[HN Gopher] Living Like It's 99, No Social Media, No Smartphone
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Living Like It's 99, No Social Media, No Smartphone
Author : betaman0
Score : 130 points
Date : 2021-03-23 16:42 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.alvarez.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.alvarez.io)
| bszupnick wrote:
| > 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!
| enricozb wrote:
| 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...
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I didn't get a Facebook account or a smartphone until 2018. I
| could probably ditch the former. The latter is occasionally
| handy.
| kevwil wrote:
| There's a lot I like here. I agree that the major toxin has been
| mobile social media apps, and I deleted mine a few months ago.
|
| Divorcing the smartphone completely is doable but I'm not sure I
| want that pain. That's mainly because of niche apps I depend on,
| contactless payments, and it's my primary camera, not because I
| talk on the phone with people _shudder_. The smart watch is worth
| looking into, but still would need the niche apps and the
| contactless payments and the camera, and a GoPro would not fill
| my camera needs.
|
| When my current phone is paid off I do intend to look into
| alternate ideas like this because There's Got To Be A Better Way
| (tm).
| beyondthecut wrote:
| Sadly, the phone mentioned on the website is no longer being
| made. Anyone have alternative suggestions for a non-Android
| "wallet phone" that works in the US?
| zikduruqe wrote:
| https://www.thelightphone.com
| twobitshifter wrote:
| You might try this. I can't vouch for it but the concept seems
| interesting to me.
| https://www.punkt.ch/en/products/mp02-4g-mobile-phone/
|
| It's a small candy bar phone but maybe not square enough to fit
| in your wallet.
| aeternum wrote:
| Anyone else see the irony in making a big deal about giving up
| social media but then writing a blog post about it and promoting
| that post on various social media platforms?
| e2021 wrote:
| he problem I have with getting rid of the smartphone is the
| camera - its _so_ much better than a dedicated camera for its
| size, and once you have the camera its hard to resist using the
| apps.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| 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.
| ergot_vacation wrote:
| 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.
| ksm1717 wrote:
| This is a super cool article and it's funny to me how much time
| was spent detailing the features of the watch (suspiciously
| similar to a smartphone's) and how some of the commentary is
| steeped in 2018 anti social media sentiments that have since
| become tropes in themselves.
|
| Examples like posting pictures of meals and the idea that people
| use social media to fool people into thinking your life is
| exciting. I think the types of people interested in making these
| posts realize that the social media mainstream considers it passe
| at this point.
| syntheticnature wrote:
| The author says they're using Signal, but they obviously aren't
| on their phone. It looks like getting access to Signal on a
| "desktop" requires it being on your phone -- which seems like a
| potential future chicken/egg problem.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| With signal-cli and perhaps other third-party clients, you can
| register a new Signal account on an ordinary computer. You do
| need a phone to receive the Signal confirmation SMS, but that
| can even be a dumbphone.
|
| Obviously signal-cli is never going to be a solution for the
| mass public, but using it is an option for some HN readers -
| this is a "news for nerds" website.
| mssundaram wrote:
| Yeah that part confuses me too
| jccalhoun wrote:
| People without smart phones are the new people who don't watch
| tv: They can't wait to tell you all about it.
| dgellow wrote:
| > 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.
| filoleg wrote:
| 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.
| boring_twenties wrote:
| Also never hand your unlocked smartphone to a stranger for any
| reason whatsoever.
| true_religion wrote:
| I assume he'd tell them what he's doing since they are standing
| right next to him and can see he's not just adding his contact
| info.
| danaliv wrote:
| I've been tempted to do this. The thing that stops me is how good
| texting is on smartphones. The author writes about this, and
| pretty much confirms my fear that it would be a major step
| backwards and would put me out of sync with almost everyone in my
| life. I'm awkward enough as it is; I don't need to add _new_
| barriers to interacting with me. :) ETA: Honestly if Apple would
| open up iMessage, I could get rid of my iPhone, which is of
| course the reason they don 't open up iMessage.
|
| A couple other things I've thought about, more on the social
| media angle, are (1) starting a personal web site again, and (2)
| a different kind of social media site. For (1), I've already got
| a little VM that runs my email and some quickie web apps I threw
| together. Why not stand up a personal site too, like a lot of us
| used to have, where I can share all the stuff I'd normally be
| putting on Instagram, etc.? Obviously that's adding friction for
| folks too, but I'm less concerned about that stuff getting
| ignored.
|
| For (2), and bear with me because this is going to sound a bit
| woo-woo, I think a social gratitude list could be really
| powerful. Maybe not a big hit, but definitely powerful for people
| who would use it. I say this because I used to be on an email
| list with some friends where everyone would write ten things they
| were grateful for that day and then send it to the list. Now, if
| this is not a practice you're comfortable with, you're probably
| dry-heaving right now; I did too at first. But once I got past
| the fact that it's not very cool, I found that it was a fantastic
| way to keep up with folks. (That's in addition to the mental
| health benefits, which I think are evidence-based but I'd have to
| double-check that to be sure.) Amazingly, I didn't even notice a
| tendency for it to degrade into performativity or attention-
| seeking. Overall I just think it would be a structure that would
| enable some of the positive aspects of social media while
| discouraging or eliminating the negatives.
| everdrive wrote:
| >The thing that stops me is how good texting is on smartphones.
|
| There used to be nice dumb phones with physical qwerty
| keyboards. They were wonderful for texting. It's a real shame
| they're not made anymore.
