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>> "Take the metro / subway in any big, affluent city these days, and look around youself. What do you see? People whose eyes are glued to their phone screens, oblivious to the people around them, looking for "human warmth" in their virtual companion. That's really not the society I want to live in."

I agree with a lot of what you said but this isn't correct. True we all have out faces buried in our devices but before that we had them buried in newspapers. [0][1][2] No matter the decade people don't look for human warmth on public transport. They want to get on, look down, and get off.

[0] http://img.qz.com/2014/01/baghi49cyaaz2ps.jpg?w=1024&h=714 [1] http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/05/01/article-2137695-12... [2] https://www.wodumedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Riders-...

and the difference now is many of those whose faces are buried in their smartphones are likely communicating with someone.If anything people are communicating more.

People are entertaining themselves more!

From a small statistical sample of people I meet every day in public transport when going to and back from work, I can say that almost everyone looking at the phone is either texting or IM-ing (Facebook Messenger/Snapchat), and if not they're usually on Facebook (which I'd still classify as mostly communicating). Usually the only person I with a game on I can spot is myself playing Ingress, because the city centre is full of portals ;).

And in general, looking at my life and the life of my friends, cow-orkers and family, people are communicating hell and a lot more than they used to.

If anything is a problem, it's maybe not lack of but too much human interaction. People don't find time to think for even few minutes anymore, because there's always someone texting you, chatting to you or some interesting post to comment on.

I would count img as entertainment. Just read over some peoples shoulders.

I think you shared my point, that too much communication starts to be superficial. Subway is a undisturbed time, where reading news or books can be done. Indeed, if you want to communicate in a meaningful way, it makes sense to reload information from time to time.

> that too much communication starts to be superficial

Yes, I agree with that. I actually start thinking about clustering communication types in different ways that it is usually done. I'd say that writing paper letters, writing e-mails and even commenting on discussion boards or places like HackerNews are one type of communication, while face-to-face talk, phone call, texting and IM-ing is the other type (and of course IRC would be grouped with going to a bar).

One type of communication gives you time to articulate your thoughts and reflect on what you have to say. The other is about tight feedback loop, back-and-forthing little bites of thought and emotion. Both types are of course useful and important, but I'm starting to feel that the perceived "superficiality" of communication is people talking too much with each other, and not writing enough letters. Too much human warmth, not enough time to think.

Sure, our technology is a facilitator of this problem. But the nature of the problem is different than usually portrayed.

There's a 9 year gap in age between my ex and I. One of the big differences between us is that while I'm addicted to my phone too, I don't tend to use it to send messages much. Unless I have agreed to be somewhere by a specific time, I won't text to say I'm late, for example. I won't fret about not hearing from someone. I think that difference to great deal is down to growing up with and without a cellphone - I was 20 when I got my first one, and it was another couple of years before I used it much outside of business calls.

I'm used to expecting hours and hours of "radio silence" from people even if they're late, or I'm late, because when I was a kid calling meant having to know where they'd be, and getting to a phone booth or somewhere I could borrow a phone. She grew up being used to being always contactable and able to contact.

People are terrified of silence and lone time. Sadly this is what people actually need.

Challenge any of you to just leave your phone in the house on a Saturday and drive to a park and walk for 2 hours and on the way stop at some nice spot and sit alone for 20 minutes. You'll be shocked at how you feel mentally.

Exactly, most people were never fond of engaging with random strangers beyond utilitarian communication. This is unrelated to smartphones.

This is vastly dependent on country. And even area within the country. To a large extent I guess population density.

E.g. come to London. Take a train heading as far as possible out of town. With every stop, the "average face" will soften, you'll start seeing smiles. Then eye contact will become "acceptable". You may find people greeting you eventually.

Time of day/week also makes a huge difference. The overcrowded commuter trains are awful. Except Friday afternoon, when the atmosphere at least on the long distance commuter trains out of London tends to be completely different.

Or go to Paris, and people will be far more open to eye contact from the outset.

This comparison is specious and unfairly undercuts the ThePhysicist's point.

People of that generation, outside of commuting, were an exceptionally social generation. Family dinners being important and often required, where you shared your day. You didn't see the entire family sitting around the table with a newspaper like you see entire families at a restaurants with their noses buried in smartphones.

Where are those same people you see in these pictures today? Commuting in cars - ever more isolated than before. They rarely if even carpool.

Original replies point is excellent and well said and if you're trying to somehow compare newspapers and smartphones you're ignoring a looming social problem that is going to affect generations to come. We already see it's detrimental affects in trying to higher young people.

> "Where are those same people you see in these pictures today? Commuting in cars - ever more isolated than before. They rarely if even carpool."

No they're not. All 3 of the pictures shown appear to be from the New York area - the first one is a commuter train, nowadays the LIRR or the Metro North. The latter two pictures are of the NYC subway which, well, still exists.

The modern counterparts to the people in those pictures are still commuting by train, and like before people still didn't talk much with each other. The means of self-distraction have changed, but the nature of people have not.

This is pure rose-tinted glasses crap. North Americans have never treated public transport as a social gathering ground. This is a cultural problem, not one of urban design.

