Interesting article on smartphone addiction, written by a 45-year-old who suffered from it.
We touch our smartphones -- tap, click, swipe -- more than 2,500 times a day. That's probably 100 times more often than we touch our partner. The reason we do it is that the phone constantly demands attention by sending us notifications. It does so every time someone wants to connect with us, every time something changes in an app, every time an artificially intelligent entity decides we need information. Notifications have a barely veiled commercial purpose: Once we start playing with the phone, we're likely to open more apps, see more ads, buy more stuff.
It's relatively easy to retake control; I went into my phone's settings and banned every one of the 112 apps from sending notifications. Now, I only check my personal and corporate email accounts, as well as two messenger apps, when I want to, not when my device wants me to. That means my friends must wait longer than they used to for a response. They haven't noticed -- or at least they haven't commented on it. We overestimate the need for immediacy in communication; perhaps our kids don't because they live their addiction to a greater extent than we do, but an adult finds it easy to wait for a response.
Recovering addicts know it's impossible to be perfectly clean: Even if you don't use your favorite substance, you miss it. At the end of his opium essay, Cocteau wrote wistfully that perhaps "the young" might someday discover "a regime that would allow one to keep the benefits of the poppy" without getting addicted. That remains impossible for drugs but maybe not for smartphones.
I can sympathize. I went through a massively stressful period a couple of years ago, which involved being on-call for a project basically 24/7. Continuous status notifications and emails. This got me into the habit of leaving those notifications on, and every time any sort of message arrived, I'd check the phone, which would lead to using the phone, even if the message itself was unimportant.
The continuous flood of interruptions makes you feel needed, important, connected, or whatever. It also destroys your ability to concentrate (when working), or to participate in your family's life (when at home). Turning off all notifications was a very, very good thing...
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Technology doesn't just make life easier, it changes how we think, how we act, and what we come to expect from the world around us. The biggest shifts show up slowly, fold into everyday life, and eventually become invisible. Over time, a tool or system starts shaping behavior:
Smartphones - Smartphones didn't just improve communication, they removed its boundaries. Messages became instant, information became constant, and waiting became optional.
Before smartphones, there were natural gaps in the day. Time between conversations. Time without updates. Time where nothing was happening. Those gaps have largely disappeared.
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[...] GPS Navigation - Finding your way used to require memory, awareness, and decision-making. People learned routes, recognized landmarks, and built mental maps of the places they lived and traveled through. GPS replaced much of that process: following instructions rather than remembering directions.
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[...] Social Media Algorithms - Social media introduced systems that decide what you see. Early platforms showed content in chronological order but over time algorithms began prioritizing posts based on engagement, predicting what would keep you scrolling the longest.
This changed behavior on both sides. Users consume what is most attention-grabbing, and creators adapt by producing content that performs well within the system. Over time, this creates feedback loops, where certain types of content are amplified while others disappear. What you see begins is heavily filtered and shaped, yet it feels like a reflection of reality.
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(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 05 2017, @02:43AM
Now it's time for you to kill your fscking phone.
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Tuesday September 05 2017, @03:01AM (3 children)
It's relatively easy to retake control; I went into my phone's settings and banned every one of the 112 apps from sending notifications.
Been there, done that, except for the idiotic LG notification that my battery is fully charged, which apparently cannot be disabled. Since I'm in and out of the car all day, and plug the phone in after each stop to keep it charged, I get this at least ten times each day.
That and the endless begging for me to use Google Assistant. Haven't managed to kill those off either.
The problem though isn't smart phones per se, it's bad UI design, and bad employers who demand 24/7 access.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday September 05 2017, @03:14AM (1 child)
"and bad employers who demand 24/7 access."
First, I just never installed apps. I've read the horror stories, they are all data farming applications that benefit the "developer", not me. Second, any notification annoys me - part of being an asocial person I guess. Then, there's the boss. Silly bastard started calling me for just plain stupid crap. Maybe that could have been worked out, but when I needed to talk to HIM, he was always unavailable. I fixed that nonsense by "breaking" my telephone. Soon after, I just stopped paying for service.