| gman2093 wrote:
| I think there's still a market for slide-out keyboards on
| devices. They felt a bit janky in the 00's but I would still
| be first in line for the next android (or even ios, unlikely)
| device with such a feature. In high school I could send texts
| without having to look away from my counter-strike games.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| > I don't need to add new barriers to interacting with me. :)
|
| This is an issue for me too. I know the meme is "your _real_
| friends will still make the effort and call you / hang out
| with you / whatever", but I don't think it's that simple-- we
| (especially in the pandemic, but really always) rely on social
| gatherings/media as a proving ground for acquaintanceships, a
| place to banter back and forth and onramp a relationship to the
| point where it would be not-weird to actually arrange an
| intentional activity or get-together.
|
| And the reality is, when I've had acquaintances fall off my
| social media radar or be otherwise difficult to get ahold of, I
| just can't be bothered. When every person but one is in a FB
| Messenger group chat, and one person wants to be texted-with
| about what the plans are, that person inevitably gets left
| behind.
|
| So maybe there's some FOMO going on here, but I don't think I'm
| at a place in my mid-thirties where I'm ready to effectively
| shut the door on those opportunities.
| nineplay wrote:
| The cheerful "your real friends will.." meme ignores the
| possibility that you'll find you have no "real" friends.
| Turns out even casual friends are better than none, and you
| aren't likely to find any real friends if you are hiding
| offline, waiting for everyone to come to you.
| [deleted]
| astura wrote:
| Agreed, all close friends I've made recently I wouldn't have
| made the transition from casual acquaintance to close friend
| without social media. Social media provides zero friction
| interaction and the sum of interactions can grow a
| friendship.
|
| Plus I don't find social media AT ALL toxic and I only spend
| maybe a half hour a week total on it. OTOH I find people
| complaining about social media being toxic is becoming
| extremely toxic.
| boring_twenties wrote:
| You could get a Google Voice number and use the web app to text
| people. It rather sucks, or maybe it just sucks in Firefox, I
| don't know. But it's usable enough, you just have to hard-
| refresh the page every now and then. At least they finally
| started allowing downloading of "unsupported" attachments,
| which was the biggest problem before.
| mantlepro wrote:
| I opened an account with voip.ms after ditching my smartphone
| last year and was pleasantly surprised with the reliability
| and interoperability. Works decently well with Linphone, ATA
| devices, forwarding to a dumb phone, land line, etc. With it
| you can also receive SMS messages (and reply to them) by
| email.
| wojciii wrote:
| I stopped using Facebook a year ago. Deleted the user. I created
| a fresh one to be able to follow my kids in daycare which can't
| be used for much else because I don't want to add more than one
| friend. This is priceless. I'm not allowed to browse more FB
| unless I add more friends. This is kind of asshole behaviour.
| What if I don't have more than one friend? Fuck you Facebook.
|
| I disabled all kinds of popups and notifications. I still use
| Jodel which is fun and anonymous (as much as anything these
| days).
|
| I get mad when reading LinkedIn so I only go there once a week or
| so. There is nothing noteworthy on linkedin.
|
| I use Reddit for news only - private subreddit.
|
| I guess that forums are the only kind of interaction that
| interests me.
|
| I just wanted to say that cutting the connection to social media
| doesn't have to be 100%. Being selective is enough for me.
| kjakm wrote:
| >> I created a fresh one to be able to follow my kids in
| daycare...
|
| What does this mean?
| wojciii wrote:
| English is obviously not my first language. :)
|
| My boy is in a private day care (Danish: dagpleje) - they
| have a private FB group where they post pictures for their
| parents to see most of the days.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| In the US, they'd have to have the parents sign media
| releases to do this. Seems like a lot of effort to maintain
| such a group.
| filoleg wrote:
| Wouldn't they make you sign media release at the point
| when you sign up for daycare, along with a bunch of other
| papers you already have to sign? Seems rather easy if
| that's the case and not that you have to sign off on
| every single picture uploaded.
| kjakm wrote:
| I think your English was fine, I just couldn't think of
| reasons a day care might require Facebook. Groups makes
| sense.
| matwood wrote:
| Your LI must be very different from my LI :) I see endless self
| promotion, but nothing that makes me mad. More like bored, so I
| rarely go to LI except to accept the odd connection request
| from someone I met IRL.
|
| Everything else is spot on though. I go days without looking at
| my fairly selective twitter or reddit. HN is probably the only
| thing I check daily, but if I'm busy I might not even do that.
|
| The point is use the tools and don't let them use you. Social
| media, smart phones, etc... are what you make of them.
| wojciii wrote:
| For some reason I get angry when reading LI. Self promotion
| got worse last year. People now post that they are going to
| change job a couple of days before job change. I don't
| understand why.
|
| The job offers are crap. I'm not going to move to Switzerland
| or Germany for 3 months gig and I don't want to work for
| Uber. I stopped responding to recruiters as they don't
| understand that I really don't want to do Java for some
| crappy bank. I would rather starve.
|
| End rant.
|
| HN is great. People are usually nice and often I learn
| something new about a topic that I didn't know.
| silvi9 wrote:
| The best benefit I've seen is my increased focus and ability to
| do deep work. I actually feel like I'm getting way more work
| done, and have the ability to now focus for hours at a time.
| Before, work usually consisted of surface level attempts at
| "working" before I was notified on Discord or social media about
| something.
|
| Notifications and the constant desire to check for replies have
| really hindered my productivity in ways unimaginable. Now,
| without distraction, I can get meaningful work done. Hugely
| beneficial and transformed my whole manner of working.
| ncfausti wrote:
| Would you say the same level of benefit could be had by simply
| just turning your phone off and placing it in another room
| while working?
|
| I've done this with pretty great results. Actually, I will do
| it again right now.
| jeffreyrogers wrote:
| This is really neat. I got rid of all social media years ago
| because I thought the downsides outweighed the benefits for me
| (well I have a LinkedIn that I almost never sign in to). I've
| thought about getting rid of my smartphone too but I use maps too
| much. The Garmin is a good way to get around that. If there were
| a similar phone to the one he's got that was good for texting too
| I might give this a try.