Another poster draws comparisons to college campuses, which strikes me as false also. I live in Manhattan, which is about as dense as this country gets, and my neighborhood has a population density of 25K per sq mi. Everyone walks everywhere, but yet the amount of social contact between complete strangers is pretty minimal. Certainly less than when I was in college.

Once again, it's cultural. If you convince people that talking to strangers is annoying and not-okay, it doesn't matter how tightly you pack them together or how many times a day you can throw them at each other. It just isn't gonna happen.

I feel like when people write this they completely forget what life was like in college.

It's true that ever since the newspaper we've had trouble interacting with each other in certain contexts. Why does that difficulty seem to dramatically increase post-college?

Sure, when I was in college tons of people including myself used their phone in public. But there was a corresponding amount of more or less random and constant public interaction.

To me, this suggests that the problem has little to do with phones or newspapers or watches and everything to do with the design of a city. College campuses are human-scale; modern cities are not. College students are encouraged to room together and give up materialistic wealth; college graduates and working professionals are encouraged to spend as much of their net worth as they can on procuring their own private abode. College students can walk mostly anywhere they need to go; working professionals usually drive in armored vehicles for a significant portion of the day and often find that virtually nothing useful is in walking distance of their residence except other residences that they aren't allowed to approach without good reason.

As somebody who lives in Hong Kong, I had to read it twice to understand what you mean.

I realize your point is probably mostly made in reference to certain North American cities.

You're completely right. Sorry, I should have been clearer. My conception of the "modern city" is very biased by the cities I've personally experienced, which are all US cities with the exception of Moscow (which I would rank as the most livable city I've ever personally lived in, due to its public transportation infrastructure and general density).

There were plenty of discussions about human-scale cities here on HN (and I hope to see more of them) :)

One oft-quoted title is Christopher Alexander's "A Pattern Language", which advocates several building and design patterns, and ended up picked up mostly by the software engineering community.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pattern_Language

some previous discussions here on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8111406

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3591834

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=331006

The subway is just a horizontal and larger version of the elevator, a place where people are trying very hard to not have to interact with those around them. The trip is short enough that you can't really talk, probably you see the same faces every day and you feel awkward. Situations like that give people a ton of reasons to look for an excuse, be it a book, a newspaper or their phone. They're also cranky, it's early morning before their first cup-of-favorite-beverage or late in the day when they simply want to get home from the office. It's a collectively murderous mood, not unlike what you'd get if you put all the people in a traffic jam into a single box.

Compare with trains and you see the opposite, people get to talk to each other, make friends.

Other than that I completely agree with you, technology will not by itself make your life more fulfilled or meaningful and quite possibly will make it less so.

The way this stuff is marketed is as though the mere ownership of gadget 'x' will make you more attractive/interesting/happy. And that's never the case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill

and

http://www.listenmoneymatters.com/materialism-is-killing-you...

> Take the metro / subway in any big, affluent city these days, and look around you. What do you see? People whose eyes are glued to their phone screens, oblivious to the persons around them, looking for "human warmth" in their virtual companion. That's really not the society I want to live in.

This old photo (http://imgur.com/WkHHpZ1) comes to mind when I read this. Don't blame technology.

And, on the phone I'm likely to be conversing with friends and acquaintances. Beats staring at newspapers. Oh, and my phone has OKCupid and Meetup.com.

But the original post goes into creepypasta territory with the human warmth thing. "Jobs: I feel her pulse against mine." It reminds me of http://windows95tips.com/post/34200923828

On the other hand, you're just as likely to be playing Angry Birds.

That's terrible, but the likelihood of me being in contact with my peers remains higher. Relative social and/or personal usefulness of Angry Birds versus reading news is another matter.

Couldn't agree more, but when you have to sell a phone that is just like every other phone, you quickly run out of other ways to advertise it.

You know, for an article filled with satire, people seem to be taking the first part seriously. I took it all as satirical, and I enjoyed it.

You should listen to Simon Sinek's TED talk about "Start With Why". He also has written a book with the same name.

The reason people like Apple products, and consequently Apple the company, is because they like how Apple approaches building products. Apple starts with "Why?" and works their way to "What?"

Obviously, this approach doesn't appeal to everyone but it does explain that "religiousness" you described.

While this technology may not lead to a more fulfilled or meaningful life there is plenty of technology that can achieve that goal. Look at the progress made for artificial limbs for example.

Even this type of technology can make a huge difference depending on circumstance. Several types of disabilities are easier to deal with using an iPad over the crummy alternatives that existed before.

People's eyes are not glued to their screens. I'm sure that they can move their eyes and point them onto other targets, and I'd like to see the evidence of any sticky substance between the ocular globes and the crystal screens. I don't understand the need of hyperbole, in general. Why is it necessary to exaggerate to make a point?

What is the society you would like to live in? A society in which intellectual and philosophical discussions pop up spontaneously on the subway? Or a society in which strangers stop to hug each other in the middle of the street and start conversing dearly and profoundly?

Well said.

Hey grampa, how'd you get on hacker news?

Seriously, it's always been like this and it will always be like this. You're just ranting about "kids these days" because their choice of distraction is different from what yours was.