As an elder millennial, riding the subway in NYC without a smartphone was fun. You’d just memorize the trains you’d have to take to get to your destination or talk to strangers and ask which way to go. It’s less complicated than you think. We’ve become so dependent on our phones that we feel a false sense of incompetence when it comes to existing without it in the world.
I’m 25 and usually avoid using my phone when traveling on the Tube or navigating around London. I’ve noticed that this approach allows me to see and experience so much more. My phone is there as a backup in case I get truly lost, but nine times out of ten, I don’t need it—and I enjoy the mental stimulation and problem-solving that comes with it.
You mean you actually experience the real world when you don’t have your face stuck in a screen and your brain in a virtual vat? Well gosh, who would ever have thought of that? I feel so sorry for you babies who can’t function without being plugged into your devices . The Matrix was more prescient than we knew.
How is this attitude in any way helpful to the very real problem that is smartphone addiction and the way it is shaping our society and brains negatively.
You think you're not affected? That's a laugh 😂. Go get your brownie points elsewhere (maybe, not online this time?)
I attended Univ. Of Manchester in 1976 for a semester. I got all around the Uk and up to Wales w/o a smart phone. Had a marvelous time and just asked those nice English people for assistance if I was confused.
I am so old (and moved from NYC so many years ago) I don't even understand the problem. Even today, I would know which trains to take..... why need a cell phone?
I was a bit shocked, about ten years ago, to find out that people -- maybe most people -- regularly DO exactly that. And, that they think it's absolutely normal and in fact, necessary, to read texts or notifications in that situation.
I’ve been visiting NYC since a teen from CT. I know which trains go where. And when I exit to the street, normally one should be 50% correct walking in the right direction. I’m always wrong and need to turn around half way up the avenue. And I know if I could understand the direction of the sun this might remedy my problem. Nope. Walk the wrong way then turn around. Unless I ask a stranger, “Which way is uptown?”
Thank you for mentioning asking for help! Asking for help is such a blessing in disguise. It connects you with a stranger, a real person, you make eye contact and maybe , hopefully a smile. What a gift. I long for those moments with others. We are being taught, I'm afraid, to avoid connection with others. A tragedy. We need each other so badly.
I keep several roadmaps of my state and some bordering states in my vehicle and plan out my travel using the appropriate one(s). If I’m in an unfamiliar city, I prefer to look up my destination using my smartphone map app, not GPS, if I can help it. But hey, I’m 74 and spent most of my life without smartphones and GPS.
I love actual atlases and road maps. I do use my gps also. We taught our daughter when she was quite young how to read a map. We travelled frequently and she became our navigator. In high school she went to Europe with other students and she was the one who was assigned to use the transportation systems.
I’m an art dealer and I travel one or two times half way across country almost every year. The old AAA map tix have given way thankfully to google maps. I don’t know how I managed driving from CT to Orlando then on to Seattle then home over the period of a month.
I'm from Los Angeles, and we used the Thomas Guide if we ventured into unknown terrain (such as over the hill into the 818). We learned so much more about the city streets than one does using GPS and its limited mapping.
I agree! If I don't have one now, sometimes I screenshot the area and use that. But I prefer one of those old tourist maps, and circling where I want to go. Much more fun!
Totally, I grew up in the PA countryside and it didn’t feel the least bit confusing to just look at the subway map on a trip to NYC as a teen and see where you wanted to go. I actually find the GPS regarding public transit way more confusing. I’ve lived in SoCal now for many years and last night we were at a baseball preseason game at Angels Stadium. The parking is so disorganized that as we sat there waiting to leave I’m like I’ll check the train schedule for future games bc maybe it’ll be way less annoying than sitting in the car 45 mins to leave. I gave up trying to figure it out in Maps app and said I’ll just look up the Amtrak schedule when I get home.
Wrote my first computer program in 1965. Have been an early adopter for most new tech for many decades. Didn't see the need for a cell phone. Got one to assuage nagging relatives. It quickly enabled other people to interrupt me at their convenience. I let the battery die, then put it in a box, somewhere. I have returned to paying attention to the many things that matter to me.
before cell phones there would not be a need to critique cellphones. its okay to critique cellphones through the same media because it makes it much more likely to reach the audience it needs to reach. also i just finished reading this on my laptop actually.
Me, I only read Substack on my computer, the phone feels too small. Maybe, I'm just old. GPS has saved me from getting lost. I'm very prone to losing my way when traveling.
I decided today (before reading this article) to commit to reading my Substack content on the laptop. Giving thought to how to limit your use of the cell phone is do-able. For me, more than anything TEXTING is the bane of cell phone existence. It's the all day texting -- to say nothing, to send emojis, to ask how you're doing (for the 8th time) -- that makes me consider going dumb (phone). :)
I only read Substack on my iPad. Which is a gigantic cell phone, one could argue, but I don’t take it with me everywhere. But I do see your point. Mobile devices have definitely impacted how much we consume.
Nope, not me. I don’t have a smart phone—well to be accurate, a friend did give me their old iPhone but I only used it as a portable camera & wifi occasionally until it no longer operated). I have a flip phone I HATE cuz my old one (a tiny Samsung I loved w/ a slide out QWERTY keyboard, so I could send the occasional text…my flip makes that hard to do) died when 5G rolled out…I only carry it for emergencies..stays in my small bag, ringer muted…lol…folks know not to call me on my cell. Hell, I don’t want to be always available…will let folks know if/when there are times it’s my primary contact phone (rarely). I watch HOW MANY people in public are SO screen-focused rather than just “being” in the real world. 🤦🏻♀️
But. . . how? The author is not speaking out against “cell phones,” (which includes “dumb phones”) and is stating a desire to maintain their smartphone and simply limit its control on their life by allowing it to die each night - allowing for continued consumption of online content via “cell phones” (though laptops, tablets and desktops get the job done quite nicely as well).
You can still watch street interviews from the 1990's where nobody wanted to own a cellphone and nobody felt they needed one to help them live their lives. Cell phones were just for yuppies who all got sick with 'yuppie flu' from the radiation (today we call it 'chronic fatigue' , 'brain fog', 'the stress of modern living' or 'long covid').
Cell phones were not only regarded as unnecessary, but were also considered obnoxious devices. People talking on them on busses or trains were considered anti social.
But of course, all of this is beside the point. The fact is the technology is completely unsustainable because the radiation is toxic to humans and all other biological life. So it's all going to have to be dismantled and thrown in a giant dumpster at some point.
Since consumer cell phones appeared we've already seen a 76% decline in insects, with some regions registering 100% declines. Bees are officially extinct in several US states now. Birds dropping out the skies en masses are now a common occurrence. Epidemics of flu, nose bleeds, brain fog, insomnia, miscarriages etc have been observed around new cell tower upgrades (all of these are known symptoms of microwave radiation poisoning).
Thousands of cell tower workers get so sick they have to leave the industry each year.
None of the major insurers will touch wireless infrastructure with a barge pole, and the wireless industry even warns its own shareholders to expect a tsunami of health related lawsuits in the coming years.
Wireless tech should never have been deployed to begin with. But the technocrats and heads of industry are just as addicted to the power of wireless as the average consumer is. Nobody is thinking straight. Nobody cares about the health and environmental effects, which are already devastating. The last time people thought sensibly about the topic was the 1990's, when just about everyone thought wireless was stupid, pointless and probably damaging to health.
The longer we wait before dismantling it and going back to wired technology, the more painful the transition will be. I don't think the heads of industry or the politicians have the good sense to abandon this tech. The media are all bought and paid for too. So it is up to the consumer to do the right thing :)
People were so much happier in the 1990's, and ironically they were a lot more connected to each other too.
I'm not. People were interacting online in positive ways for years before cell phones arrived. I was part of professional newsgroup -- all text, no images, no video -- where I made friends I still have 25 years later, and I got a contract to write a book.
I used to have to have SOME kind of reading material with me at all times. Sometimes your surroundings require you to stay put and people watching only takes you so far. What sucked is when I finished what I had with me - or just wasn’t in the mood for that particular material.
I spent a lot of time traveling for work before I had a smartphone, and used to spend a small fortune on magazines. Those magazines have mostly withered away.
Joe, I still buy/subscribe to several & when I’ve read them I drop them by my Dr’s office or the waiting area of my local hospital…I’m definitively old school!!!! OK, and old too!