| socialist_coder wrote:
| It seems like his main reason for getting rid of his smartphone
| was because he was unable to not use social media apps on his
| smartphone.
|
| For me, I have achieved mostly the same goal by just not using
| social media apps. No reddit, no twitter, no fb, no linked in, no
| whatever. I browse reddit and HN on my computer, thats pretty
| much it. I use my smartphone pretty rarely but when I do need to
| use spotify or maps or podcasts or some special app, I still can.
| And you can still text, which like the author noted, is
| important.
|
| So, I say to the author - work on your self control and
| discipline! Just don't use social media anymore! It's really not
| hard! I think the trick is to not use it at all. You can't just
| "use it in small amounts".
| kristopolous wrote:
| This reminds me of a small company with an non-smart e-ink phone
| and I'm curious whether there was a market fit ... has anyone
| tried the Light Phone and if so, does it achieve these goals?
|
| I _feel_ like it may constitute a separate device class than a
| dumb-phone but I don 't know how much is marketing versus
| reality.
| kweks wrote:
| Try the Cat B26 phone. Nokia 3210 size, 4G + Wifi. KaiOS. T9
| interface. Cutdown WhatsApp, cutdown Google Maps. Dual SIM. Can
| act as a 4G hotspot. Certified water and dust proof. Weeks long
| battery. 65EUR.
|
| Very solid devices for cutting back internet dependance or for
| traveling without but still having the basics.
| kristopolous wrote:
| oh it's by _that_ Cat; Caterpillar, the one that does
| construction machinery. Out of curiosity, what 's the battery
| tech? LiFePO? LTO?
|
| I'd imagine heat tolerance and impact resilience would be
| more important than slimness and lightweight for these
| devices if they're intended to be used like say, at a
| foundry.
| boring_twenties wrote:
| This one[1]? It says it's only 2G GSM?
|
| 1- https://smile.amazon.com/CAT-Rugged-Phone-Factory-
| Unlocked/d...
| motohagiography wrote:
| I almost bought one of these:
| https://www.punkt.ch/en/products/mp02-4g-mobile-phone/
|
| but I realized I barely talk on the phone, I just use it for
| texting. Thinking old blackberry format would be better, as I
| prefer the keyboard.
| alectroem wrote:
| I've had the Light Phone 2 since launch, but just got rid of my
| old smart phone and switched over to it completely about a
| month ago.
|
| If your goal is to overcome a phone/internet addiction, or just
| disconnect, then the LP2 will definitively help you achieve
| that! Your going to have to give some stuff up (No Spotify, no
| Directions yet), and deal with texting that worse then a smart
| phone but better then a number pad. But to me its definitely
| worth it.
|
| I think the LP2 will eventually provide the same stuff that the
| original author gets from his Garmin watch and GSM Calls phone,
| which is pretty neat!
| standardUser wrote:
| This is great and all. Unless you travel a lot. Or have a wide
| network of far flung friends and family to keep up with. Or have
| niche hobbies and interests. Or are looking for a new job. Or
| just generally like to keep up with modern trends and culture.
|
| But yeah, sure, sounds great for the tiny number of people who
| don't require any of the above.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| All my job searches have been organized over email, and the
| poster said no smartphone, not no phone. Exaggerating a bit?
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >But yeah, sure, sounds great for the tiny number of people who
| don't require any of the above.
|
| Most people actually need none of that stuff. I think there's a
| lot of illusions that come with social media. Having 500
| Facebook friends you chat with two times per year is not
| friendship in a real sense of the term.
|
| What many people are looking for arguably these days and what
| has somewhat been lost is lifelong, strong bonds and real
| conversations between people you have unconditional trust with.
| Having two of those is better than a million Instagram
| followers.
|
| Same with 'keeping up with culture and trends'. Like what does
| that actually mean. Is anyone really better off when they
| follow Kim Kardashians daily drama? Is hooking into every trend
| really producing independent, smart, autonomous, strong-willed
| people? There's value in disconnecting and spending time with
| yourself and alone that many younger kids in particular don't
| have space for any more.
| standardUser wrote:
| "...friends you chat with two times per year is not
| friendship in a real sense of the term" No, it is a different
| sense of the term and has different value. That's not in any
| way a bad thing, nor does it detract from other
| relationships. It is purely additive.
|
| "There's value in disconnecting and spending time with
| yourself..." Right, but using social media does not stop one
| from enjoying personal time. Why would it? Again, it is
| additive.
|
| I'd also point you to my other comment about unique
| communities and opportunities that only exits on the
| established social media platforms.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >nor does it detract from other relationships
|
| okay I'll invite you the next time you're at a bar or cafe
| to pay close attention to how many people look at their
| phone instead of focusing on the person they're with.
|
| Time and attention are precious, we don't have a lot of it.
| It's the opposite of additive, it's the scarcest thing in
| the world, because attention and time are the only thing
| you cannot make more of. Every moment spent on following
| trends, liking dog pictures, getting that additional hit of
| dopamine from getting some more followers or a notification
| alert is a signal that disrupts focus and draws your mind
| away from relationships or things that matter.
|
| >unique communities and opportunities that only exits on
| the established social media platforms.
|
| An opportunity that only exists on a social media platform
| and is intermediated by some third party is terrible and
| takes agency and control away from you. You can do a
| business without social media, you can find subcultures and
| local communities in almost all places on the planet, where
| you can make real and lasting connections rather than
| superficial digital ones.
| jc_811 wrote:
| I don't think you need a smartphone and social media to do any
| of the above listed tasks. The author's qualm isn't with having
| an online presence, or being tapped into modern society, it's
| having that modern society constantly tapping you on the
| shoulder with a bombardment of notifications and algorithms
| designed specifically to get you hooked.
