the latest mobile tech and software, and always carried the latest device.

Over the last few years my attitudes have changes considerably to the point where I no longer carry a personal smart phone around with me.

I started to notice that many, if not most conversations, I was having with real people were being interrupted by texts, emails, and other notifications, sometimes for only a second or two, but often to the point where the spoken topic of conversation was forgotten by the person i was talking with.

This included colleagues but also family members and friends.

I once tried to explain this to my own father during a lunch, but he took a ph call while I talking to him.

I have a zero tolerance policy toward this now. I don't get rude about it, but if someone will break a real life conversation with me to look a a notification, I usually excuse myself from the conversation.

I've often noticed the same thing, but to the extent that if I excused myself from each such conversation, I'd have no more conversations.

As regards my own behaviour: I keep a smartphone, but I have no notifications for email or SMS. I'll receive an interrupt for a phone call (something my relatives only tend to make in emergency situations) and that's it.

I think that, for me, this is the ideal balance between giving my full attention to conversations and being contactable.

When I say "excuse myself" I guess I really mean from any significant conversation. I may continue to spend time with people who behave like this, but I back out of any serious discussions if they are conducted with interruptions from personal devices.

Smalltalk is easy and requires very little thought or concentration anyway, but I no longer give my full attention if it is not reciprocated.

I don't make a point of doing it, but if I am left hanging mid-word while someone checks their phone, and they subsequently attempt to pick up the thread again, I just change the topic to a bullshit one (How 'bout that game on the w'end?).

Oh, definitely. Maybe before we rush to adopt smartphones, we should stop to consider the consequences of blithely giving this technology such a central position in our lives.

I'm curious about the notion of the so-called '4G lifestyle' which could be partially defined as an unhealthy fixation on technological substitutes to face-to-face communication, as Safran Foer describes in his piece. Perhaps smartphones (and now Google's Glass Project) are the most iconic manifestations of diminished substitutes fueling these robotic behaviours you mention.

People said the same thing about books. And radio. And TV. And computer games.

I think this is fairly complex rather than a simple uniform transition, and interacts with culture in a way that varies a lot by region.

What the author seems to describe with dismay as being caused by smartphones has been pretty much normal in Scandinavia since long before smartphones. It's considered polite to pretend not to notice things like someone crying on a park bench, if they aren't someone you know. It's also (with some exceptions) considered weird and intrusive to strike up conversations with strangers, and instead you're supposed to be absorbed in your own thoughts, or book, or newspaper—or yes, nowadays, smartphone—unless you're out with friends or family you already know [1]. An exception is if you are at a bar and drunk. Of course, the norms are different in, say, Greece, and different again in Japan.

[1] One blogger refers to this as the Privacy In Public Act http://matadornetwork.com/abroad/how-to-piss-off-a-dane

> It's considered polite to pretend not to notice things like someone crying on a park bench, if they aren't someone you know

As a Scandinavian, I strongly disagree. It's not that it's considered polite, as such. It's just that Scandinavians are deeply inhibited by nature.

Someone crying on a park bench, or someone tripping and hurting themselves in the street, or a similar situation where a person needs help or shows signs of needing help, would simply be embarrassing. Most people would dearly want to help, but would hesitate to get involved because that means having to sort of open up socially and no longer be a neutral stranger.

The Scandinavian countries were, up to just a few decades ago, generally unmodern countries, sparsely populated and divided by physical distance and dominated by a sort of severe, patriarchical farming culture. Norway a little more so than the more centrally located Denmark and southern Sweden, I think. And this is something that is still imprinted on the mindset of later generations. This, by the way, is also why Scandinavians binge drink: To overcome their — our — social awkwardness.

Scandinavians, by the way, are terrified to death of initiating spontaneous connections with strangers, but they will open up right away if you approach them in an outgoing, friendly way.

Nice caricature you've got going there. I like how sometimes people tend to shit on a people/group because they themselves are a part of because, hey, if they're a part of that same group they can supposedly say whatever they want without scrutiny since they have first-hand experience and they are 'only talking about themselves' (well, this is just an impression that I have since I don't know how to mind-read).

Yes, Scandinavians aren't ones to strike up conversations with strangers. Hell, they might be hesitant to respond positively to a stranger that is requesting their help. But I wouldn't say that they (we) are downright socially dysfunctional, as you seem to be saying.

