IMO, you can ditch a smartphone and still keep using the services. I normally keep such services on my laptop, and I just open one up when I need to use one.
It's a middle ground. I can't completely get rid of a smartphone because I'm into motorcycle touring and GPS is essential to me. I'm trying alternatives to Gmaps, but it's pretty awkward and uncomfortable.
One thing that I've done is no notification tone, and I've disable notifications for whatever selected IM apps I've got on my phone
> The cherry on top was to stop paying each year for a new smartphone, that does nothing more than the previous one
Why were you buying new phones every year? This is such a non-argument. I've been using the same Android phone for almost 7 years. It does everything I want it to do. Sure, I spent a couple of days trimming down the system, and carefully selecting applications (for example, the Google Clock from 2015 weighs about 3 MB and is very fast, while the same application from 2020 is about 30 MB and is extremely slow to start, despite having the same feature set).
Does an Android phone without security patches cease to function?
OS security patches are less of a concern for older devices because the majority of the OS was still moved into Google Play Services and as long as the apps are still updated (eg, Chrome), the risk is very low.
There are only a tiny handful of Android phone models that get security patches after 2–3 years are up, and they are generally rather expensive phones. Sometimes phones are supported for longer by LineageOS, but the LineageOS devs emphasize that they are only a group of hobbyists, they don't work for you, and they can drop support for a phone any time they want (because they e.g. lost their phone of that model, or simply lost interest).
It could be. I have twice been burned by LineageOS. I wanted a deGoogled Android phone, but the only LineageOS-supported models that were available in my region, and which I could afford, had been initially released already 1.5–2 years before. Not only was my new phone soon abandoned by the manufacturer, it was also suddenly dropped by LineageOS after only about a year of my owning it.
The prospect of truly long-term support for years and years is one reason I bought a PinePhone and have been keeping track of its development. But sadly the current PinePhone has too ancient and underpowered a CPU to be useful.
guess the reasoning is that there is a lot less attack surface when used in a way where number of apps is reduced to 2-3 (I have such a set-up and for my purpose even an older non-smart motorola flip phone would do the trick).
as soon as I want to do video calls at reasonable speeds, it's probably in my interest to have moderately new hardware and chipsets supporting things like beamforming or other things that only more recent hardware can give me. but even here my 8 yro phone does everything I want it to so that argument kicks only in for truly ancient hardware (e.g. LTE support etc)
There have been tons of critical Android vulnerabilities over the last years that cannot be fixed by app updates, e.g. remote code execution via Bluetooth stack or MMS.
are there really people hunting around preying on old, vulnerable Androids? The argument is, there are too few of them for any serious actor to waste time trying to hack one. It's just not worth it. This makes them pretty secure, for the simple reason they are ignored. Obviously old Androids are only scarce because the general population keep buying the latest. They are essentially a buffer zone to protect the Hackers..
Right now you can get vanilla Android on most recent devices, same image for all of them thanks for the Treble project, that separated kernel and hardware drivers from Android system.
Here's something horrifying for you. I ran Android 5.x with updates blocked for 5 years, and even now that phone works unchanged! I also disable Spectre/Meltdown mitigations in Windows and undervolt my processors! I have no antivirus! I don't lock my door at night and my dog is going deaf with old age!
It's all fun and games until you get some huge charges in your credit card, or your bank details leaked, or some fraud is commited in your name with you details and everything...
Yes, just call them. By regulation, you're not liable for unauthorized use of credit card (specifically, credit card). As a consumer you have zero concerns about card theft.
It's enough to name hundreds of thousands of personal leaks that have happened by not doing those things...
If your attitude to security is "I can run my computer with unpatched XP with a public IP and sync it to a 7 year unpatched phone because once in a blue moon some credit card company or major business can leak my account data there too", then sure...
Sorry, you want me to name a person who had their info/data leaked because of unpatched OS/broswer/mobile?
Might as well ask me to name "one" covid victim, lest they're all "actors".
My uncle, for one, had a randomsware attack 3 years ago, crippling his (small, construction services) company for weeks.
You are aware that there are tons of malware attacks, computers controlled as bots (doing mining, DDoS, etc.), ransomware, etc, right? Or is this some episode of the Twilight Zone?
It's for this reason that I do online banking and investing on my personal laptop. Seeing as how I pretty much open both apps twice a month max, I have no need to install the mobile app.
I don't use Google/Samsung Pay either. They literally do the same thing as the credit + debit card in my wallet. But their advertisements would have you believe they've somehow reinvented consumer finance.
I keep hearing this argument but I don't understand it. What does not having security patches do?
I am using an HTC Desire 826 from 2016 running Android 6, while my father is using a Galaxy Note 3 Neo running Android 4.3.
I personally don't have much issues with regards to not having security patches.. the phone itself does most of what I want, although I am having issues with other things unrelated to security patches -- it's getting a bit sluggish, the 16GB storage does get annoying, and the battery barely lasts two hours of web browsing. Also, it no longer accepts SIM cards for whatever reason. But it's not a big deal to warrant spending money (I don't get called at all and I do have a dumb phone that I go out with for emergencies. Besides, I no longer get annoying messages and calls from my carrier)
Similarly, my father's is doing alright, and the issues he is facing are unrelated to security patches -- many apps don't support Android versions older than 6.. some of them are essential things like Google stuff. YouTube and Gmail for instance outright don't work, and Chrome occasionally brings up messages along the lines of "Please update your Chrome version". But nothing is caused by not having security patches.
That you have not noticed problems as a result of not having security problems doesn't mean that there aren't problems, and doesn't mean that there won't be problems. Maybe you've lucked out and haven't actually gotten malware yet, and maybe tomorrow you open your phone to a ransomware message, or maybe you've had spyware for 3 months and just not noticed.
Good point, but wouldn't there have been more pressure on the OEMs to increase security patch support if this were a widespread issue? Because most do 2 - 3 years.
If I'm not mistaken, LineageOS support is good but not good enough. Vulnerabilities in the higher level Android system will be fixed, but updates to the kernel must be provided by the vendor on many (most? all?) devices.
This is true. Most Android devices run forked kernels supplied by manufacturers. Once the manufacturers stop updating the kernel, the device is stuck using the old kernel forever. I have several phones running LineageOS that I use as remotes for my TVs, and they'll never see a kernel beyond the 3.x fork the manufacturers released 5+ years ago.
This issue is indicative of the larger problem ARM SoCs pose to consumers: manufacturers choose not to design ARM boards with SBSA-like features[1] because it's cheaper to do so. While x86 machines have enumerable buses for hardware discovery, as well as ACPI support, ARM SoCs don't. As a result, mainline Linux kernels won't boot on them, they require a kernel fork, and a kernel fork must be maintained. Manufacturers have no incentive to maintain that fork for more than a year or two.
As ARM SoCs take over what are considered general purpose computing devices, like laptops, devices that we once thought of as being upgradable, software-wise, suddenly aren't. Apple's M1 Macs are an example of this. To get Linux running on them is a massive undertaking, and running Linux on them in the long-term means relying on a third party to build and maintain M1-specific images in perpetuity, because the SoCs can't run the generic ARM images that ARM servers can run.
There are mitigations against this problem in Linux, like Device Tree[2] support, but that is only one small part of the big[2] undertaking when it comes to porting Linux to ARM SoCs.
Not to mention that if you know people who are constantly upgrading their phones, then you have a supply of free phone upgrades anyway, just a year or two behind everyone else.
I use iPhones (the SE type versions) because they receive updates for like 5 years. Ideally it’d be more like 10 years, but this is still much better than typical Android and WAY better than “once a year.”
Yep! New iPhone SE for five years is the way forward. They are powerful enough to use day-to-day with pretty much zero lag, have screens large enough to read comfortably, and have the useful features (Apple Pay) of the pricier phones. The camera is still decent, but I prefer my mirrorless anyway.
I miss my iPhone 6. I thought the SE would fill it's shoes, but the lack of headphone jack makes me constantly regretful. I'm shocked by how many people tell me to "Just put a new stereo in your car" or "Upgrade to a Bluetooth receiver" or "Buy new headphones" or "Just carry that shitty adapter around with you all the time..." Not only should I spend $600 on my phone, but I should also apparently upgrade every single audio device that I own so that smart phone makers can save $1 on each phone they sell.
