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Comment by jschwartzi | Hacker News Reader

This is why I don't take pictures with my phone or use Facebook or Twitter. I don't want to become just another reporter of experiences like everyone else. They're mine, and if someone wants to know about them they should have to ask like they did back before these tools existed.

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>I don't take pictures with my phone or use Facebook or Twitter. I don't want to become just another reporter of experiences like everyone else.

I often feel the same way, but then I wonder if that makes me avant-garde and enlightened, or just a curmudgeon stuck in the past.

Possibly the latter. In any event, there's certainly nothing inherently avant or enlightened about not sharing photos on social media.

I think there are two historical views of technology that people take. View 1 holds that any new technology is better because it saves time performing some task that used to take a long time previously. View 2 holds that any new technology is suspect unless it can be shown that there was truly no value in the time spent before the technology came about.

I think there's value in both views, but I'm also more of a View 2 rather than View 1 person, and that's why I prefer not to do those things. I also don't own a microwave, toaster, or coffee maker. Instead I use a French Press and an oven.

Realize that when you choose to do something differently from the way it was done in the past, there is necessarily a trade off to be made, either in your enjoyment of time, or the quality of your output, or both.

It makes you cautious. That's not a crime, is it?

Do you write letters? It is a fairly old practice, and while I agree that one can fall into a habit of thinking "how will this look on paper", I think that the world would be much the poorer if people had not written so many letters.

that's the most insanely stupid thing I've seen posted on hn in a long while. You've totally missed the whole point of experience - part of it in this day and age is to be able to relive it and share it with a wider audience than those physically around you through the marvel of technology.

By all means don't take photos, but please don't kid yourself that this is some retro throwback to days gone by. Why not skip showering in the morning too, that just distracts you from the things people did before household plumbing.

You're missing his point. The act of recording has taken place of the act of experience. How can you live and fully take in what you are mainly concerned with informing others about?

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