Thread

1. yipinwong · 1789921754 · focus · HN ↗

   For me it's not the phone that's stopping me from reading books but my computer, on which I play games, and browse, and do private stuff.

   Where I live, electricity price is so ridiculous, I leave my PC off for 3 to 5 hours a day.

   You get bored after 5 minutes. This is the best time to open your book and read.

   ----

   Same idea applies for the phone. Just leave it off.

   1. wbobeirne · 1789922045 · focus · HN ↗

      It's difficult to turn your phone off if you have a spouse or children or other dependents who you can't drop communication with for hours at a time. But it's helpful to strip it down to the essentials so it doesn't double as an entertainment device.

      1. kibwen · 1789923367 · focus · HN ↗

         The need to be instantly reachable at a moment's notice is a modern anxiety that we successfully lived without until the mass penetration of cell phones 20 years ago. Your spouse and children will manage without being able to text you for a few hours, just like spouses and children did for the first 100,000 years of humans history.

         1. andrepd · 1789924092 · focus · HN ↗

            That's ridiculous. We have managed without electricity or antibiotics for 100,000 years too. Are you keen on reading by candlelight or dying of preventable infections?

            Instant messaging and calling is extremely valuable. Algorithmic social media is extremely noxious. Unfortunately, they both live on the same device.

            1. pessimizer · 1789940992 · focus · HN ↗

               > Instant messaging and calling is extremely valuable.

               They, and I, are disagreeing with you. Instant messaging and calling are nice-to-have at best, and a huge burden at worst. They teach an extreme codependency that has little benefit, and causes a lot of anxiety.

               They're convenient when somebody needs to go to the hospital, needs to get picked up, you can't find somebody in a museum, you're at the store and somebody at home might need something.

               You are rarely using it for this. You're mostly wittering on and on about nonsense and not giving each other any room. When others go silent or don't answer quickly enough you get nervous about what they think about you, or if they are in danger. When others are interrogating you about things that make you uncomfortable, you feel like you have to answer now or you're making a statement with your silence.

               Most of the useful stuff could be moved to a house phone (which doesn't exist anymore) and a payphone (which doesn't exist anymore.) For the people farther away, writing a letter was better. You don't need to be on the back of somebody 1000 miles away. There are too many of them, and companies and governments slip in. It's not healthy and it's not safe.

               1. andrepd · 1790012534 · focus · HN ↗

                  Please don't project on me. Doomsrolling irrelevant junk and polluting one's mind might possibly be what the majority of smartphone use is for. Hence my distinguishing that from "calling and texting".

                  I can text my wife when I leave home telling her to meet in the park. I can call for help in an emergency. I can talk to my family, back in my home country, whenever I want and wherever I am. My grandparents emigrated when "seeing your family" meant a month's journey by sea, so I'm quite sensitive to this. It's a miracle we take for granted.

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.