> so that smart phone makers can save $1 on each phone they sell
What Apple mentioned in the iphone 7 reveal, which was when they made headlines for removing the jack, was that it is a bulky component that extends quite far into the phone, competing for precious real estate with other components.
Right, which makes the phone easier to build and thus saves money. There's no getting around the fact that money is the #1 reason they have started omitting the jack. Apple has no other reason to leave out a feature that adds a convenient redundancy to a common use-case. There's literally no other negative to leave out the jack other than cost.
> There's literally no other negative to leave out the jack other than cost.
I believe there is. When designing a product, one always operates within a given set of contraints. Removing one of the constraints of the design makes it easier to hit the rest of the objectives. You might argue that easier design = reduced costs but IMO that would be too loose of a definition of "costs" in this case.
Consider the lower end of the market: budget phones have cheaper cameras, cheaper screens, cheaper processors - why? Because these are indeed good targets for cost cutting. They all have headphone jacks though. To me, that suggests that cost is not the issue here.
You can get excellent quality refurbished(aka renewed) phones for incredibly cheap that are only a year or two behind the current models. I don't think I've ever bought a brand new phone and paid full price. In fact, I only buy a new phone when the battery starts to die and it's not serviceable. I can't honestly say I understand why people believe they need to buy the latest phone every year or two.
Same with cars. I fail to understand why anyone would spend 20k on a brand new Focus, for example, when for the same money you can get a 5 year old Mercedes c (also an example)
Yeah, was my thought too. A 2018 Focus will probably be pretty reliable, still have some parts under warranty, and have a lower TCO than having to insure and repair an older Mercedes.
Maybe outside of North America. The automatic transmission had big problems here. Ford tried to game the fuel economy with a cheap unreliable transmission. Unlike other regions which got torque-converted autos and popular manual options, almost all the Foci were sold with a dry Dual Clutch Transmission (DCT). This worked on the highway, but around town is was programmed to "crawl" like an automatic, slipping the dry clutch and wearing out very fast. Big class actions happened and now Ford quit selling cars here, only Mustangs and trucks.
Some older Mercedes might have a lower TCO than a 2018 focus, but only because the focus is disastrously unreliable.
I'm pretty sure this isn't as true as it once was. All of the used cars I've purchased that were manufactured in the last 15 years have been nearly impossible to destroy (without outright crashing them) even with extreme negligence. Not only that, but they were always in pretty good shape. That's just my experience, though. I've still not even come close to the cost of buying new versions of any of the cars I've owned.
> Why were you buying new phones every year? This is such a non-argument. I've been using the same Android phone for almost 7 years.
Most Android phones run forked kernels, so even if you put LineageOS on them for security updates, they're still stuck on ancient kernels. I have phones with LineageOS on them that will never see a Linux kernel newer than the 3.0 fork the manufacturer released.
This reminds me of a small company with an non-smart e-ink phone and I'm curious whether there was a market fit ... has anyone tried the Light Phone and if so, does it achieve these goals?
I feel like it may constitute a separate device class than a dumb-phone but I don't know how much is marketing versus reality.
It's a very neat looking phone and there are probably some economies of scale involved which mean they can't produce a $50-150 phone, but 330€ is absurd, I cannot imagine more than a few dozen people around the world would use this phone as a daily driver for that price. Cut the price in half and then you might have people talking.
I've had the Light Phone 2 since launch, but just got rid of my old smart phone and switched over to it completely about a month ago.
If your goal is to overcome a phone/internet addiction, or just disconnect, then the LP2 will definitively help you achieve that! Your going to have to give some stuff up (No Spotify, no Directions yet), and deal with texting that worse then a smart phone but better then a number pad. But to me its definitely worth it.
I think the LP2 will eventually provide the same stuff that the original author gets from his Garmin watch and GSM Calls phone, which is pretty neat!
Try the Cat B26 phone.
Nokia 3210 size, 4G + Wifi.
KaiOS.
T9 interface. Cutdown WhatsApp, cutdown Google Maps. Dual SIM. Can act as a 4G hotspot. Certified water and dust proof. Weeks long battery. 65€.
Very solid devices for cutting back internet dépendance or for traveling without but still having the basics.
oh it's by that Cat; Caterpillar, the one that does construction machinery. Out of curiosity, what's the battery tech? LiFePO? LTO?
I'd imagine heat tolerance and impact resilience would be more important than slimness and lightweight for these devices if they're intended to be used like say, at a foundry.
Social media seems to be useful for a job search. Not everybody still has their own startup, and for those who don't a network like LinkedIn can mean less months sitting without income. Privacy is great, but sometimes it's really hard to see ways to simply exist - eat, sleep - without communicating in ways which erode your privacy.
I've been tempted to do this. The thing that stops me is how good texting is on smartphones. The author writes about this, and pretty much confirms my fear that it would be a major step backwards and would put me out of sync with almost everyone in my life. I'm awkward enough as it is; I don't need to add new barriers to interacting with me. :) ETA: Honestly if Apple would open up iMessage, I could get rid of my iPhone, which is of course the reason they don't open up iMessage.
A couple other things I've thought about, more on the social media angle, are (1) starting a personal web site again, and (2) a different kind of social media site. For (1), I've already got a little VM that runs my email and some quickie web apps I threw together. Why not stand up a personal site too, like a lot of us used to have, where I can share all the stuff I'd normally be putting on Instagram, etc.? Obviously that's adding friction for folks too, but I'm less concerned about that stuff getting ignored.
For (2), and bear with me because this is going to sound a bit woo-woo, I think a social gratitude list could be really powerful. Maybe not a big hit, but definitely powerful for people who would use it. I say this because I used to be on an email list with some friends where everyone would write ten things they were grateful for that day and then send it to the list. Now, if this is not a practice you're comfortable with, you're probably dry-heaving right now; I did too at first. But once I got past the fact that it's not very cool, I found that it was a fantastic way to keep up with folks. (That's in addition to the mental health benefits, which I think are evidence-based but I'd have to double-check that to be sure.) Amazingly, I didn't even notice a tendency for it to degrade into performativity or attention-seeking. Overall I just think it would be a structure that would enable some of the positive aspects of social media while discouraging or eliminating the negatives.
I think there's still a market for slide-out keyboards on devices. They felt a bit janky in the 00's but I would still be first in line for the next android (or even ios, unlikely) device with such a feature. In high school I could send texts without having to look away from my counter-strike games.
It's been over 10 years, so my memory is almost certainly faulty, but I feel like I was nearly as fast with T9 predictive typing as I am with a swipe keyboard on a smartphone these days.
> I don't need to add new barriers to interacting with me. :)
This is an issue for me too. I know the meme is "your real friends will still make the effort and call you / hang out with you / whatever", but I don't think it's that simple— we (especially in the pandemic, but really always) rely on social gatherings/media as a proving ground for acquaintanceships, a place to banter back and forth and onramp a relationship to the point where it would be not-weird to actually arrange an intentional activity or get-together.
And the reality is, when I've had acquaintances fall off my social media radar or be otherwise difficult to get ahold of, I just can't be bothered. When every person but one is in a FB Messenger group chat, and one person wants to be texted-with about what the plans are, that person inevitably gets left behind.
So maybe there's some FOMO going on here, but I don't think I'm at a place in my mid-thirties where I'm ready to effectively shut the door on those opportunities.
The cheerful "your real friends will.." meme ignores the possibility that you'll find you have no "real" friends. Turns out even casual friends are better than none, and you aren't likely to find any real friends if you are hiding offline, waiting for everyone to come to you.
Agreed, all close friends I've made recently I wouldn't have made the transition from casual acquaintance to close friend without social media. Social media provides zero friction interaction and the sum of interactions can grow a friendship.
Plus I don't find social media AT ALL toxic and I only spend maybe a half hour a week total on it. OTOH I find people complaining about social media being toxic is becoming extremely toxic.
You could get a Google Voice number and use the web app to text people. It rather sucks, or maybe it just sucks in Firefox, I don't know. But it's usable enough, you just have to hard-refresh the page every now and then. At least they finally started allowing downloading of "unsupported" attachments, which was the biggest problem before.
