[HN Gopher] Smartphones: Parts of Our Minds? Or Parasites?
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Smartphones: Parts of Our Minds? Or Parasites?
Author : cratermoon
Score : 90 points
Date : 2025-06-20 19:35 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tandfonline.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tandfonline.com)
| Eldar_ wrote:
| https://theconversation.com/your-smartphone-is-a-parasite-ac...
| teekert wrote:
| 30 years ago my math teacher already referred to our calculators
| (Casio fx82s) as "cerebral prosthetics". I've always used that
| for our bicycles of the mind.
|
| Computers change who I am, for example they make me remember
| better and be more punctual. Probably indeed my smartphone messes
| with my ability to hold sustained attention.
|
| But this article. it feels like one of those "why so complicated"
| ones. Why "our consciousness is partly in a machine". It's all
| just a matter of definitions. For example advocates of EMT and
| non-advocates probably just differ in some definition. It feels
| so unimportant. Other than that, nice read.
| piskov wrote:
| Yet most of the people now struggle with some basic
| calculations: "your calculator history is more embarrassing
| than your browser history".
|
| Ie "use it or loose it" kind of vibe.
|
| That's why one of the possible threats of AI is if one would
| "forget" how to reason. Or even worse: brain rewires itself to
| never being able to reason again.
|
| Then again, for me personally it's a very low probability in
| our lifetime: ie no that kind of earth-shattering changes of
| either real AI or, say, nuclear fusion in this century.
|
| However I would love to see long-term studies of someone really
| smart start only watching tictoc, reels and shorts (and doing
| nothing else). With brain scanning and what have you.
| bavell wrote:
| > Ie "use it or loose it" kind of vibe.
|
| > That's why one of the possible threats of AI is if one
| would "forget" how to reason. Or even worse: brain rewires
| itself to never being able to reason again.
|
| The "WALL-E/Idiocracy"-ification of humanity. It won't get so
| bad that we lose our ability to reason, but we're definitely
| losing something. Perhaps it's just our inevitable evolution.
| djtango wrote:
| The Roman legion marched up to 3mph, 18 miles a day bearing
| up to 70lbs.
|
| They did this on considerably less nutrition and with
| smaller frames than your average American today.
|
| The average human doesn't _need_ to be that fit and strong
| anymore. Just like the future human won 't _need_ to be so
| intelligent anymore.
|
| And yet it feels like maybe we shouldn't be giving that up
| so easily...
| teekert wrote:
| Idk, I simply enjoy gathering knowledge and understanding
| things.
|
| Formally educated as a biologist, nobody ever forced me
| to install Gentoo. Or compile kernels, or self-host all
| the things, or read Harari. It was all just curiosity.
| And I believe many if not most people here are like that.
|
| So be careful generalizing I guess I'd say.
| djtango wrote:
| Rightly so - I happen to enjoy staying fit and strong far
| beyond what my life needs of me. I also enjoy keeping my
| mind enriched.
|
| But the reality is that a sedentary lifestyle is the norm
| in the aggregate, despite the numerous people who buck
| the trend
| teekert wrote:
| "I take a gramme and only am."
|
| I always think this when doom scrolling. I just can't do
| it for very long without chiding myself. And now I see
| this generation below me who needs some moment for them
| selves every day: "I'm going to take some me time." And
| what do they do? Take the somma (like YT shorts). It's
| not inducing happiness. I worry sometimes.
| eviks wrote:
| > most of the people now struggle with some basic
| calculations
|
| When was the time "most" didn't struggle?
| piskov wrote:
| I was talking about people in school where those things
| were forbidden vs them again couple of decades later.