|
| I think you can easily travel, have a wide network of far flung
| friends, be involved in niche hobbies, look for a new job, and
| keep up with modern trends & cultures - all without a smart
| phone and social media. If you have a laptop & internet
| connection - you're good to go! This allows you to tap in _when
| you want on your own terms_ instead of the other way around.
| standardUser wrote:
| I found a great website recently by a man who collects
| crayons. A niche activity if there ever was one. Want to be
| part of that community? It exists only on Facebook.
|
| I moved abroad a couple years ago and needed a way to get
| involved with the local ex-pat community. One guess where all
| of their organizing and communicating was done.
|
| Want to bootstrap a home business, like so many mask-makers
| have done during the pandemic? How do you get your initial
| traction without friends and family on the social media
| networks?
|
| If people want to opt out of the modern world that's fine,
| but let's not pretend they aren't missing out.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Even more reasons why anti-trust action against social
| media monopolies and laws like the GDPR are important. You
| might not be able to "beat" Facebook, but at least
| regulation will tone down its scumminess and make it
| slightly more tolerable.
| PenguinCoder wrote:
| Two things I _need_ and get from a smart phone that I can't get
| from a dumbphone - GOOD GPS/Maps, and NFC/contactless payment.
| tayo42 wrote:
| I would include a camera too. I don't really want to carry a
| dslr, i like that google photos are pretty much synced and
| backed up. It not fun for me to run some crappy data back up
| thing.
|
| I like taking pictures, i like looking back on them. I use
| them for painting inspiration too. I don't really need to be
| a photographer though with a dslr or whatever is cool now
| grillvogel wrote:
| you could get a gshock watch with GPS, and don't most credit
| cards have NFC options now?
| AlexTWithBeard wrote:
| Not having a FB account is great, until you want to join a local
| running club and - !tada! - the only thing you can find is their
| facebook group name.
| chovybizzass wrote:
| i'm back on irc no more discord/slack for personal use.
| ajyotirmay wrote:
| IMO, you can ditch a smartphone and still keep using the
| services. I normally keep such services on my laptop, and I
| just open one up when I need to use one.
|
| It's a middle ground. I can't completely get rid of a
| smartphone because I'm into motorcycle touring and GPS is
| essential to me. I'm trying alternatives to Gmaps, but it's
| pretty awkward and uncomfortable.
|
| One thing that I've done is no notification tone, and I've
| disable notifications for whatever selected IM apps I've got on
| my phone
| busterarm wrote:
| I didn't entirely dump the smartphone, because that's hard to the
| point of ludicrous.
|
| What I did do was get a Pixel 4a and install GrapheneOS on it.
| The only apps on the phone are one to sync my CalDAV/CardDAV and
| the other for my one-time passwords.
|
| I can use a browser if I'm desperate.
|
| It's been the best decision I've made by far.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| I remember hoping that cell phones would just be a fad.
| ggggtez wrote:
| > Some of them even stopped texting me because they had to open
| another app on their phone in order to write to me. Yeah, you
| also read that right.
|
| I guess they didn't live through the instant messenger wars. How
| did they not expect this would happen?
| jaynetics wrote:
| > People Thought I Was Dead [...] Some of them even contacted my
| family multiple times.
|
| 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".
| username91 wrote:
| 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.
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| 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.
| spiritplumber wrote:
| In a lot of cases, because people stopped checking their damn
| email
| motohagiography wrote:
| 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.
| helen___keller wrote:
| > I can engage deeply with complex ideas and problems without
| being assigned to a "side."
|
| Without caring what side you are being assigned, it might be
| more accurate to say.
| motohagiography wrote:
| By who? If some extremist wanted to put me on their list,
| they'd only be elevating and complimenting everyone else on
| it.
| tomxor wrote:
| > I really like not knowing most of you
|
| 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.
| xwdv wrote:
| What's the point of this really? Yea you can live like 1999, but
| the world isn't in 1999. You're gonna miss out on the modern
| human experience, you're gonna be "that guy", you're not gonna be
| able to relate to anyone, you won't know about anyone's life and
| no one will care to tell you.
|
| Retreating to the past isn't controlling your addictions, it's
| giving up. You can own a smartphone, use social media, without it
| taking over your life, you just need self control. As the world
| changes you're gonna be stuck grasping at a past that no longer
| exists. It will be lonely.
| grillvogel wrote:
| >modern human experience
|
| brought to you on a 5 inch screen
| ueueshitashita wrote:
| > You're gonna miss out on the modern human experience
|
| Oh no, the horror!
| blain wrote:
| Giving up a new "cool" few things doesn't mean you will "miss
| out" on new things. You still can try new things when they come
| out.
|
| I think the biggest benefit of living like in 99s, just like
| the author pointed out is a "Peace of mind".
|
| Also, regarding:
|
| > Retreating to the past isn't controlling your addictions,
| it's giving up.
|
| as if addictions were a good thing. You can also look at it
| this way: choosing self controlled addictions over "giving up"
| a device over a dumber one.
| drivers99 wrote:
| I switched back to a flip phone between using an iPhone 4
| (before) and an iPhone 6 (after), when iOS updates made the 4
| slow to a crawl. I decided I was "done" with smart phones. There
| wasn't a major disadvantage that I remember, however the killer
| app that made me come back (and buy an iPhone 6) was Uber/Lyft.
| squarefoot wrote:
| I had a smartphone for about one year when Android was at version
| 2, then ditched it for an older dumbphone. Never been on any
| social network and don't miss them at all. I only have WhatsApp
| on a tablet because of some friends and family, but they know it
| stays home and turned off 23 hours and 50 minutes a day, if not
| the entire day. The end result is that I don't spend hours
| staring at a screen while walking (or driving!) waiting for
| someone to like my new vertical video or political rant; instead
| my dumbphone rings or beeps only when there is real need, and I
| can spend those hours doing other stuff.