But, "banned every one of the 112 apps"???????? That is simply preposterous. No one can possibly "need" that many apps. 112 different data miners, sifting through your contacts, your browsing history, your geolocation, and more? FFS, that's just crazy. I don't care how carefully a person fine tunes his permissions, that's just to much useless bullshit on a phone.
We're gonna be able to vacation in Gaza, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and maybe Minnesota soon. Incredible times.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Tuesday September 05 2017, @09:20AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday September 05 2017, @05:43AM
No, Google Assistant, I do not want you to tell me a joke. Stop asking.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Whoever on Tuesday September 05 2017, @03:46AM (2 children)
I am involved in a project which is developing an app and infrastructure.
We use Youtrack, Slack and email. The number of notifications is over the top. There is always activity in the Slack system. Changes in Youtrack result in emails. It's never ending. And that doesn't include the scheduled meetings.
I find it overwhelming.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 05 2017, @11:07AM
Your project obviously sucks. Kill it before it breeds.
(Score: 1) by zeptic on Wednesday September 06 2017, @06:28AM
Use mail filters...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 05 2017, @11:22AM
The only requirements are the will and five seconds on the power button.
When I feel like not being pestered, I just power down and chuck it in the drawer till I need/want it.
There is nothing so important that it can't survive a few hours of "subscriber not available". Let the buggers sweat a bit. It makes them appreciate you all the more when you finally answer.
I really don't give a damn what the phone is doing in the drawer. If it wants to monitor my pens and paper clips while it's stashed away, I'm sure Google/MS/Apple will find such data profoundly important.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mcgrew on Tuesday September 05 2017, @01:53PM
I've heard it called "screen addiction" and I've had it since I learned to read... in 1958. However, my "screen" was paper. I'm still addicted to reading.
Are the Republicans really in favor of genocide, or are they just cowards terrified of terrorist twit Trump?
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Tuesday September 05 2017, @04:38PM
I had the same problem and solved it with two phones: one is strictly business and the other friends & family. Unless I have a previous commitment, the business phone is off evenings and weekends; mostly I can safely ignore anything on the business phone for a couple of hours if I’m busy but I wouldn’t want to miss one of my children calling.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday September 05 2017, @08:56PM
I've thought it would be nice to have a desktop/web interface to change system/app settings; something like a checkbox/radiobox outline on one screen/webpage to review and select in one pass with the mouse. One could also compare settings for multiple devices by displaying them side-by-side in two windows.
Nearly all app settings have to be configured (and the documentation read) on the device via tap by tap multipage navigation. One doesn't mess with settings frequently, but doing so with every application on possibly all your devices means spending even more time fiddling with the devices. This is before you consider managing and disseminating default/standard settings for a (theoretical) enterprise-wide application deployment.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday September 05 2017, @11:43PM
I'll never forget a lesson taught to me when I was an undergraduate by a senior administrator at my university. I periodically had meetings with an associate provost about what I thought were not exactly the most pressing matters (eventually I became a research assistant for her for a while, but anyhow...).
When I first met with her, occasionally her office phone would ring. And she'd just let it go to take a message. The second time this happened, I felt the need to offer her the opportunity to take the call -- here I was, a lowly undergrad meeting about some minor personal matter having to do with academics. And she explained to me her philosophy on meeting etiquette: the person who is in front of you at your meeting is taking their time and their attention for you, so you should respect that. Someone calling on a phone can wait. Someone emailing can wait. It doesn't matter if she's meeting with the president of the university or a janitor, personal respect and basic etiquette says you pay attention to the person you have a scheduled meeting with. If there's truly a dire emergency, they will likely find some other way to interrupt her meeting.
I've never forgotten that, and I try to uphold her standard in the way I deal with people too. In the era of ubiquitous smartphones and notifications, it's a hard lesson for some people to adhere to. But I agree with the summary: unless you're dealing with an ongoing emergency situation that demands continuous attention, generally things can wait.
(Score: 1) by terryk30 on Wednesday September 06 2017, @12:41PM
All those undisciplined FOMO/ADHD idiots are missing out on the best feature of smartphone tech: it's asynchronous.
(Moreover if you do have a life and truly valuable things to do you won't even have 30 notifications to process every hour - when you happen to see the LED on the desk/bench/table or actually hear the chirp you have a fair idea of what it's regarding...)