> 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.
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
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.
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.
> 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.
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).
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.
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.
> 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).
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).
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!
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
> 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.
> A 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.
WTF. Don't do this! That's a complete sin, don't modify the device of someone else when they trust you to enter your contact information! You're violating every social expectation when installing something without their consent.
Yeah, I am fully onboard with the reasoning for why people hate calls and prefer messaging (sync vs. async), but the passage you quoted describes something that is straight up wrong on human level.
They give you their unlocked device for a specific task of entering your phone number, which already implies a high level of trust, and you instantly break that trust by unsolicitedly installing software on their device? That sounds like a quick way to lose your connection to that person.
I know I wouldn't want to have any further interaction with the person who breaks my trust right at the beginning by going out of their way and sneakily installing software on my device. Especially since they aren't a close friend of mine to begin with, because if they were a close friend, we would have each other's phone numbers already.
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.
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.
> 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.
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!
> 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...
Smartphones are a godsend as far as convenience goes.
I shudder to think how cumbersome a lot of things were just five years ago.
Things I use my smartphone for every day, or very frequently - versus what I had to do before:
Sending money via apps - Had to go to the bank and do a bank transfer, or login to my bank on my computer, and do a wire transfer from there. I can also pay for stuff in stores, via apps, so I don't need to have my bank/credit card on me.
Electronic signing and 2FA - Had to carry an external login chip/dongle.
Listen to music - Had to carry an iPod or similar
Take photos - Had to carry camera or video camera, and transfer the stuff to my computer
Record audio - Had to carry some physical audio-recorder
E-tickets - Had to purchase physical tickets/cards, and get them re-filled in stores
E-drivers licence - Had to carry my physical drivers licence, which could lead to fine/penalty if I forgot my wallet at home
Maps - Had to look up maps beforehand, buy a print, find a public map. Same goes for directions.
Real-time public transit maps - Wasted so, so much time standing outside, waiting for the bus or whatever, not knowing if it was late, or I was too late.
Coupons - Had to bring physical coupons to store.
And the list goes on. I haven't even mentioned the most obvious things, like being able to read emails everywhere, or getting in contact with anyone, almost everywhere.
Sure - one can/will get dependent to phones, and losing it can be extremely stressful.
But the net result has been overwhelmingly positive for me, as far as convenience goes. I "side hustle" by buying/selling stuff, both domestic and international, and the sheer ease of how things work today is just incredible. 90% of that business happens through my phone, because that's the fastest way.
This is what I was thinking reading this. I've never used social media, smart phone or otherwise. But I DO really like my cheap, incredibly outdated smart phone for the simple things it provides: a camera whenever I need it that's good enough, the ability to check something online quick (but never prolonged browsing, that's just miserable), mapping and GPS, and hell, even really simple "apps" like the calendar (I can never remember anything important). Probably the most-used thing on my phone for me is the stopwatch/timer, multiple times a day.
That said, I don't know if there's really a point to these articles anymore. The people who CAN do this, and want to, will just do it. For most of the population meanwhile, trends and FOMO will keep them glued in place until the next corporate SOMA comes along. Put another way, I don't think you can really write an article like this without preaching to the choir. I didn't avoid social media because some article convinced me it was a good idea. I just have a (mildly) weird personality and somewhat unusual priorities, and staying off social media was one inevitable result.
I could joke that not having social media in my life has made more time for my HN addiction, but I really like not knowing most of you. Benefits of no social media engagement include:
- All of my personal relationships have normal adult boundaries based on what we bring to it today, and don't operate on precedents set when we were in middle school.
- Freedom from the awareness of people talking about me and the urge to influence that conversation.
- I can try things and really suck terribly at them until I'm good enough that I don't anymore, and do them for the pleasure of doing them instead of whether they get me approval and likes.
- I'm a refreshing person to be around because the perceived problems of the world seem alien and silly in my environment.
- I can engage deeply with complex ideas and problems without being assigned to a "side."
The downsides are things like when I have an idea for a product or do something creative, I absolutely lack a channel to put it into to get fast feedback and refine it.
It can be a chore for people to "explain" you in business contexts when you don't have a bunch of pictures of your food they can just look up and confirm that you, too, are the sort of person who takes pictures of their food, which creates risk you can't be trusted to just get it that people take pictures of their food now, or you don't value the same things they do. I literally eat 3x+ a day, so it's not like an exotic holiday for me, though I guess with the internet being global, that's not true for everyone, so I can see why they take the pictures. Having to explain why I don't take pictures of it is social friction like being vegan 20 years ago.
Anyway, it's a balance, and there are good reasons to stay on it, and sacrifices if you leave it. It's just a disequilibrium right now.