I’m a younger millennial and for me, I was heavy into blogs. I got my first smart phone in 2010, and then, a phone was just a phone. I still read articles, researched blogs I liked and even started my own. In a way we still lived in the Information Age, it was just more intentional…different. My phone was a small addition, but books, bloggers, and niche writers always existed, which is why in part I feel Substack has taken off the way it has.
It's interesting that you say "in a way, we still lived in the Information Age" -- it was very much smack dab in the middle of the Information Age then -- really the golden age of online communication. It was so much fun. Nobody was killing themselves because social media platforms made money from their misery. And the information was so much smarter and delivered so much more efficiently.
Wouldn’t a good step be to just delete the social media apps from our phones? If you want to check Instagram or twitter, you’d have to go to your computer. But if you’re out in the world with only your phone, you wouldn’t be distracted by the apps. You can keep music and gps, and maybe a messaging app if you’re in contact with people without their phone number, but any other distractions wouldn’t be there. I think people forget that you can still go to TikTok.com on a browser; you don’t need the phone app to access everything. If you still want access to these things, you can just limit it to a specific Computer Time, but anywhere that your computer isn’t is app-free. Remember the computer room as kids? Limit it to a specific space and time, rather than anytime and anywhere that we have with our phones in our pockets.
Or, at the very, very least: turn off notifications for anything not absolutely necessary. I can check on Facebook once or twice a week and still keep up with friends. I don't need to know when someone comments or replies. They can call, or maybe text, if they need to get hold of me that day.
Also, even just turning off notifications helps with not getting distracted. You won’t be buzzed all the time, but when you open the app, everything will still be there.
My children live in America, I in Canada. Were it not for that communication, I wouldn't THINK that I need it as much. I turn off my notifications other than Signal, and use WhatApp, for my step daughters here in Canada.
I have a dumbish phone with my Sim card in it. It's Android 9, I have no apps installed on it but If I have to I can do an internet search on it, ie look something up briefly . I take this out and about. At home I tether a smartphone to it , so I make a conscious choice to turn on the mobile hotspot and connect. That one step makes such a huge difference in awareness somehow. Like opening social media on a web browser page instead of an always-on app. I've been doing this two phones thing for 6 months and just recently got my first ever tablet ( TCL Nxtpaper with eye health screen) because I wanna read stuff on Substack in an e-reader format, not be in the mobile phone handheld hug of eye deterioration. Sorry that was long winded but I totally concur. A two- mode or mukti-mode workaround that separates your online and screen uses puts you back in control instead of lost on the IOT..
I did this for a while. I deleted all social apps. Now that I have them I forget about them. Only Substack gets opened daily. I feel sorry for everyone on IG messaging me lol. And I must be one of 200 people on earth not consumed with TikTok. I understand the appeal and tiktok experience is surreal and unmatched in its ability to engaged and predict what you like. Hence me not even playing around with it lol
The hand drawn map reminds me of the one I drew for inclusion in my wedding invitation in the early’80s so guests could find the church and reception. I made a similar one when my sister in law got married. Map reading is an essential skill that used to be taught in elementary school but has been increasingly pared down on the flawed assumption that GPS is the answer to everything. I also got a chuckle thinking about how I once told my (former) spouse that his cell phone was not invited to my birthday dinner. Before that it was his pager— and he was a realtor, not an ER physician. Can’t remember a single bloody real estate emergency 🙃
Our phones are training us. Don't be misled into thinking you are in control; your phone ultimately controls you. It is evolving and will continue to evolve, potentially destroying the aspects of our lives that bring us natural joy, curiosity, creativity, inspiration, and peace. We have become disembodied and disconnected from our humanity by happily giving all of our power to a digital device that promises and teases a better, easier life as it takes away everything we need to have one.
@Catt Berlin .. I understand you feel that way, I guess, but that’s really pessimistic and wrong.. I’m sorry it must be like that to you.. I spend a lot of time at night doing things on my phone but it’s because I want to. Almost all of my day is taken up by work and commuting and picking up my son and cleaning the house and cooking and spending time getting my kids to bed and shopping and stuff.. when I want to relax I do. I’m sad though because I know for millions upon millions of people this isn’t the case.. but what a lie. We act so helpless in this whole situation.. I don’t have as much sympathy as some people on this article are wanting… someone said something to the effect that, “your comment is the reason people would prefer to be online than in the real world.” This is a cop out. Communication is being lost with phones. People aren’t comfortable voicing their opinions against others and they would rather retreat to their phones. Dialogue is being lost. The interplay between ideas. That’s sad, that’s a tragedy too!
Oh goodness, I think we are always in choice about when to look at engage with, turn on, read, listen, etc. As long as we are aware we are in choice, the phone can't make us do anything we don't choose to do. I have stopped looking at social media, other than Substack. And yes, natural joy, creativity, inspiration and peace would be the words I would use to describe how I am feeling after about two months of choosing other options than scrolling.
What's awesome is having a smartphone for when it's needed, and not letting it control you when it's not. Going to extremes is never good, or so I'm learning. Balance is key, and using a device for "downtime" isn't it.
Agreed. I realized that I spent so much time on my phone when I had social media apps like Instagram and Reddit. I deleted both accounts and the apps. I also limit the amount of time I use on my phone since I realize that it's a distraction for what I need to accomplish throughout the day. Plus, if I have free time, I tell myself to use the time of other things, like reading a book or writing in my journal.
Beyond the "dumbphone:" The land line. Which I still have, to go along with my flip phone. In fact I'm going through the process of switching my land line from cable VOIP to Ooma on fiber. Kind of a pain, but the process will be complete in a couple of days. That's the way my wife and I roll.
I so MISS my actual landline….it worked in power outages which are not infrequent in my rural area. When the cost for just local calls and even then was limited to about a 45 mile range topped $50 month (this was years ago) & had to buy calling cards from Costco to make any long distance (even local towns!), I opted to get “internet”/cable cordless (like the cordless part) phone & for my main phone, but stops working w/o power. Still have the landline wall-hung Princess-style phone w/ an extra long handset coiled cord….OH, and also have a vintage black rotary phone…both tucked away somewhere…
ATT is the only provider with an actual copper land line available that I'm aware of, and it costs way too much for what services anyone would need. We dropped their actual landline three or four years ago when their bundled services (U-Verse, which was incredibly good, land line phone, and internet) cost exceeded $250/mo, which was more than all our utilities' costs combined. Since then we've been VOIP, when we went to Spectrum, which cost at lot less... at first. As the price went up we cut back on the cable TV offerings, which cost less... at first. Finally, after having their internet service constantly crap out, we purchased ATT fiber, which has just been installed in our neighborhood. Coincidentally, the day I was about to purchase a plan online, an ATT salesman knocked on our door and I purchased the service through him, getting a better deal. ATT's policy with fiber plans states your monthly price will never increase; hard to believe, we'll see. Now I'm getting seriously fast speeds (6X what I had with Spectrum) for much less money than Spectrum's crappy service. So now we have Ooma VOIP for our "land line," which means we'll have to buy a new walkie phone which has multiple handsets because internet phone services don't have the power required to connect all the phones in the house over the old 2/4 wire copper line. The number we've had for over 23 years when we built our house will be ported (transferred) to the Ooma account on April 2nd, and we'll be good to go. The initial cost will be less than $200, and Ooma's monthly charge is zero dollars. So after less than five months I'll be ahead of the game.
From your perspective, VOIP is iffy because of power losses, and since you're remote, fiber isn't likely to be available for years. I would venture that having a "smart" phone would be your best option; I just need to get a new UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) for my computer Ooma base station, and I'll be good to go.
So, to sum up a long story, I miss my old land line phones, too. All the rotary dials went away when my Dad passed in 2004, and the trusty Sony push button I bought in 1987 that's sitting here in my office will go into some nostalgia storage box in the garage. Things inevitably change; they rarely get better.
I'm a retired physician/psychiatrist and author of "Stress R Us", available FOR FREE as a downloadable PDF out at Stanford. I have an antique flip phone and refer to I-phone owners/addicts as ""I-phonies", or "half-wits", as they scroll their way past everything worthwhile in life. The ever growing energy requirements for all this electronic junk is driving global heating and climate collapse. Mother Nature: "problem solved".
I have a flip phone as well... And a land line. Notsosmart phones lead to cognitive decay, at least by the evidence of our culture's condition. I'm livin' in the past and loving it.
