How to Quit Your Smartphone

Re:How to Quit Your Smartphone by ryandrake on Monday February 05, 2024 @02:44AM (#39258374)

I used to value a random encounter with a stranger. Now, the median person is likely to be 1. Disturbed, 2. Obsessed with politics, 3. Belligerent for no reason, 4. Ready to whip out their phone camera looking for “content” or 5. Generally offended/Scared of the idea of talking to a random stranger. The last 3 or so years have turned America into a giant mental asylum and it’s starting to be not worth it to talk to a rando.

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Re:How to Quit Your Smartphone by maccard on Monday February 05, 2024 @03:52AM (#39258824)

I live in an area where people will talk to you as you're walking by. In my experience, no, the median person is not Disturbed, obsessed with politics, belligerent or filming.

I do agree that the last point is true - but see OP's message. I don't want to talk to you in the grocery store. If I'm standing there with Earbuds in, and you make Smalltalk with me, don't be surprised if I totally blank you or seen confused.

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Re:How to Quit Your Smartphone by bandie91 on Monday February 05, 2024 @04:11AM (#39258964)

maybe it's a genuine human-to-human interaction which helps healing these...

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Re:How to Quit Your Smartphone by AstralStorm on Monday February 05, 2024 @04:28AM (#39259098)

Small talk isn't one of these, however. "Third spaces" (guided meeting place that's relatively loose and not work or home) are sorely missing because running one is not very profitable.

By the way, pubs aren't one of those really, as they're too unstructured.

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Re:How to Quit Your Smartphone by JohnFen on Monday February 05, 2024 @11:00AM (#39262552)

"Third spaces" don't have to be (and preferably aren't) commercial spaces where monetization is expected.

> pubs aren't one of those really, as they're too unstructured.

I'm not sure what you mean by "third spaces", then.

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Re:How to Quit Your Smartphone by 15457345234 on Monday February 05, 2024 @03:43PM (#39266875)

They mean church.

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Re:How to Quit Your Smartphone by Syonyk on Monday February 05, 2024 @11:34AM (#39263090)

> The last 3 or so years have turned America into a giant mental asylum and it’s starting to be not worth it to talk to a rando.

It's more than the past 3 years. People really started coming unhinged in late 2016, by my observations. But the trend has been increasing for a while, and I'm willing to point a pretty sharp finger at the various social media, news, etc companies who are enabled in their "pour liquid oxygen on the fires of division for stoking outrage in the pursuit of more ad views" by things like the smart phone - because now someone is connected 24/7, by default.

Host firepit nights and invite people. I've yet to find a better solution to getting good actual conversations going than to have regular firepit nights (right now, I have one a week, and would like to get another few per month going this summer with different groups of people). Yes, some people will look at you like you're nuts, and others will turn into solid friends.

Fundamentally, I don't think we're going to fix the problems of smartphones and consumer tech (in the general "surveillance capitalism" sense) with more of that stuff.

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Re:How to Quit Your Smartphone by jrs235 on Monday February 05, 2024 @04:29PM (#39267472)

I loathe air pods/wireless ear buds more than phones...

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