I opened an account with voip.ms after ditching my smartphone last year
and was pleasantly surprised with the reliability and interoperability.
Works decently well with Linphone, ATA devices, forwarding to a dumb
phone, land line, etc. With it you can also receive SMS messages (and
reply to them) by email.
The best benefit I've seen is my increased focus and ability to do deep work. I actually feel like I'm getting way more work done, and have the ability to now focus for hours at a time. Before, work usually consisted of surface level attempts at "working" before I was notified on Discord or social media about something.
Notifications and the constant desire to check for replies have really hindered my productivity in ways unimaginable. Now, without distraction, I can get meaningful work done. Hugely beneficial and transformed my whole manner of working.
Definitely, I've had a similar level of benefit when putting my phone in another room, it always worked great and helped me get some deep work done. Glad it works for you also, always great to see others doing this too!
This is great and all. Unless you travel a lot. Or have a wide network of far flung friends and family to keep up with. Or have niche hobbies and interests. Or are looking for a new job. Or just generally like to keep up with modern trends and culture.
But yeah, sure, sounds great for the tiny number of people who don't require any of the above.
I would include a camera too. I don't really want to carry a dslr, i like that google photos are pretty much synced and backed up. It not fun for me to run some crappy data back up thing.
I like taking pictures, i like looking back on them. I use them for painting inspiration too. I don't really need to be a photographer though with a dslr or whatever is cool now
I don't think you need a smartphone and social media to do any of the above listed tasks. The author's qualm isn't with having an online presence, or being tapped into modern society, it's having that modern society constantly tapping you on the shoulder with a bombardment of notifications and algorithms designed specifically to get you hooked.
I think you can easily travel, have a wide network of far flung friends, be involved in niche hobbies, look for a new job, and keep up with modern trends & cultures - all without a smart phone and social media. If you have a laptop & internet connection - you're good to go! This allows you to tap in when you want on your own terms instead of the other way around.
I found a great website recently by a man who collects crayons. A niche activity if there ever was one. Want to be part of that community? It exists only on Facebook.
I moved abroad a couple years ago and needed a way to get involved with the local ex-pat community. One guess where all of their organizing and communicating was done.
Want to bootstrap a home business, like so many mask-makers have done during the pandemic? How do you get your initial traction without friends and family on the social media networks?
If people want to opt out of the modern world that's fine, but let's not pretend they aren't missing out.
Even more reasons why anti-trust action against social media monopolies and laws like the GDPR are important. You might not be able to "beat" Facebook, but at least regulation will tone down its scumminess and make it slightly more tolerable.
You could argue that without a free, simple platform and its audience, such websites wouldn't exist in such large numbers. Not everyone has the patience to run a website.
>But yeah, sure, sounds great for the tiny number of people who don't require any of the above.
Most people actually need none of that stuff. I think there's a lot of illusions that come with social media. Having 500 Facebook friends you chat with two times per year is not friendship in a real sense of the term.
What many people are looking for arguably these days and what has somewhat been lost is lifelong, strong bonds and real conversations between people you have unconditional trust with. Having two of those is better than a million Instagram followers.
Same with 'keeping up with culture and trends'. Like what does that actually mean. Is anyone really better off when they follow Kim Kardashians daily drama? Is hooking into every trend really producing independent, smart, autonomous, strong-willed people? There's value in disconnecting and spending time with yourself and alone that many younger kids in particular don't have space for any more.
"...friends you chat with two times per year is not friendship in a real sense of the term"
No, it is a different sense of the term and has different value. That's not in any way a bad thing, nor does it detract from other relationships. It is purely additive.
"There's value in disconnecting and spending time with yourself..."
Right, but using social media does not stop one from enjoying personal time. Why would it? Again, it is additive.
I'd also point you to my other comment about unique communities and opportunities that only exits on the established social media platforms.
okay I'll invite you the next time you're at a bar or cafe to pay close attention to how many people look at their phone instead of focusing on the person they're with.
Time and attention are precious, we don't have a lot of it. It's the opposite of additive, it's the scarcest thing in the world, because attention and time are the only thing you cannot make more of. Every moment spent on following trends, liking dog pictures, getting that additional hit of dopamine from getting some more followers or a notification alert is a signal that disrupts focus and draws your mind away from relationships or things that matter.
>unique communities and opportunities that only exits on the established social media platforms.
An opportunity that only exists on a social media platform and is intermediated by some third party is terrible and takes agency and control away from you. You can do a business without social media, you can find subcultures and local communities in almost all places on the planet, where you can make real and lasting connections rather than superficial digital ones.
"okay I'll invite you the next time you're at a bar or cafe to pay close attention to how many people look at their phone instead of focusing on the person they're with."
That seems like a personal problem you are trying to hoist on to me. If my friends engage in behavior I don't like I can tell them, or find different friends. But for me, this is rarely a problem.
"...a signal that disrupts focus and draws your mind away from relationships or things that matter."
Again, you seem determined to tell me what should matter to me, which will get you nowhere and seems like an oddly invasive way to engage with someone.
As for your last comment, I don't think you read my other comment as I suggested. Some niche communities organize online. Sometimes that online space is an established company like Facebook. You could create an alternative or try to migrate the existing community, but first and foremost you must meet the community where it is. Or, you miss out on that community. Maybe it's fine for some hobby you can take or leave. Maybe it's more difficult if that community is for a rare medical condition, for example.
if you really care why not just reach out. I was one of the first people (that I know of) who decided to live this way so never thought about it. only later after I constantly seen the topic pop up (and finding myself justifying my "odd behaviour" to others) noticed that also now I wouldn't announce it in fear of being called "that guy" who thinks they are special. I didn't want to be seen as "the vegan at the steak dinner" telling everyone that they are better then them. Being so disillusioned with superficial "online friendships" at the time felt it was also my duty to not announce it to all those 95% of my contacts who didn't care anyway.
I dropped off most of the WWW similarly a few years back. I was exhausted and the last thing I had the energy for was composing a post to several platforms and imagining all the incoming replies.
I switched back to a flip phone between using an iPhone 4 (before) and an iPhone 6 (after), when iOS updates made the 4 slow to a crawl. I decided I was "done" with smart phones. There wasn't a major disadvantage that I remember, however the killer app that made me come back (and buy an iPhone 6) was Uber/Lyft.
Not to this extreme, but I try to have a leaner digital life as much as possible. I jump early (must have been 10+ years) onto the idea of no newspaper, no news, no cable, etc. I don't try to preach to others to practice what I do, but I believe it is about not worrying about missing out.
I was very digitally involved and was one of those early adapters and regular beta-testers of new software, including hardware, etc.
People are surprised when I don't carry my phone most of the time, not giving out my phone number when ordering tea; some are even angry when I say "no phone calls"[1]. I use the phone primarily as a camera.
One of the best things was to disable all notifications[2] except for the must-haves such as Calendar.
I still use electronics and digital devices, and mediums, but I have dumbed them down far enough. I will continue to prune and minimize my attachments.
> trick I’ve developed, when giving my contact info to new people, is to enter my phone number on their smartphone myself, and install Signal for them
I too have no social media nor smartphone, but this made me cringe...I TOTALLY understand his pain-point and it's tough to not be on Whatsapp, but to go above-and-beyond for privacy reasons, and then install an app on someone's phone without their consent?
But it is a great article! I love the watch and it's something I'm going to look into for myself!
I'd like to assume he meant that he would walk them through installing Signal, and not just install it without them asking. I can't imagine what that interaction is like...
Sadly, the phone mentioned on the website is no longer being made. Anyone have alternative suggestions for a non-Android "wallet phone" that works in the US?
he problem I have with getting rid of the smartphone is the camera - its so much better than a dedicated camera for its size, and once you have the camera its hard to resist using the apps.
This is a super cool article and it’s funny to me how much time was spent detailing the features of the watch (suspiciously similar to a smartphone’s) and how some of the commentary is steeped in 2018 anti social media sentiments that have since become tropes in themselves.
Examples like posting pictures of meals and the idea that people use social media to fool people into thinking your life is exciting. I think the types of people interested in making these posts realize that the social media mainstream considers it passé at this point.