When you have travelled a bit, you come to recognize that people do have interesting social behaviours that are intrinsic to the region and/or culture which are different from your own. The inhibition of Scandivians is easy enough to recognize, just as the British "stiff upper lip", which is very similar, is. It's not a caricature (did my description seem particularly grotesque or comical to you?), although it is obviously a generalization.

> When you have travelled a bit, you come to recognize that people do have interesting social behaviours that are intrinsic to the region and/or culture which are different from your own.

What? Didn't I just say that yes, Scandinavians are not ones to strike up conversations? I merely pointed out that the Scandinavians being relatively reserved, while true, you're exaggerating it IMO.

And you don't know how much I have travelled. I have not been living in that neck of Europe all of my life (and I'm currently not).

Even Scandinavian Americans act like this.

It's not politeness it's a culturally ingrained pathological aversion to interacting with strangers.

Even non-Scandinavian Minnesotans act like this ;-)

Good point. Although my friends from St. Paul with Irish backgrounds are significantly more outgoing and have much larger social circles.

The average American is probably more outgoing than the average Scandinavian. So American culture is probably more outgoing. So being reserved and not "interfering" is more likely to be looked upon as a "pathology" than as "politeness" in this cultural context. In the same vain, an average American might be more likely to be looked upon as being "loud and obnoxious" than "open and friendly" by Scandinavians.

...and then we are back to the point that _delirium brought up about cultures varying by regions.

I was faced with a choice: I could interject myself into her life, or I could respect the boundaries between us. Intervening might make her feel worse, or be inappropriate. But then, it might ease her pain, or be helpful in some straightforward logistical way.

Ease the author's discomfort, more like. If you need to think about whether to approach a distressed person, chances are that your subconscious is telling you to leave them the hell alone.

>Ease the author's discomfort, more like.

I wouldn't be so cynical, but I agree with

>chances are that your subconscious is telling you to leave them the hell alone

The funny thing is, what is really happening is that it is hard to differentiate between reality (where there is no real evidence that strangers want to be comforted by us, and 9/10 times if you say "are you ok" and they will sniff and say "yes" then go on crying) and the feel-good stories we read about where a brave soul breaks through stifling conventions to reach out to another human being in need.

Which is ironic given that the author is complaining about how technology stops us connecting from one another, while the original technology that started this trend was the written word:

>So that perhaps, after all, there is more life in me than in you. Look into it more carefully! Why, we don't even know what living means now, what it is, and what it is called? Leave us alone without books and we shall be lost and in confusion at once. We shall not know what to join on to, what to cling to, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise. We are oppressed at being men—men with a real individual body and blood, we are ashamed of it, we think it a disgrace and try to contrive to be some sort of impossible generalized man. We are stillborn, and for generations past have been begotten, not by living fathers, and that suits us better and better. We are developing a taste for it. Soon we shall contrive to be born somehow from an idea. But enough; I don't want to write more from "Underground."

In most cases, crying or bleeding strangers will use a handkerchief I give them. Bottles of water are also a hit with bleeding or sick people. It also gives them a chance to talk to me if they want. Sometimes they do, most of the time they don't, that's ok.

(I wanted to cite your post, but the relevant part is too long. HN could use citation boxes, I guess.)

I disagree. It depends a lot on your type of personality. But if you are an introvert you think a lot about weather to approach a (distressed) person or not. And ultimately are almost are never going to do that.

If you just listen to your "subconscious" and not making an intentional effort of being more open to people this will negatively impact social interactions.

You won't do it. I'm not sure that's quite the same thing. I found that my social interactions improved greatly when I stopped going to the effort of making myself be open with people and started being vastly more selective in who was worth the time.

I am an introvert, which is one reason I'm acutely conscious of when people would rather be left alone.

But are your assumptions correct? Just because you recognise situations where you would want to be left alone, is it not possible that extroverts wouldn't want to be left alone in those same situations?

There is a difference between being an introvert and being socially awkward/shy.

"I apologize in advance for bothering you. If you need someone to talk to who doesn't know you, isn't going to judge you, and will probably never see you again, I am here."

Doesn't hurt to say something along those lines to someone in distress or down. If they shoo you off, that's okay. Better to do something and fail, than do nothing and wish you did. Introverts know the "shoulda coulda woulda" feeling all too well. And most of the time, upset people simply need an ear, and maybe a hug.