Meridee, yes! I look at vids/TV coverage of, say, a concert & seems like everyone is filming and/or watching the program through their phone! What?! Put down the damn phone, be “present” and pay attention!!! smh….🤦🏻♀️
There are reasonable uses of smartphones but they're the exception to the rule. I don't own a smartphone but monitor my blood glucose levels for Type II with a separate dedicated device. But I don't need constant monitoring the same way you do. Plus I work from home- if I had to go into an office carrying multiple devices around it would be more of an issue.
Your reply shows you don't understand the difference between Type 1 or Type 2, or why it's important to monitor blood sugar via CGM and a smartphone. I also have blood testing kits as a backup when this tech backfires. I started out on urine tests in 1977, so don't come on here trying to tell me something about this disease you think I don't know. Also, with modern Type 1 care, some people have to connect their insulin pumps to their smartphones. Really, you have no idea of the importance of what I'm talking about in terms of modern care protocols. That's painfully obvious.
My mother uses her iPhone to read her continuous glucose monitor as well. She's 94 and has had t2d for about thirty years (t1d also runs heavily in the family). The cgm has been a godsend as far as I'm concerned. She was doing her own finger pricks several times a day until about 18 months ago when she finally made the switch. The cgm is so much better.
I’m pre diabetic or on the diabetic fence. Number II. I now watch everything I eat. No sugar. No fruit juices. Make my pizza with whole wheat flower. But for my up coming birthday, im going to eat a cannoli maybe two, lol. Because I’m half Italian and I need at least one pleasure left in life.
I'm Type II and have discovered certain sweets that I can eat in moderation without spiking my blood sugar levels- chocolate, cheesecake, and ice cream. Cannolis aren't too bad- the fat and the protein in the ricotta cuts the sugar.
Oh really? I’ll check into that. I would die for chocolate cake. Well that can be arranged literally I guess. I do eat sugarless ice rea once in awhile. It’s still high In cholesterol
Bill, you should enjoy your cannoli! I belong to several Type 1 groups on Reddit. But there are many groups for all types, including pre-diabetics. Lots of really helpful advice and info on meds. Who does what diet, how a type 1 drank too much because of a celebration , how a type 2 decided to take metformin, etc. You might already know about these groups, but if not, just look through Reddit and see what you can find. I find them helpful.
Thank you for the info. I’m not a big joiner of groups but thanks. I’ve been taking metformin for a few years. I often run. I eat the right foods. I make simple Lipton tea then refrigerate it and it’s my go to drink with lemon. I love drinking water, lol. Of course the wine and beer in measured amounts. I don’t have a problem because I follow the rules. I know type one is more serious.
My husband had a glucose monitor and of course used his phone to check it. I think it’s a great tool! It is a good use of the smart phone. My issue is when people are on it all the time simply scrolling or whatever and there is no real communication between people.
I am purposely spending time looking around, putting the phone away, going for walks, seeing people. I’m now at a hotel with family. Everyone on phones not speaking to each other so I went for a walk to check out the hotel. Just to get out and maybe among the living. I thought about hanging out in the bar and just chatting with people to see what would happen! Maybe I’d meet someone interesting. Cuz being in a room with someone who does not talk to me and is busy on their phone makes me feel really lonely.
As an aging Boomer, I know it's a redundant statement, I knew life before Smart phones, and while googling info and internet commerce makes finding what you are curious about or want to buy extremely easy, life was better without them; the experience of going to the library or a brick and mortar business, got you out of the house and amoug other people. I also have been aware that in one day, the Internet exposes you to more scams, than many pre internet did in a lifetime. Then there is social media, that has created more loneliness and mental illness than ever existed in history. But I feel all this is slowly coming to an end and the culprit will be AI. AI is an internet gimmick were you can't tell reality from fantasy, but it only works on the Internet. What I mean is if you are living offline and in the real world, you will probably have limited contact with AI in any real sense, because you will be forced to deal with real people in real social interactions. As one ages, one realizes that the only thing that matters in the world is our relationships with God and those people closets to you. After that is the circle of contacts you have with work associates and merchants; but unless you actually go to work or to a brick and mortar store, these relationships are easily replaced with AI, making them no longer real, so they eventually are rendered unimportant, and must make way for experiencing real people and real experiences, in the real world. Dumb phones are a start, but I remember a time when if you weren't home, no one could contact you by phone and I don't see that as a problem either.
Please be open minded and realize that a lot of people do not have a relationship with God, or believe differently and don't hold it against them. That is true Christianity. Tolerance.
Gads Meridee. Your lecturing speedbiker is inappropriate. He merely made an observation about life, saying that as one ages one realizes the things that matter are one’s relationship to God and those close to us.
Obviously, he speaks from his experience as do you of yours and I of mine. There is absolutely nothing in his comment that suggests he is holding anything against anyone, or telling them they have to believe in god. Nor is there anything intolerant or closed minded in his comment.
I, for instance, am an atheist. But there was nothing offensive to me in what he said; I fully understood the words in my heart. I think if you take the words to heart, instead of to mind, you would delete your comment.
Thanks, I find Christians to be some of the most judgemental people. I know a few who really are Christian in behavior but most go to church and then screw around all week thinking they are perfect people. I own my judgement. It’s just the way I think, and mostly ponder a lot before I write. Sometimes I get set off by the people who are “witnessing” to the rest of us. If you read the BIble (I have and been to church every Sunday for 17 years until the hypocrisy did me in…). Example, the very rich people who played like they were volunteering in labor intensive fund raisers like rummage sales, just cruising through and before the sales begin, sweeping up the best buys but certainly not engaging in any work, but still are considered note worthy Christians in the church, they get by with this shit and the rest of the workers know they aren’t supposed to hold anything back and these wealthy individuals break the rules). Sounds like our government doesn’t it? I take umbrage at people who don’t do unto others as themselves, the racists, the misogynists, the people who don’t understand and are therefore afraid of people different from themselves. It’s like they never matured from Jr. High. So as I rant, I find the best religion to be in nature, in creation. Didn’t Jesus say he wanted no edifices built in his name? Look how well that has gone! Big big money in churches. So I have no faith in that type of religion.
Jesus was loving and forgiving to the ultimate extreme, but he was not tolerant.
"On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?' Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers'" (Matthew 7:21-23).
"Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)
Interesting comment because it kind of sounds like Jesus is saying to the crowd, I’m the only show pony here. These other people who preach in my name are all the devil. How does that stack up in the modern church doctrine?
You have to wonder. How many other great philosophers have come and gone and don’t have to be the only show pony?
I always thought being loving was being tolerant. If you are into bible verse quoting you may remember that at one point Jesus said he wanted no buildings put up in his name….look at the Church establishment. The Bible was written by men, not God, with all of their prejudices and plans and politics. Women are not equal. This is patriarchy in the form of religion.
I think Jesus was far too gentle and kind to threaten something like “No one comes to the Father except through me”. That sounds like a translation from a person who wants to scare people into attending his church. $$$$$$
I really wonder why people take the Bible as the word of God. God didn’t write anything. Only people did and you know how people work.
The kind and gentle Jesus is a new age myth. Jesus was forgiving to the extreme but very intolerant of sin and especially the those that used legalism to separate people from God. Keep in mind also that Jesus ministry was to the Jews; he often dismissed gentiles asking for healing, but used their faith as a lesson to Jews who doubted his existence as God. The reason you see a string of Christian revivals throughout history, is the result of people watering down Christianity to the point that it becomes toothless. But the word of God doesn't change and is constantly rediscovered. As far as the Bible being the word of God, it is baked into the trilogy. The Bible was written by people possessed of the Holy Spirit.
I think the BIble was written by people with political ends in mind. Men who translated these writings changed the words to what they thought it should say. Translation after translation, always by men. Christianity is a paternalistic institution. The Bible contradicts itself in the face of current takes on the religion. So do other religions create confusion and are open to “translation”. I just think if you can’t think for yourself, then you belong in a religion. But watch out, you will be separated from your will, your money and your freedom. Religions cause wars, hard feelings in families, (Mormons are great at this, with excommunication) and really a lot of harm. I just want people to be nice to each other. Bradley, how in the world do you really know if Jesus existed in the way he is described, or that this isn’t just as realistic as Santa Claus? See, it’s all in our heads.