|
| Technology however works actively against people like me: my bank
| was recently acquired by a bigger one in which users must
| authenticate through an app for online banking operations. I'm
| not willing to use highly unsecure platforms for banking, which
| means all Android/iOS/Windows cellphones on planet Earth,
| therefore when yesterday I was asked if I wanted to activate that
| service I hit the "remind me later" button, hoping to never see
| the day it will become mandatory.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| 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.
| cannam wrote:
| > 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.
| flatline wrote:
| 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!
| unethical_ban wrote:
| 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.
| rchaud wrote:
| > 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.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| > 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.
|
| It blows my mind just how good the reMarkable is, and how
| long it took to happen.
| filoleg wrote:
| I was seriously considering purchasing one, as it seems
| to tick off a lot of boxes for me, including hackability
| and a rather significant open-source enthusiast community
| around it. The lack of a simple feature that is backlight
| killed it off for me though.
|
| After using ebooks for the past decade, I cannot go back
| to using one without a backlight. I still use backlight
| at a bare minimum, but a complete lack of it seems like a
| serious oversight. Looking forward to remarkable v3, as I
| expect them to address this, given how simple and
| requested this feature is.
| _kblcuk_ wrote:
| > 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.
| angryasian wrote:
| 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.
| irrational wrote:
| 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.
| kjakm wrote:
| 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.
| dmortin wrote:
| > 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.
| hawski wrote:
| 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.
| pc86 wrote:
| If you call me and I don't answer, but text shortly after, _and
| you call me again_ , you're just being a jerk.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| If you don't answer the phone simply due to conversation
| anxiety, that is not normal and it should be worked on.
|
| But yes, if someone doesn't answer and then starts a text, it
| should be assumed/checked whether they're busy.
| ggggtez wrote:
| If calling on the phone is not part of your social
| connection with other people (and obviously, here it
| wasn't) then I think it makes sense.
|
| Consider how most people communicate now a days. A call is
| only for _long conversations_. No one is expecting to
| receive a call without a reason, out of the blue. I could
| certainly imagine people texting back, confused about what
| their friend wanted to talk about, and whether they could
| answer in a quick text instead.
|
| That's not anxiety, it's just practical. No one is
| expecting you to call just to say "hi", they assume there
| must be some sort of problem that you want to talk about in
| depth.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| My statement is opinionated, and I suffer from call
| anxiety myself (dealing with appointments and what to say
| to people if I'm setting something up).
|
| It is my opinion that it is unhealthy, and that people
| should be aware of that and do more to be less unhealthy
| when it comes to social interaction.
| nicky0 wrote:
| The problem I have with this is the implication that the
| only valid reason not to want to talk on the phone is
| "being busy". Maybe they just don't want to talk to you
| right now. Take the hint!
| dgellow wrote:
| > a lot of them have a call phobia
|
| 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.
| angryasian wrote:
| 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
| blaser-waffle wrote:
| Same. Multinational company, no one uses face / camera
| unless we need to. Uses up more bandwidth, and calls with
| China or Brazil are already flakey enough as it is.
|
| Face chat is for friends and family; for business I don't
| want or need to see your face.
| jotux wrote:
| 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.
| splithalf wrote:
| People call when they want something. If I wanted something, I
| would be the one to initiate the call.
| ravenstine wrote:
| 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.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| 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).
| blamestross wrote:
| Keepalive pings don't stop them from being async. Every async
| system has latency/wait-time limitations before a retry is
| attempted.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| 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.
| dmortin wrote:
| The no smart phone part seems unnecessary. I have a smartphone
| for maps, photos, notes, calendar and that's about it. Sometimes
| looking up info on the net.
|
| The smartphone itself is not the problem. The problem is you if
| you can't stop browsing on it.
| iFreilicht wrote:
| The smartphone is not the problem, it's what you put on it.
| Once you got twitter and instagram and reddit, boy oh boy are
| you gonna reach for that thing when you're bored even just a
| little.
|
| So yeah, I agree. My smartphone also handles 2FA, PayPal and
| bus tickets. None of that is harmful to me, but very useful,
| and giving it up just for living without a smartphone seems
| pointless.
| dmortin wrote:
| > Once you got twitter and instagram and reddit
|
| Yep, that's why I have none of these installed on my phone. I
| read reddit only when I'm sitting at my laptop.
| avmich wrote:
| Social media seems to be useful for a job search. Not everybody
| still has their own startup, and for those who don't a network
| like LinkedIn can mean less months sitting without income.
| Privacy is great, but sometimes it's really hard to see ways to
| simply exist - eat, sleep - without communicating in ways which
| erode your privacy.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| > 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. This removed a lot of friction. I
| would then explain my experiment to them and tell them I can only
| be contacted via this app. I've always had a positive reaction.
| Everybody's been curious and asking a lot of questions.
|
| Yikes. I love signal but if I handed someone my phone and they
| tried to install an app, even while explaining it, I'd be pretty
| annoyed with them. Someone else holding your phone is a pretty
| vulnerable place to be now a days.
| greggyb wrote:
| _Just_ like 99 -- even representing the year with only two
| digits, just like we did back in 1999!
| radicalriddler wrote:
| It's coming up to a year of no social media, almost 3 years
| without facebook. I kept Instagram around to keep in contact with
| friends, I was posting and lurking 24/7 on Reddit, and also
| browsing Twitter all the time, refreshing my feeeeeeed for those
| new posts.