| agumonkey wrote:
| as a programmer i always love when i can understand
| algorithms to the point i can do them by hand
|
| same thing for numerical computations, i just watched a
| videos about handmade logarithms tables, and without this i
| don't grasp the concept much
|
| it's a common issue for me that very often if I use a tool
| directly, i don't understand the principles behind and it
| feels all kinds of wrong
| elliotec wrote:
| I think it's important to highlight this part of the abstract:
|
| > modern smartphones are better understood as external to, but
| symbiotic with, our minds, and, sometimes even parasitic on us,
| rather than as cognitive extensions
|
| "Symbiotic with, and sometimes parasitic." It feels like the
| symbiotic bit is more on point overall.
| ethan_smith wrote:
| The symbiotic-parasitic spectrum likely depends on usage
| patterns - tools that augment cognition when used intentionally
| can become parasitic when designed to maximize engagement at
| the expense of user agency.
| endoblast wrote:
| >tools that augment cognition when used intentionally can
| become parasitic when designed to maximize engagement at the
| expense of user agency
|
| Wonderful definition, thank you. It has reach beyond software
| I think, into areas like harmful memes (mental parasites);
| even drug addiction.
| voidhorse wrote:
| Parasites. Period. This thing fills my head with a bunch of
| images from distant warped realities, summoned up out of thin
| air, it clogs my brain with a flood of other voices, it keeps me
| moving constantly from one mental landscape to the next.
|
| It is precisely the fever dream experience of a parasitic host as
| the fiend sucks the life from it.
| api wrote:
| Uninstall social media.
|
| At this point I'm pretty convinced that social media is a net
| negative for humanity with little redeeming quality.
|
| There was a time when it did connect people, like you could
| meet people or find old friends, but that was long ago
| deprioritized or even stripped away. Now it's just a pure chum
| feed that serves up either brain rot trash or political fear
| and rage bait.
|
| TV was always full of crap but it also gave rise to great
| shows, to art and lasting culture. It was a medium of mixed
| value. Social media doesn't even have that going for it unless
| some day people celebrate the great Pepe memes. Everything it
| creates is disposable low effort trash. Nothing worth keeping.
| You could delete it all and everyone would forget a week later.
| voidhorse wrote:
| Hacker news is the only form of social media I use!
| api wrote:
| This is closer to a small forum.
|
| I guess I use some slacks and discords and a few lists but
| that's about it.
| bavell wrote:
| Just HN for me as well. Used to visit slashdot before it
| turned to crap. Got off FB over a decade ago, no other SM
| accounts.
| grugagag wrote:
| Just be aware that people spend more time on HN than they
| really want to, HN even has a no procrastination setting
| where you block the access after some time spent here.
| So, aside dark patterns which HN does not have, it seems
| that the amount and frequency of information that cause
| some kind of dopamine disregulation.
| bowsamic wrote:
| HN is not any better. This site is full of attention
| grabbing mechanisms and clickbait
| pajamasam wrote:
| > TV was always full of crap but it also gave rise to great
| shows, to art and lasting culture.
|
| True. It also bonded people together. I have fond memories of
| watching certain shows and sport matches with my family.
| bavell wrote:
| Is it the phone or is it the internet you're lamenting? Sounds
| like the latter. I think TFA misattributes this as well.
| voidhorse wrote:
| The internet is the venom delivered by the parasite as it
| feeds on my attention.
| simianparrot wrote:
| But it's not an autonomous entity. It's entirely passive if
| you turn it off, or uninstall all the apps that bother you.
| Stop feeding it your attention. Or are you claiming it's
| taken over your agency as well? If so -- and I mean this as
| respectfully as possible -- I'd hope you decide to talk
| with a healthcare professional about this problem.
| endoblast wrote:
| I used to think the same when people spoke of social
| media being addictive, but not any more. Drugs aren't
| autonomous either, however they clearly do remove some
| people's autonomy. I can well imagine now that a person
| could be addicted, particularly if he's grown up with it
| and has used it in the past to avoid facing his problems.