The author says they're using Signal, but they obviously aren't on their phone. It looks like getting access to Signal on a "desktop" requires it being on your phone -- which seems like a potential future chicken/egg problem.
With signal-cli and perhaps other third-party clients, you can register a new Signal account on an ordinary computer. You do need a phone to receive the Signal confirmation SMS, but that can even be a dumbphone.
Obviously signal-cli is never going to be a solution for the mass public, but using it is an option for some HN readers – this is a "news for nerds" website.
I stopped using Facebook a year ago. Deleted the user. I created a fresh one to be able to follow my kids in daycare which can't be used for much else because I don't want to add more than one friend. This is priceless. I'm not allowed to browse more FB unless I add more friends. This is kind of asshole behaviour. What if I don't have more than one friend? Fuck you Facebook.
I disabled all kinds of popups and notifications. I still use Jodel which is fun and anonymous (as much as anything these days).
I get mad when reading LinkedIn so I only go there once a week or so. There is nothing noteworthy on linkedin.
I use Reddit for news only - private subreddit.
I guess that forums are the only kind of interaction that interests me.
I just wanted to say that cutting the connection to social media doesn't have to be 100%. Being selective is enough for me.
Your LI must be very different from my LI :) I see endless self promotion, but nothing that makes me mad. More like bored, so I rarely go to LI except to accept the odd connection request from someone I met IRL.
Everything else is spot on though. I go days without looking at my fairly selective twitter or reddit. HN is probably the only thing I check daily, but if I'm busy I might not even do that.
The point is use the tools and don't let them use you. Social media, smart phones, etc... are what you make of them.
For some reason I get angry when reading LI. Self promotion got worse last year. People now post that they are going to change job a couple of days before job change. I don't understand why.
The job offers are crap. I'm not going to move to Switzerland or Germany for 3 months gig and I don't want to work for Uber. I stopped responding to recruiters as they don't understand that I really don't want to do Java for some crappy bank. I would rather starve.
End rant.
HN is great. People are usually nice and often I learn something new about a topic that I didn't know.
I found a script that allowed me to unsubscribe from everyone. I also added some uBlock rules. My LinkedIn feed is literally empty.
Like the other person who replied, LinkedIn made me angry, but I still returned to it when I ran out of things to check. Now there's nothing there to check.
It worked so well that I did the same with Facebook.
Wouldn't they make you sign media release at the point when you sign up for daycare, along with a bunch of other papers you already have to sign? Seems rather easy if that's the case and not that you have to sign off on every single picture uploaded.
I didn't entirely dump the smartphone, because that's hard to the point of ludicrous.
What I did do was get a Pixel 4a and install GrapheneOS on it. The only apps on the phone are one to sync my CalDAV/CardDAV and the other for my one-time passwords.
What’s the point of this really? Yea you can live like 1999, but the world isn’t in 1999. You’re gonna miss out on the modern human experience, you’re gonna be “that guy”, you’re not gonna be able to relate to anyone, you won’t know about anyone’s life and no one will care to tell you.
Retreating to the past isn’t controlling your addictions, it’s giving up. You can own a smartphone, use social media, without it taking over your life, you just need self control. As the world changes you’re gonna be stuck grasping at a past that no longer exists. It will be lonely.
Guy's making too much of this. I finally gave up Facebook and disentangled from all that was left of Google services I still used a while ago, and it's really not that big a deal. Maybe I just have fewer friends and they mostly didn't know me from social media, but nobody thought I was dead. I still have a smartphone, but I barely use it and have always been in the habit of not having it with me all the time because I worked in a SCIF for years and was in an active duty combat arms unit before that and couldn't bring a smart phone with me everywhere I go.
It's not that novel. First, more than half the world still lives like this right now anyway. Second, 1999 was barely more than 20 years ago. As late as 2003, there were still no smartphones, no Facebook, and Google was still just a search engine. Going back to the life you had 18 years ago is just like riding a bike.
At least if you never made this kind of thing your entire life, but plenty of people never made this kind of thing their entire life. My dad still has never made a social account and doesn't even have an email address. This is maybe hard to realize for someone who maintains a personal blog, but not everyone made the Internet the cornerstone of their existence.
It would be no problem for me to go back; I don't really use social media and would probably be fine without anything beyond a land line to maintain social contacts.
My kids, by contrast, have grown up in a completely different world. Especially since COVID, so many of their peer interactions are through social media. They are highly dependent on devices for a lot of basic needs. Perhaps this is geared toward a younger audience that has no idea what 1999 was like - it was 22 years ago!
> Second, 1999 was barely more than 20 years ago. As late as 2003, there were still no smartphones, no Facebook, and Google was still just a search engine. Going back to the life you had 18 years ago is just like riding a bike.
The article appears to agree with you, more or less:
A lot of people around me don’t understand how I can live my life like that, they tell me they will never do it. What they don’t realize is that we all used to do it, smartphones have only been mainstream these last 10 years. So unless you’re ten, you’ve lived your life just fine without it.
The ability to "just sit" is a wonderful thing. I never thought about it until early adulthood - one day I was pacing anxiously around, while my girlfriend and a friend of hers talked on the sofa, and suddenly her friend looked up at me and said "Men never just sit, do they?"
But this was almost 30 years ago, long before smartphones.
Don't just think about millenials and older, consider younger M's and zoomers. These people have grown up (in the developed world) with constant always-on connectivity. Parents want their kids to be connected for safety reasons. Schools don't want to pay for paper books so they get every kid to have a laptop or tablet. In university, you cannot operate without a laptop, and I doubt it would be easy to work without a cell phone.
I agree it's not very healthy, and I agree many people don't understand. I personally am working on using "do not disturb" a lot more on my phone, so that only calls will get through in real-time. That said, to say "1999 was only 20 years ago" really doesn't capture _how much has changed_ in those 20 years.
> In university, you cannot operate without a laptop, and I doubt it would be easy to work without a cell phone.
I was in uni 15 years ago and the first mistake I made was trying to do course readings of JSTOR/ScienceDirect papers directly on the screen. I thought I'd be saving paper, as after all the readings amounted to 500 or more pages per course.
After a semester of destroying my eyes and being unable to remember key details, I thought "screw that". Printed out every single reading after that. It took until 2017 to have a consumer product like the ReMarkable that's large enough to comfortably display PDFs and allow for marking up with a pressure sensitive pen.
> It took until 2017 to have a consumer product like the ReMarkable that's large enough to comfortably display PDFs and allow for marking up with a pressure sensitive pen.
It blows my mind just how good the reMarkable is, and how long it took to happen.
I was seriously considering purchasing one, as it seems to tick off a lot of boxes for me, including hackability and a rather significant open-source enthusiast community around it. The lack of a simple feature that is backlight killed it off for me though.
After using ebooks for the past decade, I cannot go back to using one without a backlight. I still use backlight at a bare minimum, but a complete lack of it seems like a serious oversight. Looking forward to remarkable v3, as I expect them to address this, given how simple and requested this feature is.
So, I didn't realise it didn't have a backlight until it arrived. I would certainly have been more hesitant if I'd realised that.
That being said, it's an absolutely amazing device, it really is digital paper. If you enjoy reading technical papers, it's totally worth it, I've read more papers in the two weeks since I got it than in the two months before.
And the notetaking, oh the notetaking. I can now write notes much more easily, and they are automatically digitised so I can find them later, and on different devices. It's incredibly good, I suspect where I'll love it the most is for interviews, as it's much easier for me to write than it is to type (and feels much less rude also).
> having used a smartphone and a “dumb phone”, I’ve discovered a big counter intuitive truth, that the real problem is being online: it’s the smartphone fault.
Is it the truth, though? It probably varies by people. My opinion is social media is cancer. A cacophony of opinions that no one really cares about. And yet here I am, sharing my worthless opinions and reading other people's comments. It's addictive.
But a smartphone is simply amazing. It's my flashlight, my GPS, my book reader, my video player, my music player, my learning tool, my communication tool, my note taker, my camera, my personal assistant... it's basically a full fledged computer.