|
| Realized I was heavily depressed, and that the stuff I was
| reading online was having a really negative impact on my mood
| everyday. Capitalism Bad, Black Lives Matter (what black people
| went through made me sad, not the movement becoming prominent),
| Coronavirus all around the world. Reddit and Twitter were a
| cancer on my brain.
|
| I deleted them, after a twitch content creator killed himself and
| it sent me into a spiral, I didn't realize that the parasocial
| relationships were that strong.
|
| Like the OP, I went through a pretty severe withdrawal period, it
| actually got worse before it got better, and I had to go speak to
| a therapist, because I couldn't even get up to go to work. I'd
| lost my lifestyle, and these senses of "community" that I had.
|
| I can happily say I'm better now, but I'm also thinking of
| discarding my smartphone. Buy a dumb phone, carry it around with
| me, while leaving the iPhone at home on wifi for entertainment
| purposes (Chromecast controller, or watching on phone). I've
| started watching Twitch and reading reddit more regularly the
| past couple of months and it's starting to worry me again, might
| need to do another cleanse somehow, and I can't exactly delete
| accounts that don't exist, so I need to delete the device that
| I'm accessing it on.
| figbert wrote:
| I'm looking into doing something like this. Seems calming.
| k__ wrote:
| Calling people without asking and installing apps on their
| smartphones.
|
| Sounds like a complete sociopath to me.
|
| Probably a good thing that they don't use social media...
| acd wrote:
| Deleted Facebook, deleting Whatsapp. LinkedIn also considering
| deleting it.
|
| Have a non touch phone. Why are technology which is additive and
| invades your privacy called smart?
|
| Why is a smart phone with gps tracking smart for privacy? Smart
| tv? Smart speaker? Privacy?
| bserge wrote:
| > having used a smartphone and a "dumb phone", I've discovered a
| big counter intuitive truth, that the real problem is being
| online: it's the smartphone fault.
|
| Is it the truth, though? It probably varies by people. My opinion
| is social media is cancer. A cacophony of opinions that no one
| really cares about. And yet here I am, sharing my worthless
| opinions and reading other people's comments. It's addictive.
|
| But a smartphone is simply amazing. It's my flashlight, my GPS,
| my book reader, my video player, my music player, my learning
| tool, my communication tool, my note taker, my camera, my
| personal assistant... it's basically a full fledged computer.
|
| Often with features blocked for the convenience of the companies
| raking in cash from people addicted to vomiting their thoughts
| online. Why can't I save images and videos in the browser
| anymore? Used to be real easy, now browsers try their best to
| hide this feature, Reddit and Imgur have redesigned their shit to
| actively block downloading the source files, and other platforms
| require you to log in (no Facebook minions, I don't think I
| will). But it's an easy thing to solve... for now.
|
| I'm trying hard to decouple the damn thing from the Internet,
| though, it should work in the middle of nowhere imo. Why in
| fuck's name do I need an Internet connection to send files
| between my laptop and my phone? Local transfer tools are _worse_
| than those made for the cloud bullshit that everyone fell for.
| Ridiculous.
|
| People now watch videos and listen to music online. No, give me
| my files, I want them available anywhere, anytime. Perhaps I'll
| need an Internet connection for the flashlight next. This sounds
| like old man talk, "I want it the way it used to be", but really,
| too few people notice the risk of losing everything digital if
| someone cuts a fiber cable somewhere or some automated system
| decides to terminate your account. Or if you simply travel to
| some country where getting a prepaid SIM requires a cavity search
| and you don't have money for the roaming mafia.
|
| But I'm getting sidetracked. In short: Reduce or remove social
| media and keep your smartphone :)
| clipradiowallet wrote:
| > And yet here I am, sharing my worthless opinions and reading
| other people's comments
|
| But...you clicked the thread. You had a [rough] idea of what
| type of commentary to expect. Not some endless feed of things
| an algorithm thinks you'll like/hate/buy. I think of HN as more
| of a niche community. If we see a story about "acme widgets", I
| like to read the comments to see what experts have to say.
| 2suY374LPMfemWy wrote:
| I quit all social media in 2015, and reached similar conclusions
| to those of others.
|
| One thing I realized that doesn't get talked about much is that I
| was watering lots of dead flowers. It turned out that my posts on
| Twitter and Instagram were prompting others to interact with me.
| Without those regular prompts, I never again heard anything from
| those who used to comment on my posts. Without me posting first,
| in six years no one has reached out to find out what I've been up
| to or if I were even alive.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| "Watering dead flowers"
|
| This is a wonderful term for the phenomenon, thank you.
| scaladev wrote:
| > 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).
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| 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.
| tdsamardzhiev wrote:
| People are different. Perhaps he tends to go down slippery
| slopes with this kind of things. I know I do.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| 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."
| antihero wrote:
| 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.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Why were you buying new phones every year? This is such a
| non-argument._
|
| Many people do. You'd be surprised.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Right, but it's a choice. I still run an iPhone 6, and I
| really haven't felt limited by it.
| olyjohn wrote:
| I miss my iPhone 6. I thought the SE would fill it's shoes,
| but the lack of headphone jack makes me constantly
| regretful. I'm shocked by how many people tell me to "Just
| put a new stereo in your car" or "Upgrade to a Bluetooth
| receiver" or "Buy new headphones" or "Just carry that
| shitty adapter around with you all the time..." Not only
| should I spend $600 on my phone, but I should also
| apparently upgrade every single audio device that I own so
| that smart phone makers can save $1 on each phone they
| sell.
| throwaway07650 wrote:
| > so that smart phone makers can save $1 on each phone
| they sell
|
| What Apple mentioned in the iphone 7 reveal, which was
| when they made headlines for removing the jack, was that
| it is a bulky component that extends quite far into the
| phone, competing for precious real estate with other
| components.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Right, which makes the phone easier to build and thus
| saves money. There's no getting around the fact that
| money is the #1 reason they have started omitting the
| jack. Apple has no other reason to leave out a feature
| that adds a convenient redundancy to a common use-case.