|
| _"Thus, a good man, though a slave, is free; but a
| wicked man, though a king, is a slave. For he serves, not
| one man alone, but what is worse, as many masters as he
| has vices." -- Augustine of Hippo_
|
| (Not saying anybody around here is wicked just
| remembering a striking quote)
| voidhorse wrote:
| To add to your point, there's science behind it. What
| makes a drug addictive is the fact that, after you
| _start_ using it, certain behavioral patterns move from
| conscious brain centers to habit driven centers. That 's
| what makes addiction so hard to break, couple that with
| further biological dependence formation.
|
| I would not be at all surprised if the same phenomenon
| can happen with internet addiction, if maybe in a more
| benign form as far as bodily consequences go.
|
| So no, drugs are not "autonomous" but to act like it's an
| easy matter to simply refuse to do them once you've
| started is an attitude that's shockingly ignorant of much
| of the modern understanding of addiction.
| squishington wrote:
| Hey mate. I don't want to be patronising, but it seems like
| you're suffering a bit and might benefit from some
| professional help. I get it, phones can become a stand in
| attachment figure for people who are experiencing personal
| difficulties. There are ways to overcome this but it
| requires professional expertise. I hope you can get some
| relief from this. These technologies are omnipresent in
| modern life and for many of us it isn't a simple matter of
| choosing to disengage. All the best.
| voidhorse wrote:
| I'm not being entirely serious. I was actually just
| having some rhetorical fun with the analogy, but it's
| sweet that the HN crowd is so quick to move into the mode
| of concern.
| squishington wrote:
| No worries man. I'm a bit autistic so I take things too
| literally sometimes. Can't help it.
| aeve890 wrote:
| >Parasites. Period. This thing fills my head with a bunch of
| images from distant warped realities, summoned up out of thin
| air, it clogs my brain with a flood of other voices,
|
| It does all that by it self? Of course not. This thing is not
| autonomous. Every app that _fill your head_ was your choice to
| install, signup and OPEN every time. It's like saying drugs are
| parasites. Of course they aren't. Your choices made you
| addicted to the thing. What happened to agency? Everyone is now
| a slave of social media apps?
| hsbauauvhabzb wrote:
| Tell that to all the bloatware pre installed on my phone. And
| my windows computer.
| VonTum wrote:
| As for bloatware-free phones: Fairphone. I've been using
| one for more than 4 years now, replaced the screen after
| dropping it, and I bought an extra battery to keep my gps
| alive on long ski trips.
| topspin wrote:
| Pacifiers. For a while I watched dash cam video from police car
| chases. I'm over it now, but one interesting thing frequently
| happens: officers yank the drivers out, get them on the ground
| and cuff them. In most cases, the drivers are yelling about
| their phone. "My phone!" "My phone!" Cars is wrecked, they've
| got knees pressing them into the dirt, frequently injured,
| facing all manner of charges, and the _one thing_ they care
| about it some phone.
|
| After sitting in the patrol car for a quite while, some officer
| opens the door to speak with them. Immediately: "Can I get my
| phone??"
|
| Sometimes they'll still have a phone after being cuffed and
| detained. They will nearly dislocate joints to thumb their
| phones continuously while cuffed. They _will not stop_ until
| someone takes it.
|
| I don't know...
| npteljes wrote:
| Might be that they are trying to contact somebody? Phones are
| also communication devices.
| pxmpxm wrote:
| You know that is you, not the phone, that is desperately
| looking for a distraction and a different reality.
|
| I don't understand why it's ever so trendy to do this
| performative i-have-minimal-agency-in-my-existence bit when it
| comes to smartphones; swap that last word with "TV" and the
| same people professing it would smirk - presumably because
| that's an old timey, rather than a tres trendy, thing to be
| part of.
| metalman wrote:
| example, find that pic, or file,aaaaaaaaand anyway it's there
| somewhere.....I think example, try and create a file or take a
| pic,ooops too late droped your phone, and oh right, exactly what
| format that is universul, never mind, no point, it's someone
| property and closed tech that dictates who, when, and where you
| can exchange information with. search is completly broken it's
| like bieng stuck in a maze that is activly working against you,
| and it is even odds that a dog eared encyclopedia and a telephone
| book can yield acceptable results
|
| always almost never quite right
| roenxi wrote:
| I've read the abstract and disagreed with it enough that I don't
| want to read the article proper.
