Discussions

When I am at work I do not touch my phone (as well as driving lol) my boss is paying me to work not to look at my phone. When I got my first phone there was no phone law and I still didn't answer it in the vehicle, as it was not a priority, the phone was meant as a means of communications. Even though with smart phones you can do more I am not on them all the time but I do like to play games on it in my spare time.  
 
We still have family dinners and phones are not allowed, even in my opinion it is rude to eat a meal with someone and completely ignore them.  
 
My nephews and especially my niece are addicted to technology, they cannot sit for more than 5 moi without getting bored and asking for the phone to play with. And then the volume is too high and disturbs the conversation that the rest of the family is trying to have. Unfortunately, my sister cannot live 5 min without her phone either...  
 
I am a very Tech savy person but it is all about limiting screen time and socializing the kids with actual people. And the good old fashioned books to get those cobwebs out of the brains to teach them how to search for answers the old fashioned way.

I have the entire collection of encyclopedia Britannica in storage if you find anyone born after 1986 with no Wifi capabilities or library card.

And I could add a World Book set to that. My kids still like looking at it, but it takes a lot of space that I don't really have, so it's up for grabs.  
 
These screens were built for addiction. Remember those addictive electronic "pets"? So many people laughed at them or thought that they were a waste of time (and they were). It was just a testing ground/precursor to what we have now.  
 
I appreciate technology...sometimes. Other days, I wish screens didn't exist. Can you imagine the sleep we might get, the more patience there might be, the real relationship building/fixing there would be, the things we would physically get done?  
 
I heard once that when televisions first came out (so first electronic screen) someone's father had said that the devil is in those things and it would destroy families. He was correct, if you think about it.  
 
Couples spent less time doing couples things in the evenings. Families did less activity together. They sat more. They ate meals while watching t.v., causing less interaction at the table. They say that while watching a screen, you mindlessly eat more (if you are eating). It did even more than I have listed. These things are still present and happening, but now with these phones that are no longer just phones, it is that much worse. You can add depression, anxiety, more suicides, & lack of knowing how to properly interact face to face, causing withdrawal from others.  
 
I have my times that I have set aside that I won't touch my phone. I need to do that more.  
 
We restrict our kids with regards to electronic gadgets. They are better off that way, being able to learn real social interaction & explore the world around them. They know how to live apart from the all demanding gadget.  
 
Once each finally gets one, they will be taught responsibility and management and to use it as a tool. The sad thing is, it is like playing with fire. Addiction can happen all too easily.

I’d buy that collection

Technology.  
 
It's here to stay. So if you don't embrace it now, enjoy being out of the loop in a fairly short time.  
 
I found myself confronting this gap recently, oddly enough. I am generally all about tech, and for some reason fascinated by everything in the background. Stuff that no one would likely think about.  
Did you know that most of the Netflix content viewed in this city likely originates on a server within your given ISP?  
It's an interesting solution to the otherwise enormous amount of bandwidth that service would otherwise suck up. And in a sense, it's harkening back to the old days of the service. Content obtained locally.  
 
Where I found trouble, was in things like Snapchat, Instagram and Tik Tok. I know enough about this stuff to know about how these apps are designed to suck up as much metadata as is possible AND with addiction in mind (attention is the hot commodity of this era).  
However:  
 
1.) It's one thing to READ it, and another to actually know what what you are talking about  
 
2.) There is now an age gap between what services people use to communicate.  
 
That second part was my main reason for finally breaking down and learning about Snap and Insta. To be frank, all the old people use text and FB messenger, and the young people use snap and insta.  
 
Bad mobile behaviour can be irritating, and I do my best to fight the urge to grab the device as soon as that sound enters my brain (snap is the worst offender, by far). But as I see it, one should not be entirely blaming the person sucked in by the addicting algorithm.  
 
These things behave essentially like slot machines in their highjacking of our psychological human traits. And these things are being exposed to younger and younger brains. Get em while they are young . . .  
 
The solution isn't to cut off access. The solution is to stop allowing Silicon Valley to maintain this unethical manipulation by way of ignorance in terms of how this stuff works.  
 
In the last few years, the word is slowly getting out, which is nice to see. But the sooner this is dealt with, the better.  
 
Facebook and the current crop of networks used by us OLD people has only been around 10 years, and look how much damage they have already caused.  
 
Edited by Simonwalcal, 2019-12-18 11:39:05

I remember the damage in small town coffee shops being worse than Facebook. People would go there every day just to gossip.