| There's literally no other negative to leave out the jack
| other than cost.
| throwaway07650 wrote:
| > There's literally no other negative to leave out the
| jack other than cost.
|
| I believe there is. When designing a product, one always
| operates within a given set of contraints. Removing one
| of the constraints of the design makes it easier to hit
| the rest of the objectives. You might argue that easier
| design = reduced costs but IMO that would be too loose of
| a definition of "costs" in this case.
|
| Consider the lower end of the market: budget phones have
| cheaper cameras, cheaper screens, cheaper processors -
| why? Because these are indeed good targets for cost
| cutting. They all have headphone jacks though. To me,
| that suggests that cost is not the issue here.
| everdrive wrote:
| Does your 7 year old android phone receive security patches?
| Qluxzz wrote:
| Maybe I've been lucky here but my Oneplus One (April 2014),
| now flashed with lineageOS is still receiving updates.
|
| Android version: 10.
|
| Android security patch level: March 5 2021.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| How old is the kernel?
| techrat wrote:
| > now flashed with lineageOS
|
| Your device is not stock and is, therefore, an exception.
| techrat wrote:
| 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.
| Spooks wrote:
| At least for me, I don't do banking on my phone and my main
| email is not tied to my phone.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _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.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| 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).
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That's still not every year though.
| ajyotirmay wrote:
| I don't think so
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| It could be. I have twice been burned by LineageOS. I
| wanted a deGoogled Android phone, but the only LineageOS-
| supported models that were available in my region, and
| which I could afford, had been initially released already
| 1.5-2 years before. Not only was my new phone soon
| abandoned by the manufacturer, it was also suddenly dropped
| by LineageOS after only about a year of my owning it.
|
| The prospect of truly long-term support for years and years
| is one reason I bought a PinePhone and have been keeping
| track of its development. But sadly the current PinePhone
| has too ancient and underpowered a CPU to be useful.
| Solvitieg wrote:
| Many people I know, who are much smarter than me, keep their
| Android phones for 3, 4, 5 years. So I'm not sure this is an
| issue.
| andor wrote:
| It's totally an issue.
|
| There have been tons of critical Android vulnerabilities
| over the last years that cannot be fixed by app updates,
| e.g. remote code execution via Bluetooth stack or MMS.
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| are there really people hunting around preying on old,
| vulnerable Androids? The argument is, there are too few
| of them for any serious actor to waste time trying to
| hack one. It's just not worth it. This makes them pretty
| secure, for the simple reason they are ignored. Obviously
| old Androids are only scarce because the general
| population keep buying the latest. They are essentially a
| buffer zone to protect the Hackers..
| blaser-waffle wrote:
| > are there really people hunting around preying on old,
| vulnerable Androids?
|
| Yes. Because like windows the ecosystem is huge, and
| there are plenty of grandmas who don't know how or why to
| update things.
|
| Much of the world can't afford to replace their phone
| every 2 years.
| bserge wrote:
| 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!
|
| Oooh, even I shudder when reading that! :D
| coldtea wrote:
| It's all fun and games until you get some huge charges in
| your credit card, or your bank details leaked, or some
| fraud is commited in your name with you details and
| everything...
| rchaud wrote:
| It's for this reason that I do online banking and
| investing on my personal laptop. Seeing as how I pretty
| much open both apps twice a month max, I have no need to
| install the mobile app.
|
| I don't use Google/Samsung Pay either. They literally do
| the same thing as the credit + debit card in my wallet.
| But their advertisements would have you believe they've
| somehow reinvented consumer finance.
| nightowl_games wrote:
| After the Target credit card leak and the Equifax leak it
| really doesn't matter anymore. Besides, Visa typically
| just refunds you.
|
| It's really about someone taking an undetected loan out
| in your name, credit card fraud is not a big deal to the
| regular consumer anymore.
| blaser-waffle wrote:
| If you really believe that give me your social security
| number and credit card details.
|
| I won't do anything with em, pinky-promise, but if
| something _did_ happen, it doesn 't matter, right? Just
| talk to Visa.
|
| Like, why lock my car and house doors when insurance will
| pay for it?
| photojosh wrote:
| > Like, why lock my car and house doors when insurance
| will pay for it?
|
| Because you'll have a really hard time with a claim if
| there's no sign of forced entry, since many insurance
| policies are void in this situation?
| olyjohn wrote:
| Name one big leak that would have been stopped by
| patching his phone, patching Windows, running AV, or
| locking his door at night...
| coldtea wrote:
| It's enough to name hundreds of thousands of personal
| leaks that have happened by not doing those things...
|
| If your attitude to security is "I can run my computer
| with unpatched XP with a public IP and sync it to a 7
| year unpatched phone because once in a blue moon some
| credit card company or major business can leak my account
| data there too", then sure...
| olyjohn wrote:
| If its enough to name hundreds of thousands of leaks that
| have been caused by those behaviors, then you should be
| able to name one.
| coldtea wrote:
| Sorry, you want me to name a person who had their
| info/data leaked because of unpatched OS/broswer/mobile?
|
| Might as well ask me to name "one" covid victim, lest
| they're all "actors".
|
| My uncle, for one, had a randomsware attack 3 years ago,
| crippling his (small, construction services) company for
| weeks.
|
| You _are_ aware that there are tons of malware attacks,
| computers controlled as bots (doing mining, DDoS, etc.),
| ransomware, etc, right? Or is this some episode of the
| Twilight Zone?
|
| https://www.csoonline.com/article/2923557/many-
| ransomware-vi...
|
| https://krebsonsecurity.com/2019/12/ransomware-gangs-now-
| out...
|
| https://www.securityweek.com/google-sophisticated-apt-
| group-...
|
| https://www.securityweek.com/sierra-wireless-says-
| ransomware...