I thought about whether to even reply to this, and I finally decided as a Christian I should. Consider we live a a world with more creature comforts than has ever existed, yet people are more miserable than ever before. Also consider that doubting the existence of God is a new concept that has never before existed in history. The fact remains that the moral world you live is based solely on Judeo Christian beliefs, whether you believe in God or not, you would not tolerate anything otherwise. The moral laws, Christianity says are written on our hearts (such as the 10 commandments) are pretty much universal throughout the world. The point being these laws, rather than a conspiracy to enslave the human race, dictate a mode of behavior that kindness, loving, caring, respecting human dignity and if followed give a human being the best possiblity of living a positive life in a world that is and always has been impossibly difficult.
When Friedrich Nietzsche stated "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him", he was mourning God, expressing fear of the decline of traditional religious belief, its impact on Western society and the results of nihilism that will result in the destruction of the human psyche unless a replacement could be found. If you are truly interested this is an old Jordan Peterson YouTube that discusses the affects of Christianity on human culture. https://youtu.be/dfvVu7__vy0?si=LOje9WmB72maNB2G. Further the book Mere Christianity, by CS Lewis is an interesting read.
People have always doubted God. An interesting thought is how did God supervise the Salem Witch Trials? We as people have used religion to justify some heinous stuff.
I get that you are a Christian, but you only highlight the good and not the bad things that happen when a people embrace a religion and use it to become a clique of people who only are into themselves and their beliefs and do not open a window to accept some real problems that go along with their beliefs. Actually it is false to say that this religion has been present for all time. You forgot the other half of the world that has been quite happy with variations of the Muslim faith, Buddhism etc. There are religions that encompass nature not a single deity. I fear the Christian with blinders on. I fear the person who professes faith but doesn’t believe. I fear the person who aligns themselves with believers to use them.
I appreciate your thoughtful reply. The ten commandments are about as common a denominator in the world for moral behavior, and surprisingly common in most big religions, accepted as behavior to strive for but they do not call them the ten commandments in other religions. No, Christianiy is not the first nor the last religion to take hold. It has been bent and folded to help people make money off it. It is a brainwashing. I will not let my spirituality be hurt by the hypocrisy I see in organized religion. I follow the Tao for the most part. There is no deity, it is more of a philosophy and it is not nihilism. I really doubt that doubting the existence of God is a new concept. Do you think the American Naive tribes bought it hook line and sinker? OF course not, it was forced on them. IF anything, putting native Americans in “Chrisitan schools” was more of a way of diminishing the tribes by horrific conditions and treatment of their children. This is where religion gets ugly.
And as Hamlet said, 'there's the rub". The exetential morality that often ties humanity is by necessity filtered through the human condition. Nietzsche felt, that with God being dead, society would have to develop its own moral code, but mankind is simply too self centered for such an endeavor, so it turns into some form of equity, which is a form of enslavement.
Not sure what comment you were responding to. Tolerance is a human trait based on the belief that no one can know everything. IOW, it is the acceptance of, or often passive disregard of a belief system other than your own. Jesus knew he was God, and there was only one way to the heaven, and that was thorough him. Jesus had numerous chances to renouce who he was or to pretend, not to be God but he never waivered even though it meant his death. He did this out of love, for to be tolerant of any other belief system would have doomed mankind to eternal hell, because he knew there was only one way.
Sorry. I was replying to Meridee. But I see that I misunderstood her. I thought she was exhorting you to embrace God, whereas she was remonstrating with you for having mentioned God, as if your doing so was somehow an attack on others who do not. Oy! Did I blow it. 😂
I know this isn’t the point of this article, but I think you touched on another macro problem in the setup story…. the bachelor/ette parties.
This is a symptom of systemic narcissism (which applies to cellphones as well). The fact that brides and grooms feel comfortable asking their friends to budget for, take time off work and family, often weeks or months before their wedding is a huge problem with our culture.
My husband and I were invited to a bachelor party as we were friends of the groom at an already destination wedding in Hawaii (no one was from Hawaii). I got the email and I was stunned, the sticker shock plus the sheer exhaustion of a day this full that started with a dawn hike up diamond head. I emailed back saying that $900 was way too much when we’ve already bought plan tix and somewhere to stay for the week. I will not pay $80 to “sleep in a hammock at the AirBnb”. Plus if I’m doing a dawn 3 hour hike up thousands of stairs that’s the ONE thing I’m doing that day.
The person emails back THE ENTIRE GROUP commenting on how we can’t afford it and so we won’t be at these activities of the day.
The fact that this person thought this whole thing was completely normal is the macro problem. This narcissistic culture of “you have to put your family in dire financial straits if you’re not balling like me (or don’t want to go into debt over this) to be a part of my special day” is INSANE. I’ve already not been a part of another expensive bachelorette getaway and am just waiting for a wedding in a year and a half to see what that will be.
We need to stop saying yes and continuing this kind of behavior that can only function under a fiat system.
I recently went on a trip without a cell phone since my husband has one he uses for work, but I'm always at home or with him until this trip. So I would look up maps on my tablet, memorize key points of the route and off I went. It made the trip much more entertaining and the only time I had to turn around and double back was the first day when I was out exploring plus deciding what I wanted to eat after a noon time flight where I only had shortbread cookies.
I'm currently leaving my phone at home for a month, and as the month is coming to an end, I definitely want some type of smartphone in my life, but I've realized I need to be way more diligent and vigilant about how I use it (and how I don't).
I’m a born the last year of the boomers guy and recently retired. I purposely leave my phone at home for certain excursions out. Breakfast with my wife, trips to the grocery store at 0600 (with a hand written list), mountain bike ride, a walk outdoors are just a few.
I did all these things BEFORE cell phones existed. I have no issue with existing without one.
Don’t get me wrong, there are many facets in which I fully enjoy my device, podcasts and music are two, directions are convenient. But I have books, read maps and play an instrument.
I existed before Walkman and CD’s as well. In fact I never grew up watching color tv. I didn’t own my first tv until I was 21, it was a color 12”, rotary dial with rabbit ears antennas. The anchor weight tube was $300!
I’d prefer no phone, as soon as my wife retires I plan on us going someplace simpler and will let my wife do the phone stuff. I’m sure I’ll have a flip phone. But desire nothing more…. Just LESS
As I have gotten older and single I find that my Iphone is what I carry for emergencies. It's not fun to be lost without Mapquest to bail me out either. I'm not in NYC I have to drive around in Southern Ca. It's a tool but not entertainment for me. I love people who silence and put away their phones while they are in restaurants. It's good manners.
Sounds great and I’m sure your wife very much appreciates meals out with you and not the phone. I’m also a boomer and lived without a cell phone for many years. As you say it has its place but can’t we put it away when we should be connecting with the people in our lives?
As an elder millennial, riding the subway in NYC without a smartphone was fun. You’d just memorize the trains you’d have to take to get to your destination or talk to strangers and ask which way to go. It’s less complicated than you think. We’ve become so dependent on our phones that we feel a false sense of incompetence when it comes to existing without it in the world.
I’m 25 and usually avoid using my phone when traveling on the Tube or navigating around London. I’ve noticed that this approach allows me to see and experience so much more. My phone is there as a backup in case I get truly lost, but nine times out of ten, I don’t need it—and I enjoy the mental stimulation and problem-solving that comes with it.
You mean you actually experience the real world when you don’t have your face stuck in a screen and your brain in a virtual vat? Well gosh, who would ever have thought of that? I feel so sorry for you babies who can’t function without being plugged into your devices . The Matrix was more prescient than we knew.
How is this attitude in any way helpful to the very real problem that is smartphone addiction and the way it is shaping our society and brains negatively.
You think you're not affected? That's a laugh 😂. Go get your brownie points elsewhere (maybe, not online this time?)
This kind of attitude is probably what makes people not want to experience the real world.
Holy cow. I almost feel sorry for you with that attitude.
Reminds me of my mother asking if my experience would be different if I didn’t have a camera.
Your mother sounds interesting -- that's a thoughtful question I've actually never heard anyone ask before.
I attended Univ. Of Manchester in 1976 for a semester. I got all around the Uk and up to Wales w/o a smart phone. Had a marvelous time and just asked those nice English people for assistance if I was confused.
I am so old (and moved from NYC so many years ago) I don't even understand the problem. Even today, I would know which trains to take..... why need a cell phone?
I was watching a woman dance by herself with her cell in hand. Me thinks does she also take it to be while making love, lol?
And probably uses the Vibration mode to get off on herself too!!