I think you are spot on here. The first thing I look at when reading a comment on HN is the comment, I rarely notice the less opaque tiny piece of text at the top indicating which user said what.
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.
Readit News
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.
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
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.
Cannot remember every detail when the decision conversation is done via phone call / meeting. I can only rely on written details.
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.
But yes, if someone doesn't answer and then starts a text, it should be assumed/checked whether they're busy.
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.
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.
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).
Oooh, even I shudder when reading that! :D
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)
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.
https://github.com/phhusson/treble_experimentations
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.
Android version: 10.
Android security patch level: March 5 2021.
Sad how gadgets become ever more brittle and unreliable as they get newer.
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.
Many people do. You'd be surprised.
WTF. Don't do this! That's a complete sin, don't modify the device of someone else when they trust you to enter your contact information! You're violating every social expectation when installing something without their consent.
They give you their unlocked device for a specific task of entering your phone number, which already implies a high level of trust, and you instantly break that trust by unsolicitedly installing software on their device? That sounds like a quick way to lose your connection to that person.
I know I wouldn't want to have any further interaction with the person who breaks my trust right at the beginning by going out of their way and sneakily installing software on my device. Especially since they aren't a close friend of mine to begin with, because if they were a close friend, we would have each other's phone numbers already.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 shudder to think how cumbersome a lot of things were just five years ago.
Things I use my smartphone for every day, or very frequently - versus what I had to do before:
Sending money via apps - Had to go to the bank and do a bank transfer, or login to my bank on my computer, and do a wire transfer from there. I can also pay for stuff in stores, via apps, so I don't need to have my bank/credit card on me.
Electronic signing and 2FA - Had to carry an external login chip/dongle.
Listen to music - Had to carry an iPod or similar
Take photos - Had to carry camera or video camera, and transfer the stuff to my computer
Record audio - Had to carry some physical audio-recorder
E-tickets - Had to purchase physical tickets/cards, and get them re-filled in stores
E-drivers licence - Had to carry my physical drivers licence, which could lead to fine/penalty if I forgot my wallet at home
Maps - Had to look up maps beforehand, buy a print, find a public map. Same goes for directions.
Real-time public transit maps - Wasted so, so much time standing outside, waiting for the bus or whatever, not knowing if it was late, or I was too late.
Coupons - Had to bring physical coupons to store.
And the list goes on. I haven't even mentioned the most obvious things, like being able to read emails everywhere, or getting in contact with anyone, almost everywhere.
Sure - one can/will get dependent to phones, and losing it can be extremely stressful.
But the net result has been overwhelmingly positive for me, as far as convenience goes. I "side hustle" by buying/selling stuff, both domestic and international, and the sheer ease of how things work today is just incredible. 90% of that business happens through my phone, because that's the fastest way.
That said, I don't know if there's really a point to these articles anymore. The people who CAN do this, and want to, will just do it. For most of the population meanwhile, trends and FOMO will keep them glued in place until the next corporate SOMA comes along. Put another way, I don't think you can really write an article like this without preaching to the choir. I didn't avoid social media because some article convinced me it was a good idea. I just have a (mildly) weird personality and somewhat unusual priorities, and staying off social media was one inevitable result.
- All of my personal relationships have normal adult boundaries based on what we bring to it today, and don't operate on precedents set when we were in middle school.
- Freedom from the awareness of people talking about me and the urge to influence that conversation.
- I can try things and really suck terribly at them until I'm good enough that I don't anymore, and do them for the pleasure of doing them instead of whether they get me approval and likes.
- I'm a refreshing person to be around because the perceived problems of the world seem alien and silly in my environment.
- I can engage deeply with complex ideas and problems without being assigned to a "side."
The downsides are things like when I have an idea for a product or do something creative, I absolutely lack a channel to put it into to get fast feedback and refine it.
It can be a chore for people to "explain" you in business contexts when you don't have a bunch of pictures of your food they can just look up and confirm that you, too, are the sort of person who takes pictures of their food, which creates risk you can't be trusted to just get it that people take pictures of their food now, or you don't value the same things they do. I literally eat 3x+ a day, so it's not like an exotic holiday for me, though I guess with the internet being global, that's not true for everyone, so I can see why they take the pictures. Having to explain why I don't take pictures of it is social friction like being vegan 20 years ago.
Anyway, it's a balance, and there are good reasons to stay on it, and sacrifices if you leave it. It's just a disequilibrium right now.
I think you are spot on here. The first thing I look at when reading a comment on HN is the comment, I rarely notice the less opaque tiny piece of text at the top indicating which user said what.
Without caring what side you are being assigned, it might be more accurate to say.
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".