Blame the screens. Screens are blackholes that suck up your time, attention, awareness and senses.
Screens are evil. They wake up the dead past as if it's alive and happening now. It became so much the norm, that people are afraid to face the real world, real people, real talking. "Dinner party? OMG, real people with real faces that force us to talk to them? Noway sir".
Screens disconnected people from real world, from each other. I was trying a VR headset the other days and immediately threw it away, as it shut off my visual and audio senses completely.
Spoken like someone with no friends or relatives that live far away. Screens can also be extremely connecting. They are a tool and as such value neutral. Is it evil that I can have a weekly video-call with family members on another continent when the alternative would be...simply no contact at all, super expensive phone calls or letters. I don't think so.
I think even with family and friends that live far away, screens are often an excuse as well. Well sorry we aren't going to be able to visit gas is just too much, we can FaceTime instead! And I think it's ignoring the bigger problem, is perhaps you talk to your family members once a week, but do you have your community around you that you talk and do things with 'off screen'? Its easy on the internet to say you do, but the reality is most people would rather doomscroll than be bothered with trying to know their neighbor.
Before screens you visited even less. Well if you compare the 1960s to today - but the 1960s had the phone as well. Compare 1700 to today and you realize quickly that "visiting your sister who married just one village over is a big deal and it couldn't happen often".
Tools are not value neutral, and it’s time we internalise that. Tools are designed with a purpose. An AK-47 is a tool. Its purpose is killing. Its creator was acutely aware of it and by the end even expressed remorse.
Yes, screens can be enabling, but your parent comment is obviously talking of the norm we’re facing. Facebook isn’t value neutral, neither is Instagram, nor TikTok, nor a myriad other insanely popular services which command too many lives. Those are tools designed explicitly to suck up your time, to feed the bellies of their owners at your expense.
Digital tools are made even more not value neutral by the fact that other humans are actively controlling them even while you're using them, via "the algorithm", "dark design patterns", etc.
At least with an AK-47 or a hammer, once you own it physically, it's yours and the original creator isn't sending you subtle psychological nudges to utilize it one way or the other.
I would argue the purpose the tools are designed for is only loosely correlated with their overall value. Secind-order effects and unintended consequences are common with any disruptive technology.
I mean... you are substituting your family on a little screen for going out into the real world and making some new friends. I'd argue that, yes, just because you wrap it in "I love my family don't question me" it doesn't change anything.
>Spoken like someone with no friends or relatives that live far away. Screens can also be extremely connecting.
Most my family is scattered. Screens can be connecting. But it doesn't replace local connection and my experience seems more to delay the inevitable drifting away of such relations due to distance. I suppose it at least tests how much your loved ones care to keep in contact with you.
zkmon · · focus · HN ↗
Screens are evil. They wake up the dead past as if it's alive and happening now. It became so much the norm, that people are afraid to face the real world, real people, real talking. "Dinner party? OMG, real people with real faces that force us to talk to them? Noway sir".
Screens disconnected people from real world, from each other. I was trying a VR headset the other days and immediately threw it away, as it shut off my visual and audio senses completely.
kriro · · focus · HN ↗
AbsurdCensor · · focus · HN ↗
bluGill · · focus · HN ↗
latexr · · focus · HN ↗
Tools are not value neutral, and it’s time we internalise that. Tools are designed with a purpose. An AK-47 is a tool. Its purpose is killing. Its creator was acutely aware of it and by the end even expressed remorse.
Yes, screens can be enabling, but your parent comment is obviously talking of the norm we’re facing. Facebook isn’t value neutral, neither is Instagram, nor TikTok, nor a myriad other insanely popular services which command too many lives. Those are tools designed explicitly to suck up your time, to feed the bellies of their owners at your expense.
Supermancho · · focus · HN ↗
There's more to it than that.
mikemarsh · · focus · HN ↗
At least with an AK-47 or a hammer, once you own it physically, it's yours and the original creator isn't sending you subtle psychological nudges to utilize it one way or the other.
rcxdude · · focus · HN ↗
[deleted] · · focus · HN ↗
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4fterd4rk · · focus · HN ↗
johnnyanmac · · focus · HN ↗
Most my family is scattered. Screens can be connecting. But it doesn't replace local connection and my experience seems more to delay the inevitable drifting away of such relations due to distance. I suppose it at least tests how much your loved ones care to keep in contact with you.
eigencoder · · focus · HN ↗