I was a bit shocked, about ten years ago, to find out that people -- maybe most people -- regularly DO exactly that. And, that they think it's absolutely normal and in fact, necessary, to read texts or notifications in that situation.
Yep!
Yep what, lol?
I’ve been visiting NYC since a teen from CT. I know which trains go where. And when I exit to the street, normally one should be 50% correct walking in the right direction. I’m always wrong and need to turn around half way up the avenue. And I know if I could understand the direction of the sun this might remedy my problem. Nope. Walk the wrong way then turn around. Unless I ask a stranger, “Which way is uptown?”
Thank you for mentioning asking for help! Asking for help is such a blessing in disguise. It connects you with a stranger, a real person, you make eye contact and maybe , hopefully a smile. What a gift. I long for those moments with others. We are being taught, I'm afraid, to avoid connection with others. A tragedy. We need each other so badly.
Is there not maps on the train cars themselves?
There used to be maps of the whole city network at every station and on every train. Slowly they are disappearing.
Try a dating app
Great place to meet a guy who
Arrives to pick you up for the date with a shovel in his backseat.
it's easy to figure out the NYC subway (and maps existed for millennia before smartphones!)
Looking at a physical map is unmatched!
I keep several roadmaps of my state and some bordering states in my vehicle and plan out my travel using the appropriate one(s). If I’m in an unfamiliar city, I prefer to look up my destination using my smartphone map app, not GPS, if I can help it. But hey, I’m 74 and spent most of my life without smartphones and GPS.
I love actual atlases and road maps. I do use my gps also. We taught our daughter when she was quite young how to read a map. We travelled frequently and she became our navigator. In high school she went to Europe with other students and she was the one who was assigned to use the transportation systems.
I’m an art dealer and I travel one or two times half way across country almost every year. The old AAA map tix have given way thankfully to google maps. I don’t know how I managed driving from CT to Orlando then on to Seattle then home over the period of a month.
I'm from Los Angeles, and we used the Thomas Guide if we ventured into unknown terrain (such as over the hill into the 818). We learned so much more about the city streets than one does using GPS and its limited mapping.
With the Thomas guide, you could go anywhere in California very easily.
But many people today have no idea how to read a map.
I agree! If I don't have one now, sometimes I screenshot the area and use that. But I prefer one of those old tourist maps, and circling where I want to go. Much more fun!
Almost like losing a little of what it’s like to interact as we did life isn’t simplified , it’s complicated 😵💫
‘false sense of incompetence’ is right on the money.
Totally, I grew up in the PA countryside and it didn’t feel the least bit confusing to just look at the subway map on a trip to NYC as a teen and see where you wanted to go. I actually find the GPS regarding public transit way more confusing. I’ve lived in SoCal now for many years and last night we were at a baseball preseason game at Angels Stadium. The parking is so disorganized that as we sat there waiting to leave I’m like I’ll check the train schedule for future games bc maybe it’ll be way less annoying than sitting in the car 45 mins to leave. I gave up trying to figure it out in Maps app and said I’ll just look up the Amtrak schedule when I get home.
Wrote my first computer program in 1965. Have been an early adopter for most new tech for many decades. Didn't see the need for a cell phone. Got one to assuage nagging relatives. It quickly enabled other people to interrupt me at their convenience. I let the battery die, then put it in a box, somewhere. I have returned to paying attention to the many things that matter to me.
I agree with you. They are taking more and more of a free person away from us!!!
We will soon be in the JETSON'S ERA🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
You know that we are reading this on our cell phones, right? Before cell phone I would not have seen or read this
before cell phones there would not be a need to critique cellphones. its okay to critique cellphones through the same media because it makes it much more likely to reach the audience it needs to reach. also i just finished reading this on my laptop actually.
Me, I only read Substack on my computer, the phone feels too small. Maybe, I'm just old. GPS has saved me from getting lost. I'm very prone to losing my way when traveling.
I have been considering moving to the computer. Maybe it’ll feel more like reading the paper.
I decided today (before reading this article) to commit to reading my Substack content on the laptop. Giving thought to how to limit your use of the cell phone is do-able. For me, more than anything TEXTING is the bane of cell phone existence. It's the all day texting -- to say nothing, to send emojis, to ask how you're doing (for the 8th time) -- that makes me consider going dumb (phone). :)
I'm reading on my computer.
I only read Substack on my iPad. Which is a gigantic cell phone, one could argue, but I don’t take it with me everywhere. But I do see your point. Mobile devices have definitely impacted how much we consume.
Nope, not me. I don’t have a smart phone—well to be accurate, a friend did give me their old iPhone but I only used it as a portable camera & wifi occasionally until it no longer operated). I have a flip phone I HATE cuz my old one (a tiny Samsung I loved w/ a slide out QWERTY keyboard, so I could send the occasional text…my flip makes that hard to do) died when 5G rolled out…I only carry it for emergencies..stays in my small bag, ringer muted…lol…folks know not to call me on my cell. Hell, I don’t want to be always available…will let folks know if/when there are times it’s my primary contact phone (rarely). I watch HOW MANY people in public are SO screen-focused rather than just “being” in the real world. 🤦🏻♀️
I was thinking the same exact thing. Without smartphones this wouldn’t have been able to be read, let alone written.
Respectfully, that's just completely 100% untrue. People were communicating heavily online for at least 15 years before we had cell phones.
Computers and tablets exist, also. . .
Nope iPad…
Beautiful irony! Well done Diane 👍
Oh those were the days.
But. . . how? The author is not speaking out against “cell phones,” (which includes “dumb phones”) and is stating a desire to maintain their smartphone and simply limit its control on their life by allowing it to die each night - allowing for continued consumption of online content via “cell phones” (though laptops, tablets and desktops get the job done quite nicely as well).
No irony, no real point in the comment. . .
You can still watch street interviews from the 1990's where nobody wanted to own a cellphone and nobody felt they needed one to help them live their lives. Cell phones were just for yuppies who all got sick with 'yuppie flu' from the radiation (today we call it 'chronic fatigue' , 'brain fog', 'the stress of modern living' or 'long covid').
Cell phones were not only regarded as unnecessary, but were also considered obnoxious devices. People talking on them on busses or trains were considered anti social.
But of course, all of this is beside the point. The fact is the technology is completely unsustainable because the radiation is toxic to humans and all other biological life. So it's all going to have to be dismantled and thrown in a giant dumpster at some point.
Since consumer cell phones appeared we've already seen a 76% decline in insects, with some regions registering 100% declines. Bees are officially extinct in several US states now. Birds dropping out the skies en masses are now a common occurrence. Epidemics of flu, nose bleeds, brain fog, insomnia, miscarriages etc have been observed around new cell tower upgrades (all of these are known symptoms of microwave radiation poisoning).
Thousands of cell tower workers get so sick they have to leave the industry each year.
None of the major insurers will touch wireless infrastructure with a barge pole, and the wireless industry even warns its own shareholders to expect a tsunami of health related lawsuits in the coming years.
Wireless tech should never have been deployed to begin with. But the technocrats and heads of industry are just as addicted to the power of wireless as the average consumer is. Nobody is thinking straight. Nobody cares about the health and environmental effects, which are already devastating. The last time people thought sensibly about the topic was the 1990's, when just about everyone thought wireless was stupid, pointless and probably damaging to health.
The longer we wait before dismantling it and going back to wired technology, the more painful the transition will be. I don't think the heads of industry or the politicians have the good sense to abandon this tech. The media are all bought and paid for too. So it is up to the consumer to do the right thing :)
People were so much happier in the 1990's, and ironically they were a lot more connected to each other too.
https://odysee.com/@CoronaStudies:3/CS-BIRDS-pt1:8
I'm not. People were interacting online in positive ways for years before cell phones arrived. I was part of professional newsgroup -- all text, no images, no video -- where I made friends I still have 25 years later, and I got a contract to write a book.
Nope, I never read Substack on a cell phone.
I used to have to have SOME kind of reading material with me at all times. Sometimes your surroundings require you to stay put and people watching only takes you so far. What sucked is when I finished what I had with me - or just wasn’t in the mood for that particular material.
I spent a lot of time traveling for work before I had a smartphone, and used to spend a small fortune on magazines. Those magazines have mostly withered away.
Joe, I still buy/subscribe to several & when I’ve read them I drop them by my Dr’s office or the waiting area of my local hospital…I’m definitively old school!!!! OK, and old too!