Often with features blocked for the convenience of the companies raking in cash from people addicted to vomiting their thoughts online. Why can't I save images and videos in the browser anymore? Used to be real easy, now browsers try their best to hide this feature, Reddit and Imgur have redesigned their shit to actively block downloading the source files, and other platforms require you to log in (no Facebook minions, I don't think I will). But it's an easy thing to solve... for now.
I'm trying hard to decouple the damn thing from the Internet, though, it should work in the middle of nowhere imo. Why in fuck's name do I need an Internet connection to send files between my laptop and my phone? Local transfer tools are worse than those made for the cloud bullshit that everyone fell for. Ridiculous.
People now watch videos and listen to music online. No, give me my files, I want them available anywhere, anytime. Perhaps I'll need an Internet connection for the flashlight next. This sounds like old man talk, "I want it the way it used to be", but really, too few people notice the risk of losing everything digital if someone cuts a fiber cable somewhere or some automated system decides to terminate your account. Or if you simply travel to some country where getting a prepaid SIM requires a cavity search and you don't have money for the roaming mafia.
But I'm getting sidetracked. In short: Reduce or remove social media and keep your smartphone :)
> And yet here I am, sharing my worthless opinions and reading other people's comments
But...you clicked the thread. You had a [rough] idea of what type of commentary to expect. Not some endless feed of things an algorithm thinks you'll like/hate/buy. I think of HN as more of a niche community. If we see a story about "acme widgets", I like to read the comments to see what experts have to say.
> So I started calling people… and quickly discovered that a lot of them have a call phobia, as if human interactions were toxic.
> Not in the sense that they’d be busy and would call me later. But in the sense that they wouldn’t pick up, only to text me 5 seconds later to start the conversation. If I tried to call them back, same thing again. They don’t want to talk, they want to text.
Problem with phone calls is that they are synchronous, yet quite often things callers want to resolve can be resolved asynchronously (= via text messages & emails), but you can handle those when it's convenient.
So at least I'm glad that most of my contacts send me messages in whichever messenger is convenient. We can always agree to call each other if we feel like it will be more convenient, but then it's a much different feeling then just randomly calling.
Also personally 100% of "random calls" I got within last 3 years were telemarketers, so guess how often I answer the phone :-D
Edit: in general I agree strongly that dropping off social networks and in general reducing notifications noise to a minimum (and not only on smart phone but everywhere) does wonders, strongly recommend.
The problem I have with this is the implication that the only valid reason not to want to talk on the phone is "being busy". Maybe they just don't want to talk to you right now. Take the hint!
They’re not busy + can’t accept a phone call + are happy to text? This doesn’t add up at all to me!
I’m the opposite. I tend not to text. Most of my friends and family know this and call. When someone does text me, I remind them gently that I’m not willing to sit there trying to type on a tiny screen to have a mediocre conversation with them when they can just call me instead. I say it in a nicer way of course. It’s never a problem! I guess I’m just old but it looks like the default is shifting towards texting lately. No offense to the texters, but it’s just not my thing.
I'm with you in that I refuse to have a back-and-forth conversation via text.
And most of the time, I love to have a phone conversation.
But, the mental state is not always there for it. I may may be in a low mood, or emotionally exhausted, or a host of other reasons why a voice conversation would not be ideal right now. When I talk to a friend I like to be able to engage with them and give them my best. Sometimes, it's just not the time.
So in such a case I would prefer to speak to them later, perhaps the next day after a good night's sleep. It shouldn't be a big deal unless someone makes it into one.
If calling on the phone is not part of your social connection with other people (and obviously, here it wasn't) then I think it makes sense.
Consider how most people communicate now a days. A call is only for long conversations. No one is expecting to receive a call without a reason, out of the blue. I could certainly imagine people texting back, confused about what their friend wanted to talk about, and whether they could answer in a quick text instead.
That's not anxiety, it's just practical. No one is expecting you to call just to say "hi", they assume there must be some sort of problem that you want to talk about in depth.
> If you don't answer the phone simply due to conversation anxiety, that is not normal and it should be worked on.
I think it should be worked on if the person in question would rather have an easier time talking on the phone. Otherwise I'm not sure I agree.
I'm autistic and phonecalls are a nightmare given ambiguous social signalling over who begins speaking and when. Thankfully at this stage in the game most people contact me via some other communication method, the only calls I get are scammers.
So many people treat texts like they're synchronous, though. Haven't you ever had people send you follow-up texts half an hour after the first one to "remind" you to reply? I've found this to be really common.
Politely remind them, when you do get around to following up, that unless it's critically urgent (in which case they should call) you will only respond when you can. Which is not always immediately since you have other obligations (work or family) or may be involved in a task where you can't (commuting, when we did that sort of thing).
In comparison to calls, texts/messages also bring the tangible benefit of giving more space for one to compose and better conduct their thoughts. This is true even when the people involved are actively messaging each other — it's fine to delay a message for a few minutes whereas in a call there's constant pressure to speak to avoid awkward silence and keep the conversation flowing.
Of course people don't always capitalize fully on this but I think it's a major reason why messaging has come to be preferred over calls.
Yep, that's me. I hate phone calls. I don't see phone calls as a natural human interaction at all and they make me really uncomfortable. I never pick up my phone but am almost always available for text messages.
No issues with video call or face to face chat though, so that's not that I find human interactions toxic. But phone calls are something I hate to do. They somehow feel too intrusive and too intimate.
Thats really interesting to me as a gen x'er. Grew up largely before the internet was a thing. I'm in the complete opposite opinion. I find face chat to be intrusive and too intimate. For what could simply handled over voice, no need to see my face or surroundings.
We live largely on zoom these days, and less and less people have their cameras on and they are more like voice calls. I really don't see the difference between this and a phone call
Same. Multinational company, no one uses face / camera unless we need to. Uses up more bandwidth, and calls with China or Brazil are already flakey enough as it is.
Face chat is for friends and family; for business I don't want or need to see your face.
I prefer texting/chat because of the traceability, especially for work. The chat history is a type of decision log for me, and I really appreciate being able to go back and review or search for conversations.
Oh yes, also that! My colleague was rather frustrated with apartment repair crew he had to deal with. Everything was handled via phone calls, none of the construction folk kept any papertrail whatsoever on who agreed to what (obviously), as a result >70% of things agreed either were completely forgotten, or mis-implemented, or implemented weeks later than they should have.
At home we have a landline and I'll often call people on that. It doesn't have any way to receive text messages. It seems to me like there needs to be a universal way to indicate whether a given phone number has the ability to receive texts or not. I'm now wondering how many people I've called, who didn't pick up, tried to text me back at that number and thought I was ignoring their texts.
In the UK you can (sort of) text a landline. It's been a while since I've done it but I think the person receives it as a call and then an automated voice reads the message.
I find texting to be one of the worst forms of communication for anything other than short Q&A type communication. Maybe writing letters is a lost art form, like in the past but this was out of necessity more than anything. Emoji's don't replace hearing of a person's voice or reactions to what a person is saying.
Text is too often misconstrued and again emoj's don't solve this problem. The fact that emoji speak even exists is really odd to me, but I guess thats an "ok boomer" for me.
Agreed. Text messages are great for very short immediate ping messages, like "I'm here" when I drove to pick someone up.
But for anything that takes more than about 5 words, please send me an email instead.
> Problem with phone calls is that they are synchronous, yet quite often things callers want to resolve can be resolved asynchronously (= via text messages & emails), but you can handle those when it's convenient.
Very true. The OP doesn't understand phone calls interrupt people most of the time unnecessarily. I like texts and emails, because I can process them whenever it's convenient for me, not when it's convenient for the other person.
What I found better than calls, at least with my wife, is Zello - a walkie-talkie-over-IP-app. What seems to work for me is that the talk over it feels natural. Like you're shouting something from other room. It is synchronous and asynchronous at the same time. I respond when I can, there is no call hanging, the conversation is stretched in hours and it naturally fills gaps when we don't see each other.
Calling a person on the phone is a rude act at its core.
I think it was Stephen Fry who once said a phone call is like a person bursting into your room yelling "Talk to me now! Talk to me now! Talk to me now!" We wouldn't stand for that in any other circumstance, but when it happens through a phone it becomes socially acceptable.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 248 ms ] threadIt's a middle ground. I can't completely get rid of a smartphone because I'm into motorcycle touring and GPS is essential to me. I'm trying alternatives to Gmaps, but it's pretty awkward and uncomfortable.