I've had providing comfort to distressed people blow up in my face twice before along with some quite unpleasant accusations. And I know of other people who've had similar experiences. An old scout master a few houses down from mine when I was growing up was accused of abusing this kid who thought very highly of him when he left the area he used to live in - the kid eventually admitting he'd just made it up. I think the kid thought of him as a kind of father figure and when he left viewed it as abandonment.

Helping upset people exposes you to risk. If their life is messed up to the degree that they're crying in public, there may well be a reason in terms of how those around them have tended to treat them, how they've learned to treat others, and how they manage their personal life.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying do or don't do it. But if you are going to do it spare a thought to your liabilities. In my experience upset people stand a massively above average chance of attacking you socially. Don't go (or talk!) anywhere alone with them, don't give them your name, don't touch them, don't tell them where you live. Try to avoid talking to children at all, that's a whole bucket of crap you don't want to mess with.

You only have to comfort the wrong person once to do incredibly damage to your social and professional life. Think very carefully before you involve yourself in anyone else's life.

Personally I don't do it for anyone I don't know well and consider to be fairly stable anymore, it's just not worth the risk to me.

It just comes down to values, in my opinion. For me, if I have to question whether or not to approach a distressed person - then it makes life not worth living. To me, what is the point in life at all if we are to not reach out and help one another? Am I right about this stance? No. Just a question of my values.

You can still help people if you ask whether you're going to or not. Presumably you wouldn't go around helping people commit/get/achieve evil things. It's just another selection criteria - what's your risk in all this?

Maybe that seems a self-centred way of thinking to you. Most people seem to want to believe that their actions are motivated by compassion. However, I don't think this is incompatible with a compassionate system of thought: if you're in a situation where people love you and vest their trust in you... where they invest in you in other words... do you really have the right to take a high risk on yourself?

Maybe you have children or a job or something - I don't know. It would seem kind of selfish to risk the welfare of your kids to help one person right in front of you. To risk, beyond just your kids, all the others who are networked with you and benefit from your presence for the welfare of one person.

You can stand to lose those relationships if people attack you socially, and those people can stand to lose you. The cost of helping the wrong person is potentially all, and to all, you love and/or invest in.

From a compassionate standpoint I'm not sure that's a trade-off that makes sense anymore than it would from a purely selfish standpoint.

Good grief, no. If you want to help someone in emotional distress, offer them a tissue or simply ask 'can I help?' Don't make a speech in praise of your non-judgmental character.

Maybe the OP is right and today's smartphones make it vastly harder to choose to approach nearby people than to retreat into the scrolling names of one’s contact list. But how was it five or ten years ago? There was always something which made it harder to choose to approach nearby people: dumbphones, MP3 players, newspapers, etc.

Maybe the OP just uses his smartphone and today's tech as an excuse for his timidity to approach people.

Completely unrelated to the message of the story but: Did he end up talking to the girl after all or not?

He didn't.

The phone didn’t make me avoid the human connection, but it did make ignoring her easier in that moment, and more likely, by comfortably encouraging me to forget my choice to do so.

He hid the answer quite well. Thanks for pointing it out!

More generally speaking, I think the problem has to do with how we tend to view "things", how we get attached to them and how we forget why we have those things in the first place. Assuming that nearly everything man-made is a tool (be it a hammer, religion, politics, the economy or even art), most of the things we make have a purpose. I think the problem is that not everybody gets the purpose of those tools as clearly as others, sometimes to the point where the purpose no longer matters and the tool becomes an end in itself.

What I'm trying to say is that we tend to glorify the tools themselves, despite their potential flaws or inadequacies. We forget that we made those tools to make certain tasks simpler, or more enjoyable, with (hopefully) the ultimate goal of being generally happier. In my opinion, a good example of this is the monetary system, where some people hellbent on making as much money as possible end up living miserable lives.

By shifting the emotional attachment from being happy (by yourself and socially) to the thing that helps bring happiness ("diminished substitutes"), we start valuing the tool for its apparent value rather than its intrinsic one. It becomes the "chasing the dragon" philosophy of life ; we create a dependency, or even an addiction, where there doesn't need to be one in the first place. We focus so narrowly on the means that we forget the end.

"Most of the time, most people are not crying in public, but everyone is always in need of something that another person can give, be it undivided attention, a kind word or deep empathy. There is no better use of a life than to be attentive to such needs."