PS - I’m 44 and refuse to consider myself old. My wife is 51 and she’s definitely not old - she looks younger than me
I still do to a few - Atomic Ranch and Dwell being my current obsessions. Once I got a house I lost interest in modifying my cars.
the problem and the solution
I’m a younger millennial and for me, I was heavy into blogs. I got my first smart phone in 2010, and then, a phone was just a phone. I still read articles, researched blogs I liked and even started my own. In a way we still lived in the Information Age, it was just more intentional…different. My phone was a small addition, but books, bloggers, and niche writers always existed, which is why in part I feel Substack has taken off the way it has.
It's interesting that you say "in a way, we still lived in the Information Age" -- it was very much smack dab in the middle of the Information Age then -- really the golden age of online communication. It was so much fun. Nobody was killing themselves because social media platforms made money from their misery. And the information was so much smarter and delivered so much more efficiently.
Maybe “Dumbphones are the way forward
Actually, I'm reading this on a laptop. Feels liberating to take a step back in time.
Wouldn’t a good step be to just delete the social media apps from our phones? If you want to check Instagram or twitter, you’d have to go to your computer. But if you’re out in the world with only your phone, you wouldn’t be distracted by the apps. You can keep music and gps, and maybe a messaging app if you’re in contact with people without their phone number, but any other distractions wouldn’t be there. I think people forget that you can still go to TikTok.com on a browser; you don’t need the phone app to access everything. If you still want access to these things, you can just limit it to a specific Computer Time, but anywhere that your computer isn’t is app-free. Remember the computer room as kids? Limit it to a specific space and time, rather than anytime and anywhere that we have with our phones in our pockets.
Or, at the very, very least: turn off notifications for anything not absolutely necessary. I can check on Facebook once or twice a week and still keep up with friends. I don't need to know when someone comments or replies. They can call, or maybe text, if they need to get hold of me that day.
Also, even just turning off notifications helps with not getting distracted. You won’t be buzzed all the time, but when you open the app, everything will still be there.
My children live in America, I in Canada. Were it not for that communication, I wouldn't THINK that I need it as much. I turn off my notifications other than Signal, and use WhatApp, for my step daughters here in Canada.
I have a dumbish phone with my Sim card in it. It's Android 9, I have no apps installed on it but If I have to I can do an internet search on it, ie look something up briefly . I take this out and about. At home I tether a smartphone to it , so I make a conscious choice to turn on the mobile hotspot and connect. That one step makes such a huge difference in awareness somehow. Like opening social media on a web browser page instead of an always-on app. I've been doing this two phones thing for 6 months and just recently got my first ever tablet ( TCL Nxtpaper with eye health screen) because I wanna read stuff on Substack in an e-reader format, not be in the mobile phone handheld hug of eye deterioration. Sorry that was long winded but I totally concur. A two- mode or mukti-mode workaround that separates your online and screen uses puts you back in control instead of lost on the IOT..
I did this for a while. I deleted all social apps. Now that I have them I forget about them. Only Substack gets opened daily. I feel sorry for everyone on IG messaging me lol. And I must be one of 200 people on earth not consumed with TikTok. I understand the appeal and tiktok experience is surreal and unmatched in its ability to engaged and predict what you like. Hence me not even playing around with it lol
What is TransTok
Let your phone die in your hands” - poetic, rebellious, and honestly sexier than ‘low battery’ has any right to be.
This piece hits that sweet spot between cultural commentary and personal exorcism. Consider my screen time officially side-eyed. 💙📱🌀
nice!
The hand drawn map reminds me of the one I drew for inclusion in my wedding invitation in the early’80s so guests could find the church and reception. I made a similar one when my sister in law got married. Map reading is an essential skill that used to be taught in elementary school but has been increasingly pared down on the flawed assumption that GPS is the answer to everything. I also got a chuckle thinking about how I once told my (former) spouse that his cell phone was not invited to my birthday dinner. Before that it was his pager— and he was a realtor, not an ER physician. Can’t remember a single bloody real estate emergency 🙃
I imagine lots of strained and ended relationships because the device became more important than the person/people someone is out with or visiting.
Life was less stressful when we weren’t dependent on the pocket computer. Loved a lot about those days.
But we were blind from a lot of knowledge that we now need to know. Pros and Cons to everything.
My question is, do we actually need to know or be exposed to all of the gibberish?
The sages would say no. The marketing departments would say otherwise.
Our phones are training us. Don't be misled into thinking you are in control; your phone ultimately controls you. It is evolving and will continue to evolve, potentially destroying the aspects of our lives that bring us natural joy, curiosity, creativity, inspiration, and peace. We have become disembodied and disconnected from our humanity by happily giving all of our power to a digital device that promises and teases a better, easier life as it takes away everything we need to have one.
@Catt Berlin .. I understand you feel that way, I guess, but that’s really pessimistic and wrong.. I’m sorry it must be like that to you.. I spend a lot of time at night doing things on my phone but it’s because I want to. Almost all of my day is taken up by work and commuting and picking up my son and cleaning the house and cooking and spending time getting my kids to bed and shopping and stuff.. when I want to relax I do. I’m sad though because I know for millions upon millions of people this isn’t the case.. but what a lie. We act so helpless in this whole situation.. I don’t have as much sympathy as some people on this article are wanting… someone said something to the effect that, “your comment is the reason people would prefer to be online than in the real world.” This is a cop out. Communication is being lost with phones. People aren’t comfortable voicing their opinions against others and they would rather retreat to their phones. Dialogue is being lost. The interplay between ideas. That’s sad, that’s a tragedy too!
Oh goodness, I think we are always in choice about when to look at engage with, turn on, read, listen, etc. As long as we are aware we are in choice, the phone can't make us do anything we don't choose to do. I have stopped looking at social media, other than Substack. And yes, natural joy, creativity, inspiration and peace would be the words I would use to describe how I am feeling after about two months of choosing other options than scrolling.
What's awesome is having a smartphone for when it's needed, and not letting it control you when it's not. Going to extremes is never good, or so I'm learning. Balance is key, and using a device for "downtime" isn't it.
Agreed. I realized that I spent so much time on my phone when I had social media apps like Instagram and Reddit. I deleted both accounts and the apps. I also limit the amount of time I use on my phone since I realize that it's a distraction for what I need to accomplish throughout the day. Plus, if I have free time, I tell myself to use the time of other things, like reading a book or writing in my journal.
I totally agree with you.
Beyond the "dumbphone:" The land line. Which I still have, to go along with my flip phone. In fact I'm going through the process of switching my land line from cable VOIP to Ooma on fiber. Kind of a pain, but the process will be complete in a couple of days. That's the way my wife and I roll.
I so MISS my actual landline….it worked in power outages which are not infrequent in my rural area. When the cost for just local calls and even then was limited to about a 45 mile range topped $50 month (this was years ago) & had to buy calling cards from Costco to make any long distance (even local towns!), I opted to get “internet”/cable cordless (like the cordless part) phone & for my main phone, but stops working w/o power. Still have the landline wall-hung Princess-style phone w/ an extra long handset coiled cord….OH, and also have a vintage black rotary phone…both tucked away somewhere…
ATT is the only provider with an actual copper land line available that I'm aware of, and it costs way too much for what services anyone would need. We dropped their actual landline three or four years ago when their bundled services (U-Verse, which was incredibly good, land line phone, and internet) cost exceeded $250/mo, which was more than all our utilities' costs combined. Since then we've been VOIP, when we went to Spectrum, which cost at lot less... at first. As the price went up we cut back on the cable TV offerings, which cost less... at first. Finally, after having their internet service constantly crap out, we purchased ATT fiber, which has just been installed in our neighborhood. Coincidentally, the day I was about to purchase a plan online, an ATT salesman knocked on our door and I purchased the service through him, getting a better deal. ATT's policy with fiber plans states your monthly price will never increase; hard to believe, we'll see. Now I'm getting seriously fast speeds (6X what I had with Spectrum) for much less money than Spectrum's crappy service. So now we have Ooma VOIP for our "land line," which means we'll have to buy a new walkie phone which has multiple handsets because internet phone services don't have the power required to connect all the phones in the house over the old 2/4 wire copper line. The number we've had for over 23 years when we built our house will be ported (transferred) to the Ooma account on April 2nd, and we'll be good to go. The initial cost will be less than $200, and Ooma's monthly charge is zero dollars. So after less than five months I'll be ahead of the game.