One thing that I've done is no notification tone, and I've disable notifications for whatever selected IM apps I've got on my phone
Have a non touch phone. Why are technology which is additive and invades your privacy called smart?
Why is a smart phone with gps tracking smart for privacy? Smart tv? Smart speaker? Privacy?
Why were you buying new phones every year? This is such a non-argument. I've been using the same Android phone for almost 7 years. It does everything I want it to do. Sure, I spent a couple of days trimming down the system, and carefully selecting applications (for example, the Google Clock from 2015 weighs about 3 MB and is very fast, while the same application from 2020 is about 30 MB and is extremely slow to start, despite having the same feature set).
Android version: 10.
Android security patch level: March 5 2021.
Your device is not stock and is, therefore, an exception.
OS security patches are less of a concern for older devices because the majority of the OS was still moved into Google Play Services and as long as the apps are still updated (eg, Chrome), the risk is very low.
Sad how gadgets become ever more brittle and unreliable as they get newer.
The prospect of truly long-term support for years and years is one reason I bought a PinePhone and have been keeping track of its development. But sadly the current PinePhone has too ancient and underpowered a CPU to be useful.
as soon as I want to do video calls at reasonable speeds, it's probably in my interest to have moderately new hardware and chipsets supporting things like beamforming or other things that only more recent hardware can give me. but even here my 8 yro phone does everything I want it to so that argument kicks only in for truly ancient hardware (e.g. LTE support etc)
There have been tons of critical Android vulnerabilities over the last years that cannot be fixed by app updates, e.g. remote code execution via Bluetooth stack or MMS.
Yes. Because like windows the ecosystem is huge, and there are plenty of grandmas who don't know how or why to update things.
Much of the world can't afford to replace their phone every 2 years.
https://github.com/phhusson/treble_experimentations
Oooh, even I shudder when reading that! :D
It's really about someone taking an undetected loan out in your name, credit card fraud is not a big deal to the regular consumer anymore.
I won't do anything with em, pinky-promise, but if something did happen, it doesn't matter, right? Just talk to Visa.
Like, why lock my car and house doors when insurance will pay for it?
Because you'll have a really hard time with a claim if there's no sign of forced entry, since many insurance policies are void in this situation?
Yes, just call them. By regulation, you're not liable for unauthorized use of credit card (specifically, credit card). As a consumer you have zero concerns about card theft.
If your attitude to security is "I can run my computer with unpatched XP with a public IP and sync it to a 7 year unpatched phone because once in a blue moon some credit card company or major business can leak my account data there too", then sure...
Might as well ask me to name "one" covid victim, lest they're all "actors".
My uncle, for one, had a randomsware attack 3 years ago, crippling his (small, construction services) company for weeks.
You are aware that there are tons of malware attacks, computers controlled as bots (doing mining, DDoS, etc.), ransomware, etc, right? Or is this some episode of the Twilight Zone?
https://www.csoonline.com/article/2923557/many-ransomware-vi...
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/12/ransomware-gangs-now-out...
https://www.securityweek.com/google-sophisticated-apt-group-...
https://www.securityweek.com/sierra-wireless-says-ransomware...
I don't use Google/Samsung Pay either. They literally do the same thing as the credit + debit card in my wallet. But their advertisements would have you believe they've somehow reinvented consumer finance.
Phone operating systems have so many issues that there's no way I'll trust them with any important data.
I am using an HTC Desire 826 from 2016 running Android 6, while my father is using a Galaxy Note 3 Neo running Android 4.3.
I personally don't have much issues with regards to not having security patches.. the phone itself does most of what I want, although I am having issues with other things unrelated to security patches -- it's getting a bit sluggish, the 16GB storage does get annoying, and the battery barely lasts two hours of web browsing. Also, it no longer accepts SIM cards for whatever reason. But it's not a big deal to warrant spending money (I don't get called at all and I do have a dumb phone that I go out with for emergencies. Besides, I no longer get annoying messages and calls from my carrier)
Similarly, my father's is doing alright, and the issues he is facing are unrelated to security patches -- many apps don't support Android versions older than 6.. some of them are essential things like Google stuff. YouTube and Gmail for instance outright don't work, and Chrome occasionally brings up messages along the lines of "Please update your Chrome version". But nothing is caused by not having security patches.
What am I missing? This is a genuine question.
This issue is indicative of the larger problem ARM SoCs pose to consumers: manufacturers choose not to design ARM boards with SBSA-like features[1] because it's cheaper to do so. While x86 machines have enumerable buses for hardware discovery, as well as ACPI support, ARM SoCs don't. As a result, mainline Linux kernels won't boot on them, they require a kernel fork, and a kernel fork must be maintained. Manufacturers have no incentive to maintain that fork for more than a year or two.
As ARM SoCs take over what are considered general purpose computing devices, like laptops, devices that we once thought of as being upgradable, software-wise, suddenly aren't. Apple's M1 Macs are an example of this. To get Linux running on them is a massive undertaking, and running Linux on them in the long-term means relying on a third party to build and maintain M1-specific images in perpetuity, because the SoCs can't run the generic ARM images that ARM servers can run.
There are mitigations against this problem in Linux, like Device Tree[2] support, but that is only one small part of the big[2] undertaking when it comes to porting Linux to ARM SoCs.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Base_System_Architectur...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_tree
[3] https://elinux.org/images/a/ad/Arm-soc-checklist.pdf
Many people do. You'd be surprised.
What Apple mentioned in the iphone 7 reveal, which was when they made headlines for removing the jack, was that it is a bulky component that extends quite far into the phone, competing for precious real estate with other components.
I believe there is. When designing a product, one always operates within a given set of contraints. Removing one of the constraints of the design makes it easier to hit the rest of the objectives. You might argue that easier design = reduced costs but IMO that would be too loose of a definition of "costs" in this case.
Consider the lower end of the market: budget phones have cheaper cameras, cheaper screens, cheaper processors - why? Because these are indeed good targets for cost cutting. They all have headphone jacks though. To me, that suggests that cost is not the issue here.
of course it's a bigger car so more expensive to run. so buy a 5yo focus and get the best of both worlds.
Some older Mercedes might have a lower TCO than a 2018 focus, but only because the focus is disastrously unreliable.
Most Android phones run forked kernels, so even if you put LineageOS on them for security updates, they're still stuck on ancient kernels. I have phones with LineageOS on them that will never see a Linux kernel newer than the 3.0 fork the manufacturer released.
I feel like it may constitute a separate device class than a dumb-phone but I don't know how much is marketing versus reality.
but I realized I barely talk on the phone, I just use it for texting. Thinking old blackberry format would be better, as I prefer the keyboard.
If your goal is to overcome a phone/internet addiction, or just disconnect, then the LP2 will definitively help you achieve that! Your going to have to give some stuff up (No Spotify, no Directions yet), and deal with texting that worse then a smart phone but better then a number pad. But to me its definitely worth it.
I think the LP2 will eventually provide the same stuff that the original author gets from his Garmin watch and GSM Calls phone, which is pretty neat!
Very solid devices for cutting back internet dépendance or for traveling without but still having the basics.
I'd imagine heat tolerance and impact resilience would be more important than slimness and lightweight for these devices if they're intended to be used like say, at a foundry.
1- https://smile.amazon.com/CAT-Rugged-Phone-Factory-Unlocked/d...
Try looking up other KaiOS phones. There aren't many.
A couple other things I've thought about, more on the social media angle, are (1) starting a personal web site again, and (2) a different kind of social media site. For (1), I've already got a little VM that runs my email and some quickie web apps I threw together. Why not stand up a personal site too, like a lot of us used to have, where I can share all the stuff I'd normally be putting on Instagram, etc.? Obviously that's adding friction for folks too, but I'm less concerned about that stuff getting ignored.