I must be a misanthrope, but I disagree wholeheartedly with the latter. Limiting the annoying exposure to other people's problems is a feature, not a bug. People cry every day over ridiculous small-minded problems.

Technology neither brings us together nor drives us apart. It rather gives us tools for specifying social activity in greater detail. It used to be that I had to wait until I saw one of my friends at the coffee shop in order to share something with her, now I can just do so via Facebook.

We tend to think of "before Facebook" as some pre-2000 state that's never returning, but that's not really the case. I have friends where we might know each other for a month before we take the step to friend each other on Facebook. Some people I won't interact with on Facebook. Lots of my relatives I block. If they want to talk to me, I'm readily available via chat or message on FB, it's just the daily flow of stuff they're publically sharing I'm opting out of.

I think a lot of older people who lived significant parts of their lives without social tools tend to make the effects of having them out to be more than what they are to those of us who grew up with them. Most people I know use them perfectly naturally, they don't waste hours and hours on Facebook or bury themselves in their phones to escape social interaction.

They just move flexibly from social arena to social arena. When I'm at the bar, I'll pick up my phone if there's nothing interesting going on and play a game or text or whatever, then just put it down when I get bored of it or someone interesting comes around. We use technology as a way of filling in parts of your life that would otherwise go wasted with something that could be more meaningful.

To worry about software replacing the real is just missing the point.

I found this article angsty, obnoxious and full of belabored, melodramatic prose, just like the rest of Foer's writing.

The instinct not to interfere in complete stranger's emotional turmoil -- especially when she is a 15 year old girl and you are a man in his 30s -- has little to do with technology. There are other ways to distract oneself in uncomfortable situations.

I also can't relate to his "diminished subsitute" hypothesis. When I look at my text/call/email/skype logs I'm hard pressed to find any instances where I used a "diminished" medium -- sending a text when I should have called, calling when I should have visited, etc... Some people may do that, but that's not a symptom of technology, that's just a way of being rude that technology has enabled.

That's really the crux of the problem with modern communication technology. It gives people more outlets to be impolite by using it an innapropriate times or innapropriately. But in many ways, it allows us to connect and stay in touch with people that were never possible before.

Sometimes I wonder if we're in a transitionary phase of mobile technology where we are still at the point of directing our attention at the actual technology rather than using it as a compliment to our "real-world" experience. Glass seems like a step forward in theory, but in practicality I believe it's just moving the screen from your pocket to the side of your head.

You're right, we are definitely in a transitory phase. But it goes beyond just "mobile technology", in my opinion.

I see this as going all the way back to the first stone tablet. Humans reading / watching a framed format. With the advent of cinema in the 20th Century, this form evolves into a screen. Presently, we are witnessing the interface change from a screen to a lens. This will be a crucial pivot in the human trajectory, as the technology becomes more sophisticated and comes to color the seeing aparatus. The politics and dialogue around how this technology "compliments our real world experience" will be a very interesting space to watch.

If you have 25mins to spare I would suggest watching the whole Middlebury Commencement speech from which this was adapted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgGzz3fKINA&feature=share

I am not disagreeing with the author of the article, but I will say something positive about the "smartphone life style": my wife and I live in a small town in the mountains. Although we have a lot of local friends, our family is distributed in San Diego, San Francisco, and Rhode Island. I really enjoy keeping in touch with my family by emailing pictures while I am hiking, etc. in real time as I am experiencing life. I probably send at least two pictures a day. Later, on the phone, the previously sent pictures are something to talk about. Using video Skype or iChat video also helps keep in touch.

If I lived in a small town with almost all of my family and friends nearby, then I might agree more with a limited technology lifestyle, but that is not the way it is.

On the topic of technology ruining human interaction: I recently read an idea worth trying. When you go out with friends for drinks, take everyones phone and stack them face down with yours on top. The rule is the first person to grab their phone pays the tab. I used to make fun of friends that were engrossed with their phones by acting like I was texting on an invisible phone. But, this works much better.

Sorry if it sounds rude, but I have a much better idea: find a way to bring them into the conversation you're having, try being more interesting, change the subject to something they might want to participate or just leave them alone for a bit. Some people need to "recharge" by being alone.

As vinceguidry put it on another post, "We use technology as a way of filling in parts of your life that would otherwise go wasted with something that could be more meaningful."

I've done this with friends a few times. I like it. It honestly does make people pay attention.

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