From your perspective, VOIP is iffy because of power losses, and since you're remote, fiber isn't likely to be available for years. I would venture that having a "smart" phone would be your best option; I just need to get a new UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) for my computer Ooma base station, and I'll be good to go.
So, to sum up a long story, I miss my old land line phones, too. All the rotary dials went away when my Dad passed in 2004, and the trusty Sony push button I bought in 1987 that's sitting here in my office will go into some nostalgia storage box in the garage. Things inevitably change; they rarely get better.
I'm a retired physician/psychiatrist and author of "Stress R Us", available FOR FREE as a downloadable PDF out at Stanford. I have an antique flip phone and refer to I-phone owners/addicts as ""I-phonies", or "half-wits", as they scroll their way past everything worthwhile in life. The ever growing energy requirements for all this electronic junk is driving global heating and climate collapse. Mother Nature: "problem solved".
I have a flip phone as well... And a land line. Notsosmart phones lead to cognitive decay, at least by the evidence of our culture's condition. I'm livin' in the past and loving it.
Good points from someone who knows. I worry that we miss so much of the "be here now". We miss out on real time life. Look around people!
Meridee, yes! I look at vids/TV coverage of, say, a concert & seems like everyone is filming and/or watching the program through their phone! What?! Put down the damn phone, be “present” and pay attention!!! smh….🤦🏻♀️
I use my phone for Type 1 diabetes monitoring. Thanks for your input, doc!
There are reasonable uses of smartphones but they're the exception to the rule. I don't own a smartphone but monitor my blood glucose levels for Type II with a separate dedicated device. But I don't need constant monitoring the same way you do. Plus I work from home- if I had to go into an office carrying multiple devices around it would be more of an issue.
Your reply shows you don't understand the difference between Type 1 or Type 2, or why it's important to monitor blood sugar via CGM and a smartphone. I also have blood testing kits as a backup when this tech backfires. I started out on urine tests in 1977, so don't come on here trying to tell me something about this disease you think I don't know. Also, with modern Type 1 care, some people have to connect their insulin pumps to their smartphones. Really, you have no idea of the importance of what I'm talking about in terms of modern care protocols. That's painfully obvious.
My mother uses her iPhone to read her continuous glucose monitor as well. She's 94 and has had t2d for about thirty years (t1d also runs heavily in the family). The cgm has been a godsend as far as I'm concerned. She was doing her own finger pricks several times a day until about 18 months ago when she finally made the switch. The cgm is so much better.
Honestly, I just looked at your Substack, and you're a conspiracy theorist. I can't waste any more time on you other than to say damn.
I’m pre diabetic or on the diabetic fence. Number II. I now watch everything I eat. No sugar. No fruit juices. Make my pizza with whole wheat flower. But for my up coming birthday, im going to eat a cannoli maybe two, lol. Because I’m half Italian and I need at least one pleasure left in life.
I'm Type II and have discovered certain sweets that I can eat in moderation without spiking my blood sugar levels- chocolate, cheesecake, and ice cream. Cannolis aren't too bad- the fat and the protein in the ricotta cuts the sugar.
Oh really? I’ll check into that. I would die for chocolate cake. Well that can be arranged literally I guess. I do eat sugarless ice rea once in awhile. It’s still high In cholesterol
Bill, you should enjoy your cannoli! I belong to several Type 1 groups on Reddit. But there are many groups for all types, including pre-diabetics. Lots of really helpful advice and info on meds. Who does what diet, how a type 1 drank too much because of a celebration , how a type 2 decided to take metformin, etc. You might already know about these groups, but if not, just look through Reddit and see what you can find. I find them helpful.
Thank you for the info. I’m not a big joiner of groups but thanks. I’ve been taking metformin for a few years. I often run. I eat the right foods. I make simple Lipton tea then refrigerate it and it’s my go to drink with lemon. I love drinking water, lol. Of course the wine and beer in measured amounts. I don’t have a problem because I follow the rules. I know type one is more serious.
My husband had a glucose monitor and of course used his phone to check it. I think it’s a great tool! It is a good use of the smart phone. My issue is when people are on it all the time simply scrolling or whatever and there is no real communication between people.
The smart phone has a place.
My husband still has a simple flip phone
I am purposely spending time looking around, putting the phone away, going for walks, seeing people. I’m now at a hotel with family. Everyone on phones not speaking to each other so I went for a walk to check out the hotel. Just to get out and maybe among the living. I thought about hanging out in the bar and just chatting with people to see what would happen! Maybe I’d meet someone interesting. Cuz being in a room with someone who does not talk to me and is busy on their phone makes me feel really lonely.
As an aging Boomer, I know it's a redundant statement, I knew life before Smart phones, and while googling info and internet commerce makes finding what you are curious about or want to buy extremely easy, life was better without them; the experience of going to the library or a brick and mortar business, got you out of the house and amoug other people. I also have been aware that in one day, the Internet exposes you to more scams, than many pre internet did in a lifetime. Then there is social media, that has created more loneliness and mental illness than ever existed in history. But I feel all this is slowly coming to an end and the culprit will be AI. AI is an internet gimmick were you can't tell reality from fantasy, but it only works on the Internet. What I mean is if you are living offline and in the real world, you will probably have limited contact with AI in any real sense, because you will be forced to deal with real people in real social interactions. As one ages, one realizes that the only thing that matters in the world is our relationships with God and those people closets to you. After that is the circle of contacts you have with work associates and merchants; but unless you actually go to work or to a brick and mortar store, these relationships are easily replaced with AI, making them no longer real, so they eventually are rendered unimportant, and must make way for experiencing real people and real experiences, in the real world. Dumb phones are a start, but I remember a time when if you weren't home, no one could contact you by phone and I don't see that as a problem either.
Please be open minded and realize that a lot of people do not have a relationship with God, or believe differently and don't hold it against them. That is true Christianity. Tolerance.
Gads Meridee. Your lecturing speedbiker is inappropriate. He merely made an observation about life, saying that as one ages one realizes the things that matter are one’s relationship to God and those close to us.
Obviously, he speaks from his experience as do you of yours and I of mine. There is absolutely nothing in his comment that suggests he is holding anything against anyone, or telling them they have to believe in god. Nor is there anything intolerant or closed minded in his comment.
I, for instance, am an atheist. But there was nothing offensive to me in what he said; I fully understood the words in my heart. I think if you take the words to heart, instead of to mind, you would delete your comment.
Ok Joe.
Thanks, I find Christians to be some of the most judgemental people. I know a few who really are Christian in behavior but most go to church and then screw around all week thinking they are perfect people. I own my judgement. It’s just the way I think, and mostly ponder a lot before I write. Sometimes I get set off by the people who are “witnessing” to the rest of us. If you read the BIble (I have and been to church every Sunday for 17 years until the hypocrisy did me in…). Example, the very rich people who played like they were volunteering in labor intensive fund raisers like rummage sales, just cruising through and before the sales begin, sweeping up the best buys but certainly not engaging in any work, but still are considered note worthy Christians in the church, they get by with this shit and the rest of the workers know they aren’t supposed to hold anything back and these wealthy individuals break the rules). Sounds like our government doesn’t it? I take umbrage at people who don’t do unto others as themselves, the racists, the misogynists, the people who don’t understand and are therefore afraid of people different from themselves. It’s like they never matured from Jr. High. So as I rant, I find the best religion to be in nature, in creation. Didn’t Jesus say he wanted no edifices built in his name? Look how well that has gone! Big big money in churches. So I have no faith in that type of religion.
Jesus was loving and forgiving to the ultimate extreme, but he was not tolerant.
"On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?' Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers'" (Matthew 7:21-23).
"Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)
Interesting comment because it kind of sounds like Jesus is saying to the crowd, I’m the only show pony here. These other people who preach in my name are all the devil. How does that stack up in the modern church doctrine?
You have to wonder. How many other great philosophers have come and gone and don’t have to be the only show pony?
Bullshit.
I always thought being loving was being tolerant. If you are into bible verse quoting you may remember that at one point Jesus said he wanted no buildings put up in his name….look at the Church establishment. The Bible was written by men, not God, with all of their prejudices and plans and politics. Women are not equal. This is patriarchy in the form of religion.
I think Jesus was far too gentle and kind to threaten something like “No one comes to the Father except through me”. That sounds like a translation from a person who wants to scare people into attending his church. $$$$$$
I really wonder why people take the Bible as the word of God. God didn’t write anything. Only people did and you know how people work.