For (2), and bear with me because this is going to sound a bit woo-woo, I think a social gratitude list could be really powerful. Maybe not a big hit, but definitely powerful for people who would use it. I say this because I used to be on an email list with some friends where everyone would write ten things they were grateful for that day and then send it to the list. Now, if this is not a practice you're comfortable with, you're probably dry-heaving right now; I did too at first. But once I got past the fact that it's not very cool, I found that it was a fantastic way to keep up with folks. (That's in addition to the mental health benefits, which I think are evidence-based but I'd have to double-check that to be sure.) Amazingly, I didn't even notice a tendency for it to degrade into performativity or attention-seeking. Overall I just think it would be a structure that would enable some of the positive aspects of social media while discouraging or eliminating the negatives.
There used to be nice dumb phones with physical qwerty keyboards. They were wonderful for texting. It's a real shame they're not made anymore.
This is an issue for me too. I know the meme is "your real friends will still make the effort and call you / hang out with you / whatever", but I don't think it's that simple— we (especially in the pandemic, but really always) rely on social gatherings/media as a proving ground for acquaintanceships, a place to banter back and forth and onramp a relationship to the point where it would be not-weird to actually arrange an intentional activity or get-together.
And the reality is, when I've had acquaintances fall off my social media radar or be otherwise difficult to get ahold of, I just can't be bothered. When every person but one is in a FB Messenger group chat, and one person wants to be texted-with about what the plans are, that person inevitably gets left behind.
So maybe there's some FOMO going on here, but I don't think I'm at a place in my mid-thirties where I'm ready to effectively shut the door on those opportunities.
Plus I don't find social media AT ALL toxic and I only spend maybe a half hour a week total on it. OTOH I find people complaining about social media being toxic is becoming extremely toxic.
Notifications and the constant desire to check for replies have really hindered my productivity in ways unimaginable. Now, without distraction, I can get meaningful work done. Hugely beneficial and transformed my whole manner of working.
I've done this with pretty great results. Actually, I will do it again right now.
But yeah, sure, sounds great for the tiny number of people who don't require any of the above.
I like taking pictures, i like looking back on them. I use them for painting inspiration too. I don't really need to be a photographer though with a dslr or whatever is cool now
I think you can easily travel, have a wide network of far flung friends, be involved in niche hobbies, look for a new job, and keep up with modern trends & cultures - all without a smart phone and social media. If you have a laptop & internet connection - you're good to go! This allows you to tap in when you want on your own terms instead of the other way around.
I moved abroad a couple years ago and needed a way to get involved with the local ex-pat community. One guess where all of their organizing and communicating was done.
Want to bootstrap a home business, like so many mask-makers have done during the pandemic? How do you get your initial traction without friends and family on the social media networks?
If people want to opt out of the modern world that's fine, but let's not pretend they aren't missing out.
Most people actually need none of that stuff. I think there's a lot of illusions that come with social media. Having 500 Facebook friends you chat with two times per year is not friendship in a real sense of the term.
What many people are looking for arguably these days and what has somewhat been lost is lifelong, strong bonds and real conversations between people you have unconditional trust with. Having two of those is better than a million Instagram followers.
Same with 'keeping up with culture and trends'. Like what does that actually mean. Is anyone really better off when they follow Kim Kardashians daily drama? Is hooking into every trend really producing independent, smart, autonomous, strong-willed people? There's value in disconnecting and spending time with yourself and alone that many younger kids in particular don't have space for any more.
"There's value in disconnecting and spending time with yourself..." Right, but using social media does not stop one from enjoying personal time. Why would it? Again, it is additive.
I'd also point you to my other comment about unique communities and opportunities that only exits on the established social media platforms.
okay I'll invite you the next time you're at a bar or cafe to pay close attention to how many people look at their phone instead of focusing on the person they're with.
Time and attention are precious, we don't have a lot of it. It's the opposite of additive, it's the scarcest thing in the world, because attention and time are the only thing you cannot make more of. Every moment spent on following trends, liking dog pictures, getting that additional hit of dopamine from getting some more followers or a notification alert is a signal that disrupts focus and draws your mind away from relationships or things that matter.
>unique communities and opportunities that only exits on the established social media platforms.
An opportunity that only exists on a social media platform and is intermediated by some third party is terrible and takes agency and control away from you. You can do a business without social media, you can find subcultures and local communities in almost all places on the planet, where you can make real and lasting connections rather than superficial digital ones.
That seems like a personal problem you are trying to hoist on to me. If my friends engage in behavior I don't like I can tell them, or find different friends. But for me, this is rarely a problem.
"...a signal that disrupts focus and draws your mind away from relationships or things that matter."
Again, you seem determined to tell me what should matter to me, which will get you nowhere and seems like an oddly invasive way to engage with someone.
As for your last comment, I don't think you read my other comment as I suggested. Some niche communities organize online. Sometimes that online space is an established company like Facebook. You could create an alternative or try to migrate the existing community, but first and foremost you must meet the community where it is. Or, you miss out on that community. Maybe it's fine for some hobby you can take or leave. Maybe it's more difficult if that community is for a rare medical condition, for example.
I've been wondering whether something has happened to a few remote acquaintances of me who have suddenly stopped posting.
If you plan to quit facebook et al, that's awesome, but maybe post a final status saying "I'm not dead, get in touch via mail or phone".
I was very digitally involved and was one of those early adapters and regular beta-testers of new software, including hardware, etc.
People are surprised when I don't carry my phone most of the time, not giving out my phone number when ordering tea; some are even angry when I say "no phone calls"[1]. I use the phone primarily as a camera.
One of the best things was to disable all notifications[2] except for the must-haves such as Calendar.
I still use electronics and digital devices, and mediums, but I have dumbed them down far enough. I will continue to prune and minimize my attachments.
1. https://no.phone.wtf
2. [2014] https://brajeshwar.com/2014/missing-step-productivity-activi...
I too have no social media nor smartphone, but this made me cringe...I TOTALLY understand his pain-point and it's tough to not be on Whatsapp, but to go above-and-beyond for privacy reasons, and then install an app on someone's phone without their consent?
But it is a great article! I love the watch and it's something I'm going to look into for myself!
It’s a small candy bar phone but maybe not square enough to fit in your wallet.
Examples like posting pictures of meals and the idea that people use social media to fool people into thinking your life is exciting. I think the types of people interested in making these posts realize that the social media mainstream considers it passé at this point.
Obviously signal-cli is never going to be a solution for the mass public, but using it is an option for some HN readers – this is a "news for nerds" website.
I disabled all kinds of popups and notifications. I still use Jodel which is fun and anonymous (as much as anything these days).
I get mad when reading LinkedIn so I only go there once a week or so. There is nothing noteworthy on linkedin.
I use Reddit for news only - private subreddit.
I guess that forums are the only kind of interaction that interests me.
I just wanted to say that cutting the connection to social media doesn't have to be 100%. Being selective is enough for me.
Everything else is spot on though. I go days without looking at my fairly selective twitter or reddit. HN is probably the only thing I check daily, but if I'm busy I might not even do that.
The point is use the tools and don't let them use you. Social media, smart phones, etc... are what you make of them.
The job offers are crap. I'm not going to move to Switzerland or Germany for 3 months gig and I don't want to work for Uber. I stopped responding to recruiters as they don't understand that I really don't want to do Java for some crappy bank. I would rather starve.
End rant.
HN is great. People are usually nice and often I learn something new about a topic that I didn't know.
Like the other person who replied, LinkedIn made me angry, but I still returned to it when I ran out of things to check. Now there's nothing there to check.
It worked so well that I did the same with Facebook.
What does this mean?
My boy is in a private day care (Danish: dagpleje) - they have a private FB group where they post pictures for their parents to see most of the days.
What I did do was get a Pixel 4a and install GrapheneOS on it. The only apps on the phone are one to sync my CalDAV/CardDAV and the other for my one-time passwords.
I can use a browser if I'm desperate.
It's been the best decision I've made by far.
Retreating to the past isn’t controlling your addictions, it’s giving up. You can own a smartphone, use social media, without it taking over your life, you just need self control. As the world changes you’re gonna be stuck grasping at a past that no longer exists. It will be lonely.
I think the biggest benefit of living like in 99s, just like the author pointed out is a "Peace of mind".
Also, regarding:
> Retreating to the past isn’t controlling your addictions, it’s giving up.
as if addictions were a good thing. You can also look at it this way: choosing self controlled addictions over "giving up" a device over a dumber one.