|
| 1) The abstract appears to be an opinion piece; I don't know how
| they do things in philosophical journals but I would hope for a
| dryer standard.
|
| 2) Nature is really messy - it'd make sense if parts of our bodys
| were actually parasites. The immune system, gut flora, skin mites
| are all obvious places where foreign hostile bodies might
| colonise then integrate into humanity over time. If an addition
| has any benefits evolutionary pressure will eventually cause it
| to become symbiotic.
|
| 3) Humans are _by design_ easy to manipulate. We 're social
| animals built to group up behind leaders and do what they say.
| There are brutal social hierarchies where low status humans live
| relatively unpleasant lives because high-status humans think that
| is reasonable. We're not built to unthinkingly optimise out own
| personal outcomes of make all the decisions ourselves. Humans
| being manipulated is not, in and of itself, a hint that things
| are going wrong.
|
| 4) "It is not plausible for a part of the cognitive system to be
| designed to thwart the goals and desires of the user in the way a
| smartphone is" - it absolutely is, the #1 enemy of most people is
| their own mind. It leads them to do wildly stupid things. There
| are people who spend their entire lives working to overcome their
| own cognitive systems to achieve peace and happiness.
| MailleQuiMaille wrote:
| And now, I disagree with you ;)
|
| > Humans being manipulated is not, in and of itself, a hint
| that things are going wrong. If a car can be stolen, should it
| be stolen ? If a dog can be beaten, should it be beaten ? I
| don't think because something is fragile that it should be
| broken, on the contrary. We should recognize the delicacy of
| our species and design around it. That'd be a sign of evolved
| behaviour , I'd reckon.
|
| > the #1 enemy of most people is their own mind Again, define
| the << mind >>. Is it really the mental space people live in
| that is the problem or the culture, teachings, bullyings and
| programmings that have been thrown at them since birth that are
| maladaptive ? I'd argue that the mind is fine, given what it
| can do and that it is just a tool. It is what we do with it
| that matters and since birth, we've been hijacked to fit in
| society.
| ttctciyf wrote:
| > Humans being manipulated is not, in and of itself, a hint
| that things are going wrong.
|
| Well, if this is meant to counter the abstract's claim that:
|
| > Modern smartphones are designed to manipulate the attention
| and behaviour of users in ways that further the interests of
| the corporations that built them. In this they are importantly
| different from resources typically associated with the extended
| mind--such as notebooks, Scrabble racks and maps--which are not
| designed to manipulate or exploit users
|
| I think it falls a little short of refuting a claim that _in
| this particular case_ things are going somewhat wrong.
| lolive wrote:
| [disclaimer: did not read the article , but hey welcome to
| HackerNews comments!] Small comment regarding augmented self via
| technologies: I received feedback from my colleagues that
| Obsidian [a famous note taking app] was overkill and a waste of
| time to fill, during all our endless meetings. Guess what? 3
| years after I joined the company, my [bunch of notes, aka a]
| vault is probably more focused and insightful than 99% of the
| wikis, Google drives and spreadsheets my company struggles to
| govern. Plus I can find equally what was said yesterday, or the
| knowledge transfer of a now retired ex-colleague from 2023 whose
| knowledge is now crucial to our work. Ater realizing that my
| obsession for note-taking was more good than bad, my team will
| soon start a common Obsidian so we can collectively keep track
| and retrieve the information that flows in our corporate brains.
| We will see whether all that artificial content becomes a part of
| our minds or a parasite of it. [i vote the former]
| dtkav wrote:
| If you're interested in real-time collaboration in Obsidian,
| you might be interested in Relay [0].
|
| (disclaimer: I'm the dev)
|
| [0] https://relay.md
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