The kind and gentle Jesus is a new age myth. Jesus was forgiving to the extreme but very intolerant of sin and especially the those that used legalism to separate people from God. Keep in mind also that Jesus ministry was to the Jews; he often dismissed gentiles asking for healing, but used their faith as a lesson to Jews who doubted his existence as God. The reason you see a string of Christian revivals throughout history, is the result of people watering down Christianity to the point that it becomes toothless. But the word of God doesn't change and is constantly rediscovered. As far as the Bible being the word of God, it is baked into the trilogy. The Bible was written by people possessed of the Holy Spirit.
I think the BIble was written by people with political ends in mind. Men who translated these writings changed the words to what they thought it should say. Translation after translation, always by men. Christianity is a paternalistic institution. The Bible contradicts itself in the face of current takes on the religion. So do other religions create confusion and are open to “translation”. I just think if you can’t think for yourself, then you belong in a religion. But watch out, you will be separated from your will, your money and your freedom. Religions cause wars, hard feelings in families, (Mormons are great at this, with excommunication) and really a lot of harm. I just want people to be nice to each other. Bradley, how in the world do you really know if Jesus existed in the way he is described, or that this isn’t just as realistic as Santa Claus? See, it’s all in our heads.
I thought about whether to even reply to this, and I finally decided as a Christian I should. Consider we live a a world with more creature comforts than has ever existed, yet people are more miserable than ever before. Also consider that doubting the existence of God is a new concept that has never before existed in history. The fact remains that the moral world you live is based solely on Judeo Christian beliefs, whether you believe in God or not, you would not tolerate anything otherwise. The moral laws, Christianity says are written on our hearts (such as the 10 commandments) are pretty much universal throughout the world. The point being these laws, rather than a conspiracy to enslave the human race, dictate a mode of behavior that kindness, loving, caring, respecting human dignity and if followed give a human being the best possiblity of living a positive life in a world that is and always has been impossibly difficult.
When Friedrich Nietzsche stated "God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him", he was mourning God, expressing fear of the decline of traditional religious belief, its impact on Western society and the results of nihilism that will result in the destruction of the human psyche unless a replacement could be found. If you are truly interested this is an old Jordan Peterson YouTube that discusses the affects of Christianity on human culture. https://youtu.be/dfvVu7__vy0?si=LOje9WmB72maNB2G. Further the book Mere Christianity, by CS Lewis is an interesting read.
People have always doubted God. An interesting thought is how did God supervise the Salem Witch Trials? We as people have used religion to justify some heinous stuff.
I get that you are a Christian, but you only highlight the good and not the bad things that happen when a people embrace a religion and use it to become a clique of people who only are into themselves and their beliefs and do not open a window to accept some real problems that go along with their beliefs. Actually it is false to say that this religion has been present for all time. You forgot the other half of the world that has been quite happy with variations of the Muslim faith, Buddhism etc. There are religions that encompass nature not a single deity. I fear the Christian with blinders on. I fear the person who professes faith but doesn’t believe. I fear the person who aligns themselves with believers to use them.
The BIble was written by men with motives. God does not write.
I appreciate your thoughtful reply. The ten commandments are about as common a denominator in the world for moral behavior, and surprisingly common in most big religions, accepted as behavior to strive for but they do not call them the ten commandments in other religions. No, Christianiy is not the first nor the last religion to take hold. It has been bent and folded to help people make money off it. It is a brainwashing. I will not let my spirituality be hurt by the hypocrisy I see in organized religion. I follow the Tao for the most part. There is no deity, it is more of a philosophy and it is not nihilism. I really doubt that doubting the existence of God is a new concept. Do you think the American Naive tribes bought it hook line and sinker? OF course not, it was forced on them. IF anything, putting native Americans in “Chrisitan schools” was more of a way of diminishing the tribes by horrific conditions and treatment of their children. This is where religion gets ugly.
And as Hamlet said, 'there's the rub". The exetential morality that often ties humanity is by necessity filtered through the human condition. Nietzsche felt, that with God being dead, society would have to develop its own moral code, but mankind is simply too self centered for such an endeavor, so it turns into some form of equity, which is a form of enslavement.
Not sure what comment you were responding to. Tolerance is a human trait based on the belief that no one can know everything. IOW, it is the acceptance of, or often passive disregard of a belief system other than your own. Jesus knew he was God, and there was only one way to the heaven, and that was thorough him. Jesus had numerous chances to renouce who he was or to pretend, not to be God but he never waivered even though it meant his death. He did this out of love, for to be tolerant of any other belief system would have doomed mankind to eternal hell, because he knew there was only one way.
Sorry. I was replying to Meridee. But I see that I misunderstood her. I thought she was exhorting you to embrace God, whereas she was remonstrating with you for having mentioned God, as if your doing so was somehow an attack on others who do not. Oy! Did I blow it. 😂
I think Elon Musk also considers himself God.
I know this isn’t the point of this article, but I think you touched on another macro problem in the setup story…. the bachelor/ette parties.
This is a symptom of systemic narcissism (which applies to cellphones as well). The fact that brides and grooms feel comfortable asking their friends to budget for, take time off work and family, often weeks or months before their wedding is a huge problem with our culture.
My husband and I were invited to a bachelor party as we were friends of the groom at an already destination wedding in Hawaii (no one was from Hawaii). I got the email and I was stunned, the sticker shock plus the sheer exhaustion of a day this full that started with a dawn hike up diamond head. I emailed back saying that $900 was way too much when we’ve already bought plan tix and somewhere to stay for the week. I will not pay $80 to “sleep in a hammock at the AirBnb”. Plus if I’m doing a dawn 3 hour hike up thousands of stairs that’s the ONE thing I’m doing that day.
The person emails back THE ENTIRE GROUP commenting on how we can’t afford it and so we won’t be at these activities of the day.
The fact that this person thought this whole thing was completely normal is the macro problem. This narcissistic culture of “you have to put your family in dire financial straits if you’re not balling like me (or don’t want to go into debt over this) to be a part of my special day” is INSANE. I’ve already not been a part of another expensive bachelorette getaway and am just waiting for a wedding in a year and a half to see what that will be.
We need to stop saying yes and continuing this kind of behavior that can only function under a fiat system.
I recently went on a trip without a cell phone since my husband has one he uses for work, but I'm always at home or with him until this trip. So I would look up maps on my tablet, memorize key points of the route and off I went. It made the trip much more entertaining and the only time I had to turn around and double back was the first day when I was out exploring plus deciding what I wanted to eat after a noon time flight where I only had shortbread cookies.
I'm currently leaving my phone at home for a month, and as the month is coming to an end, I definitely want some type of smartphone in my life, but I've realized I need to be way more diligent and vigilant about how I use it (and how I don't).
This was a very timely read. Thank you!
Edit: documented here: https://calmfluffy.substack.com/t/a-month-without-my-phone
I’m a born the last year of the boomers guy and recently retired. I purposely leave my phone at home for certain excursions out. Breakfast with my wife, trips to the grocery store at 0600 (with a hand written list), mountain bike ride, a walk outdoors are just a few.
I did all these things BEFORE cell phones existed. I have no issue with existing without one.
Don’t get me wrong, there are many facets in which I fully enjoy my device, podcasts and music are two, directions are convenient. But I have books, read maps and play an instrument.
I existed before Walkman and CD’s as well. In fact I never grew up watching color tv. I didn’t own my first tv until I was 21, it was a color 12”, rotary dial with rabbit ears antennas. The anchor weight tube was $300!
I’d prefer no phone, as soon as my wife retires I plan on us going someplace simpler and will let my wife do the phone stuff. I’m sure I’ll have a flip phone. But desire nothing more…. Just LESS
As I have gotten older and single I find that my Iphone is what I carry for emergencies. It's not fun to be lost without Mapquest to bail me out either. I'm not in NYC I have to drive around in Southern Ca. It's a tool but not entertainment for me. I love people who silence and put away their phones while they are in restaurants. It's good manners.
Sounds great and I’m sure your wife very much appreciates meals out with you and not the phone. I’m also a boomer and lived without a cell phone for many years. As you say it has its place but can’t we put it away when we should be connecting with the people in our lives?
Some lessons I learned from ditching my phone:
https://romanshapoval.substack.com/p/phonefree