Yet, many apps on it are addictive, that i would prefer not to be. Those things I don't want in my life, just like access to drugs. But it is tough, as these apps are mostly connected with other people, friends mostly... and i want that too.

It sounds like your phone is preventing you from the very normal human interactions that made society pleasant.

There’s no amount of asserting that others are uninteresting that can convince me that a society is better when strangers only interact transactionally.

I'll add that not everyone needs to learn a language to make use of wordbooks and translation apps. Vacations exist. Temporary work assignments exist, the sort of which are much shorter than the time it would take to learn a language to even an intermediate level. Heck, my required language classes lasted 2 years at 18 hours a week of classroom time, which is definitely longer than work assignments.

And no, forced pleasantries at a gas station doesn't make people friendly. Plus it is labor for the cashier. I shouldn't be shamed for not paying attention to everyone on a bus and listening to music instead. This stuff isn't people being nice, it is people doing obligatory thing. A heart-felt thanks isn't the same as the one your mother made you say - greater society is similar. And I'll add that it isn't really making society pleasant: That sort of smalltalk isn't universal. I moved from the US Midwest to Norway, which really hasn't expected folks to chat up cashiers or talk to strangers on the bus. Society here isn't unpleasant, though.

It also demonstrates respect for people of the country you're traveling to.

> Looking stuff up saves money and time if you use it correctly.

Living in a pod like in Matrix saves money and time too, if anything it's the most optimal way to live

Side note… I find it kind of ridiculous that my comment got flagged. There are many similarities here. Higher level entity controlling your existence, world entirely dictated by that entity, “true self” just temporarily existing in the provided world but it’s not the “primary” plane of existence. I really struggle to see how this is problematic to discuss.

It is far less intellectually lazy as pointing to the matrix as an attempt at strawmanning against phones, imo.

Did you get this opinion from others, or is this your own rationalization?

  Living’s mostly wasting time
  And I’ll waste my share of mine
  But it never feels too good,
  So let’s don’t take too long.

I really just want to know though: is this something you have decided makes you more pleasant to be around, or have others told you it?

If you need to suppress your thoughts by using a tool while being alone and not doing something (to be pleasant), maybe you should do something about these thoughts rather than suppress them?

Also, sometimes when you're waiting at the doctor's office you're waiting for important news that would trigger anxiety in the healthiest among us, and distracting yourself is a great strategy in those moments.

I also prefer to read books in these situations, or face with the thing which makes me uncomfortable. I don't like to have a puddle of thoughts which fester and attack at the most inconvenient times, making my life harder than it should be.

Not everyone is scrolling through endless feeds, either - I'm more likely to play a game. There are more than two things you can do with a phone.

The main issue with waiting is that I'm just waiting. I don't like waiting and don't don't see an issue with doing something so the time passes more quickly.

If you don't like something and have the tools to make it a little better, why would you not use them? Especially if it makes you a bit less irritated if they are running late - it makes things better for everyone.

You might believe that, a lot of people do. However, from what I understand the actual science doesn't support is assumption.

In short, for eons, humans lived in the shadow of boredom. The brain evolved in that context. That is, life without boredom has no historical precedent. When boredom is habitually removed you are doing the brain a disservice. You are stifling creativity, insights, and other growth that comes from the seeds planted by boredom and "down time."

Put another way, the convenience of constant access to your device comes with an opportunity cost. And often we're too distracted to consider the loses due to that cost.

Just because someone passes time while waiting doesn't mean they don't have downtime. I can entertain myself while in a position of waiting and still have downtime each day - I cook and clean and take walks and things. And I promise I still have creativity. It allows me to do non-representational art.

The reason I'm more pleasant is simply because I'm not annoyed at the waiting bit - which isn't a thing with most downtime.

I*m not sure everyone in the past was bored. There was stuff to do then, too, and some of that boredom was discouraged. After all, we got sayings like "Idle hands are the Devils playthings"

Please feel free to revisit your answer once you've done the necessary amount of research.

"There was stuff to do then, too, and some of that boredom was discouraged."

Yup! This ^^^ is exactly the point. Prior to that something (constructive?) to do, there was boredom. Pile on enough boredom and the brain finds "answers". And the opposite is true...no boredom...no answers. So we agree then.

The problem here is, your timelines are too short and your extrapolations too shallow. Perhaps that's a symptom of a lack of boredom. See?

I've sat here and taken fixed something annoying - waiting for appointments. I fix that by doing things like playing low-effort games. You seem to think this is about "losing control" or something and it isn't like that. If you lower the amount of things that annoy you - and there always will be those things - of course you are more pleasant. You know, in a general sense. It isn't like I'm sitting here treating the staff badly. I'd get worse service - I'm an immigrant, and I really don't want things to go awry.

You've obviously misread. It isn't like I don't have boredom. I know boredom well enough to know that it isn't all productive or even possibly productive.

I don't think that everyone just "finds answers".

Creativity and "Answers" requires more than simple boredom - boredom isn't a magic pill. Heck, you don't even need actual boredom, just time for your mind to wander while you are doing something with low mental effort. Again, this doesn't mean games while waiting at a doctor's office are bad.

- In my daily commutes, I dedicate my smartphone screen time to creating art and short animations.

- If I ever do feel the urge to read news, I'll pull up HN via the Harmonic app. If I stumble upon an interesting post with healthy comments threads, I'll bookmark it to read on a properly sized screen when I return home.

- My monthly data plan is purposefully capped at 4GB. I use an app firewall to whitelist the most essential apps while everything else is blocked by default from accessing cellular data.

- I don't use streaming services at all but I do occasionally pre-fetch longform podcasts for later consumption. I also disable all phone notifications and wear a "smartwatch" to tell time, track my step counter and monitor barometric pressure in that order.