Read this a moment ago. Screen dependency decimated reading and, consequently, knowledge skills. The culture and ethos of the screen is flat and temporal, very immanent, very now, in some sense very ephemeral.
They certainly don’t hate it :-) I feel bad for their boyfriends putting such long shifts in for the perpetual photoshoot. I see them on the beaches at the islands before I go out and about exploring animatedly taking photographs. When I return to the same beach hours later, the poor guys are still wearily snapping ‘candid shots’, looking exhausted, with the girl having changed into her umpteenth outfit and hat…
I used to often leave the phone at home but now I have to vote for depends on the situation as we have no electricity in the camp so I usually haul it and the laptop and power bank to the nearest 7 Eleven with available chargers to power the devices up. That said such items are rarely on and connected at night due to the above situation and I find that I sleep much better that way! What if there were any emergency in my family? Well my husband sleeps next to me and we seperate so rarely that there is only one phone between the two of us right now. Considering the rest my family is 10,000 miles away I doubt I'd be of much use to them in a timely manner anyways...
I'm closing in on being 61. I can't stand my phone *as a phone.* Its ability to make phone calls is probably its least attractive feature. If I get more than a couple of texts in a row I lose my mind and put it in airplane mode. But I use the camera all the time. When I walked into the chicken coop one day this past summer and found a big rat snake in the nest box with an egg in its mouth my first thought was, "Seriously?" My second thought was, "Christmas letter material." On our property we often have other wildlife worth photographing, like the swarms of hummingbirds (occasionally over 20 at a time) that visit the feeders outside my office window. For some reason the sunrises and sunsets in this part of Texas are often spectacular, and in the mornings our ponds generate fog for an even cooler effect. And once in a while the cows and chickens do something worth taking a picture of.
I use iMaps all the time, often just to "tour" places. Last week I visited the Scillies, then followed the southwest coast path north along the Cornish peninsula, which eventually led to reading about beam engines. Wandering around Scotland last year I found Martello towers and read up on those. If anyone tried to teach me that stuff in school it went right over my head, but there it is on the phone--iPad, really; it's easier to view. When I do use iMaps for turn-by-turn directions I do a sadly Boomer thing of writing the directions down on paper before I leave, because it's so much easier to read and doesn't require being heads-down in the car. And I don't miss laboriously making cassette tapes and CDs of my music.
One of the most life-changing things about the phone is the white noise app I put on it. I have misophonia and it's done nothing but get worse with age. I can't walk into a store without earplugs, earbuds, and the white noise playing. It's probably the one thing that keeps me from being shut in entirely. Driving with a way to call for roadside assistance without leaving the car and possibly hiking for miles is reassuring. Psychologically, the phone functions the way my gun does: I'm even less likely to need the Sig than a tow, but I don't leave the house without that, either.
Of course, there are just as many things to deplore and despise about the phone, including its ability to spy on me, although I minimize that by still having an iPhone 6 and changing the software only when it becomes nonfunctional. And despite living in the information age and having nearly the entirety of human knowledge available to them in a single portable device, people are more stupid and ignorant than ever.
Read this a moment ago. Screen dependency decimated reading and, consequently, knowledge skills. The culture and ethos of the screen is flat and temporal, very immanent, very now, in some sense very ephemeral.
Thai women LOVE the "insta". It's like catnip
They certainly don’t hate it :-) I feel bad for their boyfriends putting such long shifts in for the perpetual photoshoot. I see them on the beaches at the islands before I go out and about exploring animatedly taking photographs. When I return to the same beach hours later, the poor guys are still wearily snapping ‘candid shots’, looking exhausted, with the girl having changed into her umpteenth outfit and hat…
Thanks for posting on this vital issue.
And thanks for mentioning TriTorch - missed already.
I used to often leave the phone at home but now I have to vote for depends on the situation as we have no electricity in the camp so I usually haul it and the laptop and power bank to the nearest 7 Eleven with available chargers to power the devices up. That said such items are rarely on and connected at night due to the above situation and I find that I sleep much better that way! What if there were any emergency in my family? Well my husband sleeps next to me and we seperate so rarely that there is only one phone between the two of us right now. Considering the rest my family is 10,000 miles away I doubt I'd be of much use to them in a timely manner anyways...
Apologies for typos, now fixed I think. Any suggested corrections welcome.
I'm closing in on being 61. I can't stand my phone *as a phone.* Its ability to make phone calls is probably its least attractive feature. If I get more than a couple of texts in a row I lose my mind and put it in airplane mode. But I use the camera all the time. When I walked into the chicken coop one day this past summer and found a big rat snake in the nest box with an egg in its mouth my first thought was, "Seriously?" My second thought was, "Christmas letter material." On our property we often have other wildlife worth photographing, like the swarms of hummingbirds (occasionally over 20 at a time) that visit the feeders outside my office window. For some reason the sunrises and sunsets in this part of Texas are often spectacular, and in the mornings our ponds generate fog for an even cooler effect. And once in a while the cows and chickens do something worth taking a picture of.
I use iMaps all the time, often just to "tour" places. Last week I visited the Scillies, then followed the southwest coast path north along the Cornish peninsula, which eventually led to reading about beam engines. Wandering around Scotland last year I found Martello towers and read up on those. If anyone tried to teach me that stuff in school it went right over my head, but there it is on the phone--iPad, really; it's easier to view. When I do use iMaps for turn-by-turn directions I do a sadly Boomer thing of writing the directions down on paper before I leave, because it's so much easier to read and doesn't require being heads-down in the car. And I don't miss laboriously making cassette tapes and CDs of my music.
One of the most life-changing things about the phone is the white noise app I put on it. I have misophonia and it's done nothing but get worse with age. I can't walk into a store without earplugs, earbuds, and the white noise playing. It's probably the one thing that keeps me from being shut in entirely. Driving with a way to call for roadside assistance without leaving the car and possibly hiking for miles is reassuring. Psychologically, the phone functions the way my gun does: I'm even less likely to need the Sig than a tow, but I don't leave the house without that, either.
Of course, there are just as many things to deplore and despise about the phone, including its ability to spy on me, although I minimize that by still having an iPhone 6 and changing the software only when it becomes nonfunctional. And despite living in the information age and having nearly the entirety of human knowledge available to them in a single portable device, people are more stupid and ignorant than ever.