Are Smartphones Bad, Actually?

[Katganistan]

Yeah. Unless you find the speaking voice really irritating, I don't think you can honestly sit there and say that any kind of aural navigation assistant tech is not better than relying on a map for drivers (at least, for one off journeys).

If you don't have headphones, I don't want to hear your app barking directions at you when we're on a bus, though. Mind you, unlike in London, it can be really fucking hard to tell where you are on a bus in Auckland... firstly, street signs are really hit and miss* and secondly the busses don't identify the next stop.** So, like, maybe it'd be a public service.

*In July, I went for a walk at night, and I walked past five side streets or something crazy and not a single one had a street sign identifying the road I was on. They did have streetsigns identifying them, though.

**I find the thing to do is to use Google streetview and look for landmarks, so it ends up as a sort of "press the button when you pass the Mobil" or whatever.

It's unheard of where I live to use Google maps on the bus. Mainly cause I live in Texas. And buses are the kind of variety where if your using it, you know it's route. Because they aren't common enough to take you anywhere and everywhere.

So for a second I thought, "who the fuck uses Google maps on a bus?"

Would never on a bus, but NYC has shittons of them. City buses, private buses, all kinds of damned buses.

Indeed, that is precisely what I'm saying.

I mean, maybe if you go exploring or hiking in remote areas but for the most part I never need a paper map.

Granted it was 20 yrs ago but I had zero cell coverage in places on the PCH. Maps was how I got where I was going, and I was very nervous between towns.

[Ethel mermania]

It's unheard of where I live to use Google maps on the bus. Mainly cause I live in Texas. And buses are the kind of variety where if your using it, you know it's route. Because they aren't common enough to take you anywhere and everywhere.

So for a second I thought, "who the fuck uses Google maps on a bus?"

Would never on a bus, but NYC has shittons of them. City buses, private buses, all kinds of damned buses.

I mean, maybe if you go exploring or hiking in remote areas but for the most part I never need a paper map.

Granted it was 20 yrs ago but I had zero cell coverage in places on the PCH. Maps was how I got where I was going, and I was very nervous between towns.

These days we download trail maps when we go hiking off the wireless grid.

[Forsher]

Smart phones are tools, damn useful ones too, but they are designed by people who are trying to maximise the amount of time the user spends on them. And they are damn good at figuring out how to make people do that. And that’s not fun.



That stuff’s been getting annoying. More than once I’ve gotten shit for not responding to emails immediately.

On a Sunday. Or a holiday.

Because I decided to take a walk, read a book, play board games or this should be none of your business this ought to be my time.

And it is 100% something to blame the proliferation of smartphones for.

My answer back when BEEPERS were a thing was, "It's for MY convenience, not yours. I will respond to you when I have time, not immediately because you think I am at your beck and call."

I have students who email me at 2am, then bitch at me at 8am that I didn't return their email. Damn straight I didn't -- I was sleeping, and my work hours are 8am to 3pm. If I choose, I'll answer up til 7:30pm. After that, tough shit. I am not on call 24/7.

I had a lecturer once who was (a) always really late to the lectures and (b) equally bad at getting the slides in on time. Obviously, the latter bit was a problem so we complained to him. After that he started uploading the slides at like 1 or 2 am. And he was a pretty old dude, probably 67-ish.

Would never on a bus, but NYC has shittons of them. City buses, private buses, all kinds of damned buses.

The episode I was thinking of didn't, as far as I remember, feature a phone barking directions to anyone. Instead, it was some old fart leaning over his seat to ask a, probably, early twenties woman what she was using her phone for... answer: trying to figure out where we were on the bus relative to where she was going. The prospect of an inconsiderate Google Maps user was an extrapolation from this incident... she'd hardly be alone.

So... some people definitely use Google Maps on a bus. And, as I said, in Auckland, you've really gotta be on your toes with knowing when to get off. My preferred approach for an unfamiliar destination is to use street view to memorise the location before attempting the journey. I've never tried asking other passengers but that's a Thing that happens.*

* I remember this one time where the trains were out and it was unexpected so there was no rail replacement service. I've got an assignment due and I'm looking at the real time board and I think to myself "if I catch X, I might end up ahead of where I'd be if I caught Y". That was almost a fatal mistake. We get to an intersection ahead of the next interchange and I look out the window and I see Y stopped at the north/south traffic lights, indicating to turn west.

So, I jumped off X and caught Y instead. At which point this dude recognises me from the train (on other days) and asks me what the hell it is we're supposed to do after Y terminates at the fourth interchange. Answer? Catch the bus the woman and the old fart were on (possibly this is even the same day, but I don't think so), call it Z.

And don't even get me started on what you're supposed to do if this happens on a weekend because that Z bus only runs on weekdays. Commuter transport, folks!

[U S of Eh]

We'd be better off without them, in my opinion. Would make crimes e.g. drug dealing much harder to commit.

[Space Squid]

They have some uses.

[Dagnia]

On an individual level, I think it's on the person using them. I love technology. I work in technology and have even worked on developing mobile applications (nothing terribly exciting to those not interested in technology, just a few apps for healthcare and telecoms).That said, my own smartphone (a Moto G7 Power bought two years ago for under $200 unlocked, no intention of getting a new one until it no longer works) which has all kinds of applications, both IT-specific and some social apps a little more interesting to a broader audience, gets little attention from me. I often leave it somewhere, usually the car, though I can sometimes find it in the refrigerator, and don't see it for hours. Though Skype and Teams are usually off when I'm on my own time, I can be reached by email on my laptop. I don't see how you can be productive on a phone, I need at least a small laptop (even one of those little netbooks from 15 years ago will do as long as it has a keyboard I can use both hands with). The smartphone is not the evil, the evil is in the user and it can be exorcised with a little self control.
On a collective level, the smartphones themselves are still not bad, though they are a portal that has allowed in a different kind of Internet user and played a part in ruining the Internet. The touchscreen with no keyboard or even a really tiny keyboard makes navigation through a lot of different websites harder, resulting in the death of many other websites and the consolidation of the Internet into a few major sites (every personal site is now a Facebook page, every forum is now a Reddit group). When they are not on the major sites that most Internet traffic goes to the people buried in their phones are the idiots producing low-effort, shallow posts on forums. The second Eternal September began with the iPhone.

[Parcel of Rogues]

It’s very addicting truth be told, especially the part where you carry around literal access to the Internet.

I can’t imagine life without a smartphone. It’s such a useful and immersive technology.

It's not submersible. Just drown the damn thing and reclaim your life.

[The Blaatschapen]

It’s very addicting truth be told, especially the part where you carry around literal access to the Internet.

I can’t imagine life without a smartphone. It’s such a useful and immersive technology.

It's not submersible. Just drown the damn thing and reclaim your life.

Don't gravedig old threads.