Oh no, the horror!
brought to you on a 5 inch screen
It's not that novel. First, more than half the world still lives like this right now anyway. Second, 1999 was barely more than 20 years ago. As late as 2003, there were still no smartphones, no Facebook, and Google was still just a search engine. Going back to the life you had 18 years ago is just like riding a bike.
At least if you never made this kind of thing your entire life, but plenty of people never made this kind of thing their entire life. My dad still has never made a social account and doesn't even have an email address. This is maybe hard to realize for someone who maintains a personal blog, but not everyone made the Internet the cornerstone of their existence.
My kids, by contrast, have grown up in a completely different world. Especially since COVID, so many of their peer interactions are through social media. They are highly dependent on devices for a lot of basic needs. Perhaps this is geared toward a younger audience that has no idea what 1999 was like - it was 22 years ago!
The article appears to agree with you, more or less:
A lot of people around me don’t understand how I can live my life like that, they tell me they will never do it. What they don’t realize is that we all used to do it, smartphones have only been mainstream these last 10 years. So unless you’re ten, you’ve lived your life just fine without it.
The ability to "just sit" is a wonderful thing. I never thought about it until early adulthood - one day I was pacing anxiously around, while my girlfriend and a friend of hers talked on the sofa, and suddenly her friend looked up at me and said "Men never just sit, do they?"
But this was almost 30 years ago, long before smartphones.
I agree it's not very healthy, and I agree many people don't understand. I personally am working on using "do not disturb" a lot more on my phone, so that only calls will get through in real-time. That said, to say "1999 was only 20 years ago" really doesn't capture _how much has changed_ in those 20 years.
I was in uni 15 years ago and the first mistake I made was trying to do course readings of JSTOR/ScienceDirect papers directly on the screen. I thought I'd be saving paper, as after all the readings amounted to 500 or more pages per course.
After a semester of destroying my eyes and being unable to remember key details, I thought "screw that". Printed out every single reading after that. It took until 2017 to have a consumer product like the ReMarkable that's large enough to comfortably display PDFs and allow for marking up with a pressure sensitive pen.
It blows my mind just how good the reMarkable is, and how long it took to happen.
After using ebooks for the past decade, I cannot go back to using one without a backlight. I still use backlight at a bare minimum, but a complete lack of it seems like a serious oversight. Looking forward to remarkable v3, as I expect them to address this, given how simple and requested this feature is.
And Frontlight.
That being said, it's an absolutely amazing device, it really is digital paper. If you enjoy reading technical papers, it's totally worth it, I've read more papers in the two weeks since I got it than in the two months before.
And the notetaking, oh the notetaking. I can now write notes much more easily, and they are automatically digitised so I can find them later, and on different devices. It's incredibly good, I suspect where I'll love it the most is for interviews, as it's much easier for me to write than it is to type (and feels much less rude also).
Ebook readers rock.
Is it the truth, though? It probably varies by people. My opinion is social media is cancer. A cacophony of opinions that no one really cares about. And yet here I am, sharing my worthless opinions and reading other people's comments. It's addictive.
But a smartphone is simply amazing. It's my flashlight, my GPS, my book reader, my video player, my music player, my learning tool, my communication tool, my note taker, my camera, my personal assistant... it's basically a full fledged computer.
Often with features blocked for the convenience of the companies raking in cash from people addicted to vomiting their thoughts online. Why can't I save images and videos in the browser anymore? Used to be real easy, now browsers try their best to hide this feature, Reddit and Imgur have redesigned their shit to actively block downloading the source files, and other platforms require you to log in (no Facebook minions, I don't think I will). But it's an easy thing to solve... for now.
I'm trying hard to decouple the damn thing from the Internet, though, it should work in the middle of nowhere imo. Why in fuck's name do I need an Internet connection to send files between my laptop and my phone? Local transfer tools are worse than those made for the cloud bullshit that everyone fell for. Ridiculous.
People now watch videos and listen to music online. No, give me my files, I want them available anywhere, anytime. Perhaps I'll need an Internet connection for the flashlight next. This sounds like old man talk, "I want it the way it used to be", but really, too few people notice the risk of losing everything digital if someone cuts a fiber cable somewhere or some automated system decides to terminate your account. Or if you simply travel to some country where getting a prepaid SIM requires a cavity search and you don't have money for the roaming mafia.
But I'm getting sidetracked. In short: Reduce or remove social media and keep your smartphone :)
But...you clicked the thread. You had a [rough] idea of what type of commentary to expect. Not some endless feed of things an algorithm thinks you'll like/hate/buy. I think of HN as more of a niche community. If we see a story about "acme widgets", I like to read the comments to see what experts have to say.
Problem with phone calls is that they are synchronous, yet quite often things callers want to resolve can be resolved asynchronously (= via text messages & emails), but you can handle those when it's convenient.
So at least I'm glad that most of my contacts send me messages in whichever messenger is convenient. We can always agree to call each other if we feel like it will be more convenient, but then it's a much different feeling then just randomly calling. Also personally 100% of "random calls" I got within last 3 years were telemarketers, so guess how often I answer the phone :-D
Edit: in general I agree strongly that dropping off social networks and in general reducing notifications noise to a minimum (and not only on smart phone but everywhere) does wonders, strongly recommend.
But yes, if someone doesn't answer and then starts a text, it should be assumed/checked whether they're busy.
I’m the opposite. I tend not to text. Most of my friends and family know this and call. When someone does text me, I remind them gently that I’m not willing to sit there trying to type on a tiny screen to have a mediocre conversation with them when they can just call me instead. I say it in a nicer way of course. It’s never a problem! I guess I’m just old but it looks like the default is shifting towards texting lately. No offense to the texters, but it’s just not my thing.
And most of the time, I love to have a phone conversation.
But, the mental state is not always there for it. I may may be in a low mood, or emotionally exhausted, or a host of other reasons why a voice conversation would not be ideal right now. When I talk to a friend I like to be able to engage with them and give them my best. Sometimes, it's just not the time.
So in such a case I would prefer to speak to them later, perhaps the next day after a good night's sleep. It shouldn't be a big deal unless someone makes it into one.
Consider how most people communicate now a days. A call is only for long conversations. No one is expecting to receive a call without a reason, out of the blue. I could certainly imagine people texting back, confused about what their friend wanted to talk about, and whether they could answer in a quick text instead.
That's not anxiety, it's just practical. No one is expecting you to call just to say "hi", they assume there must be some sort of problem that you want to talk about in depth.
It is my opinion that it is unhealthy, and that people should be aware of that and do more to be less unhealthy when it comes to social interaction.
I think it should be worked on if the person in question would rather have an easier time talking on the phone. Otherwise I'm not sure I agree.
I'm autistic and phonecalls are a nightmare given ambiguous social signalling over who begins speaking and when. Thankfully at this stage in the game most people contact me via some other communication method, the only calls I get are scammers.
Of course people don't always capitalize fully on this but I think it's a major reason why messaging has come to be preferred over calls.
Yep, that's me. I hate phone calls. I don't see phone calls as a natural human interaction at all and they make me really uncomfortable. I never pick up my phone but am almost always available for text messages.
No issues with video call or face to face chat though, so that's not that I find human interactions toxic. But phone calls are something I hate to do. They somehow feel too intrusive and too intimate.
We live largely on zoom these days, and less and less people have their cameras on and they are more like voice calls. I really don't see the difference between this and a phone call
Face chat is for friends and family; for business I don't want or need to see your face.
Cannot remember every detail when the decision conversation is done via phone call / meeting. I can only rely on written details.
Text is too often misconstrued and again emoj's don't solve this problem. The fact that emoji speak even exists is really odd to me, but I guess thats an "ok boomer" for me.
Very true. The OP doesn't understand phone calls interrupt people most of the time unnecessarily. I like texts and emails, because I can process them whenever it's convenient for me, not when it's convenient for the other person.
I think it was Stephen Fry who once said a phone call is like a person bursting into your room yelling "Talk to me now! Talk to me now! Talk to me now!" We wouldn't stand for that in any other circumstance, but when it happens through a phone it becomes socially acceptable.