Ask HN: Who has ditched their phone and what is your replacement?

Re:Ask HN: Who has ditched their phone and what is your repl... by Gnarl on Wednesday June 29, 2022 @05:43PM (#31926061)

I have no cellphone. Not since ~2003 when I finally cancelled my cellphone subscription altogether. That was GSM/flip-phone. Never got a smartphone. I have a fancy business landline phone on my desk with an address book, different ringtones (VIP/client, friends etc.) and an answering machine.

I am a freelance consultant for 20 years. I never lost a client or a job over not being reachable by cellphone 24/7. I return emails and calls asap when I get home. When I make appointments to meet someone, I always arrange a plan-b. No phone-call-micro-managing needed, like "where are you standing..?". I arrange beforehand a main meeting spot and an alternate spot. I am patient and can wait 15 minutes, no problem. I print out bus & train time tables, maps of the area with routes marked and have an offline map viewer (Cruiser) on my laptop if needed. That, and a sense of direction is all I need to get around.

The main reason for dropping cellphones is that they give me headaches and other neurological symptoms. Yes, its the RF and I don't care what people think of that. Its the RF.

The other reason for never getting a smartphone is that I had a PalmPilot once (a non-wireless handheld computer), and I would load websites onto it for offline browsing while commuting. Soon I realized that the constant context-switching had fragmented my attention so by the time I reached the office, I could hardly concentrate. Now I carry books and a notepad in my backpack. Much better for my brain.

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Re:Ask HN: Who has ditched their phone and what is your repl... by Boltgolt on Wednesday June 29, 2022 @06:46PM (#31926621)

I just want to note here: There is no evidence that there is such a thing as electromagnetic hypersensitivity. In double blind trials people would experience the same symptoms (headaches etc.) independent of if a router in the room was turned on or not.

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Re:Ask HN: Who has ditched their phone and what is your repl... by Gnarl on Thursday June 30, 2022 @10:16AM (#31932602)

The issue was settled in 1991 in a series of double-blind session where participants could detect exposure with 100% accuracy (link below). What you are quoting is a widespread myth perpetuated through particularly bad science where shrinks (!) exposed different participants to the same frequency/modulation for short periods and expected them to all react in the same way. And when not all reacted equally, they wrote it off as non-significant. Electromagnetic sensitivity doesn't work like that. Reactions are highly individual. In one famously bad study (Rubin et al. 2006), participants had a GSM phone transmitter strapped to their heads and the "sham" exposure was the transmitter signal diverted to a resistor load instead of the antenna - so "sham" was ALSO emitting EMR, although probably less, but apparently detectable by participants. Again, it was written off as participants being unable to distinguish exposure from sham, when both were actual exposure! That's the level of "scientific" idiocy we're up against.

See "Electromagnetic Field Sensitivity", Rea W. et al. 1991: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/1536837910903141...

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Re:Ask HN: Who has ditched their phone and what is your repl... by user_7832 on Wednesday June 29, 2022 @08:09PM (#31927291)

Counterpoint: phones have been shown to warm up brains (1), and it is hardly surprising that amongst the billions of phone users some experience pain/headache from heat (perhaps also indirectly from blood vessel dilation?). So it is hardly surprising for OP to have such an experience.

1.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5952570/#:~:tex.... (Quickly googled result, I'm sure there are better results)

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Re:Ask HN: Who has ditched their phone and what is your repl... by agucova on Wednesday June 29, 2022 @11:23PM (#31928430)

There is a big causal step between "phones slightly warm brains" and "that causes headaches".

Fortunately we don't need to rely on the fact that it would be “hardly surprising” because there is good quality empirical evidence disproving the relationship.

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Re:Ask HN: Who has ditched their phone and what is your repl... by user_7832 on Thursday June 30, 2022 @07:13AM (#31930978)

> There is a big causal step between "phones slightly warm brains" and "that causes headaches".

> Fortunately we don't need to rely on the fact that it would be “hardly surprising” because there is good quality empirical evidence disproving the relationship.

I wish people/you would either be more open minded or at least do a quick Google search. Literally searching for "brain heating headache" got these results which suggest that there is evidence showing a possible relationship. I am not even sure if this conversation is in good faith anymore.

https://www.healthline.com/health/heat-headache https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24581675/

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Re:Ask HN: Who has ditched their phone and what is your repl... by FooBarBizBazz on Wednesday June 29, 2022 @08:33PM (#31927433)

Seems like a useful belief anyway. Even if the RF itself doesn't do anything to his brain, the phone does cause all kinds of attention and addiction problems, so staying away from it is probably good. Say you had some kind of conditioned/psychosomatic thing where you'd throw up whenever you'd drink alcohol. Maybe it's "all in your head" and it could be cured? But it'll keep you from becoming an alcoholic, so why fight it.

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Re:Ask HN: Who has ditched their phone and what is your repl... by b20000 on Wednesday June 29, 2022 @08:17PM (#31927345)

ThERe iS nO EvidEnCe… my wife has the same problem

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Re:Ask HN: Who has ditched their phone and what is your repl... by 2rsf on Thursday June 30, 2022 @08:58AM (#31931801)

It's not just the lack of evidence, the air around your wife is saturated with electromagnetic radiation at different wavelengths and powers, so unless you live far away from civilization or in a sheltered room or bunker than it is probably not radiation sensitivity, otherwise she would have suffered all the time.

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Re:Ask HN: Who has ditched their phone and what is your repl... by b20000 on Thursday June 30, 2022 @10:11AM (#31932549)

when my wife uses her cellphone she can feel it in her head even when she is just holding the phone in her hands. she has no issues otherwise.

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Re:Ask HN: Who has ditched their phone and what is your repl... by stoplying1 on Thursday June 30, 2022 @10:08AM (#31932512)

And indeed, that doesn't really mean anything to anyone and it's amusing that you assert an anecdote in response to requests for data but I guess I expect too much from people these days. Just whatever sounds good and plausible to them is enough.

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Re:Ask HN: Who has ditched their phone and what is your repl... by b20000 on Thursday June 30, 2022 @10:09AM (#31932526)

this is not a PhD defence, sorry

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Re:Ask HN: Who has ditched their phone and what is your repl... by hn_version_0023 on Wednesday June 29, 2022 @10:28PM (#31928152)

What’s that saying? Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence?

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Re:Ask HN: Who has ditched their phone and what is your repl... by agucova on Wednesday June 29, 2022 @11:24PM (#31928436)

That was probably a mistake on their part, considering that he points to such evidence in the phrase that follows.

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Re:Ask HN: Who has ditched their phone and what is your repl... by b20000 on Wednesday June 29, 2022 @08:15PM (#31927326)

this man is a fucking legend. learn from him kids.

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Re:Ask HN: Who has ditched their phone and what is your repl... by prash_ant on Thursday June 30, 2022 @11:01AM (#31933249)

I am interested in knowing more about your fancy business landline phone.

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Re:Ask HN: Who has ditched their phone and what is your repl... by Gnarl on Thursday June 30, 2022 @02:48PM (#31936800)

Siemens Gigaset DL500A. Has DECT & bluetooth, but that can be disabled. Has ethernet also.

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