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| 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)
| lostmsu wrote:
| 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.
|
| https://github.com/phhusson/treble_experimentations
| boring_twenties wrote:
| 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.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| This is true. Most Android devices run forked kernels
| supplied by manufacturers. Once the manufacturers stop
| updating the kernel, the device is stuck using the old
| kernel forever. I have several phones running LineageOS
| that I use as remotes for my TVs, and they'll never see a
| kernel beyond the 3.x fork the manufacturers released 5+
| years ago.
|
| This issue is indicative of the larger problem ARM SoCs
| pose to consumers: manufacturers choose not to design ARM
| boards with SBSA-like features[1] because it's cheaper to
| do so. While x86 machines have enumerable buses for
| hardware discovery, as well as ACPI support, ARM SoCs
| don't. As a result, mainline Linux kernels won't boot on
| them, they require a kernel fork, and a kernel fork must be
| maintained. Manufacturers have no incentive to maintain
| that fork for more than a year or two.
|
| As ARM SoCs take over what are considered general purpose
| computing devices, like laptops, devices that we once
| thought of as being upgradable, software-wise, suddenly
| aren't. Apple's M1 Macs are an example of this. To get
| Linux running on them is a massive undertaking, and running
| Linux on them in the long-term means relying on a third
| party to build and maintain M1-specific images in
| perpetuity, because the SoCs can't run the generic ARM
| images that ARM servers can run.
|
| There are mitigations against this problem in Linux, like
| Device Tree[2] support, but that is only one small part of
| the big[2] undertaking when it comes to porting Linux to
| ARM SoCs.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Base_System_Archit
| ectur...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_tree
|
| [3] https://elinux.org/images/a/ad/Arm-soc-checklist.pdf
| M277 wrote:
| 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.
|
| What am I missing? This is a genuine question.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| That you have not noticed problems as a result of not
| having security problems doesn't mean that there aren't
| problems, and doesn't mean that there won't be problems.
| Maybe you've lucked out and haven't actually gotten malware
| yet, and maybe tomorrow you open your phone to a ransomware
| message, or maybe you've had spyware for 3 months and just
| not noticed.
| M277 wrote:
| Good point, but wouldn't there have been more pressure on
| the OEMs to increase security patch support if this were
| a widespread issue? Because most do 2 - 3 years.
| watwut wrote:
| Yeah, I buy new phone when old breaks or is not sufficient for
| my needs. No reason to buy more often.
| ravenstine wrote:
| 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.
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| 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)
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| I'm fairly confident in terms of total cost of ownership
| and reliability of a new Focus will outlast the 5 year old
| C class.
| ravenstine wrote:
| I'm pretty sure this isn't as true as it once was. All of
| the used cars I've purchased that were manufactured in
| the last 15 years have been nearly impossible to destroy
| (without outright crashing them) even with extreme
| negligence. Not only that, but they were always in pretty
| good shape. That's just my experience, though. I've still
| not even come close to the cost of buying new versions of
| any of the cars I've owned.
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| Buy one for 15k. It will still be better and i doubt the
| difference will come to more than "total cost of
| ownership".
|
| of course it's a bigger car so more expensive to run. so
| buy a 5yo focus and get the best of both worlds.
| blaser-waffle wrote:
| Yeah, was my thought too. A 2018 Focus will probably be
| pretty reliable, still have some parts under warranty,
| and have a lower TCO than having to insure and repair an
| older Mercedes.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| Not to this extreme, but I try to have a leaner digital life as
| much as possible. I jump early (must have been 10+ years) onto
| the idea of no newspaper, no news, no cable, etc. I don't try to
| preach to others to practice what I do, but I believe it is about
| not worrying about missing out.
|
| I was very digitally involved and was one of those early adapters
| and regular beta-testers of new software, including hardware,
| etc.
|
| People are surprised when I don't carry my phone most of the
| time, not giving out my phone number when ordering tea; some are
| even angry when I say "no phone calls"[1]. I use the phone
| primarily as a camera.
|
| One of the best things was to disable all notifications[2] except
| for the must-haves such as Calendar.
|
| I still use electronics and digital devices, and mediums, but I
| have dumbed them down far enough. I will continue to prune and
| minimize my attachments.
|
| 1. https://no.phone.wtf
|
| 2. [2014] https://brajeshwar.com/2014/missing-step-productivity-
| activi...
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| weird post/experiment. Everything so suspicious, cranky. Certain
| type of relationships..... alot of this comes down to users on
| both ends.
|
| All can be dealt with via moderation/account choices etc. Also,
| when did this take place? Not during the pandemic I don't think.
| Big factor there
| SamWhited wrote:
| I haven't done the smart phone one (though I really should, the
| only reason I don't is that I'd miss Conversations, the messaging
| app I use), but I did give up on social media years ago and had a
| similar experience. When I first deleted Facebook I did have a
| few friends who would constantly get mad at me for not being at
| movie night or something then realize they never invited me
| because they just spammed an invite out on Facebook. This
| actually offended me somewhat as much as it offended them that I
| wasn't there: you care so little about our friendship that you
| couldn't even be bothered to make sure I had RSVPed or invite me
| personally? But after a while people got used to it and it
| stopped changing anything except that I felt better and was less
| angry day to day.
|
| I only recently went back, but instead of any of the big networks
| I went with a Mastodon account from social.coop. It's similar to
| Twitter, but the lack of retweet-comments makes me less likely to
| make snarky replies to things then feel bad about it and wonder
| why I said something I wouldn't normally say in real life
| afterwards.
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