[Cyclone]

(11-15-2014 01:32 PM)Giovonny Wrote:  

I don't have a smartphone and I don't need one.

- I know where I'm going before I leave my house.
- If I get lost, I ask people for directions.
- I don't need social media, I have plenty of social interaction in real life.
- I don't like to surf the web all day
- I don't do online dating

Everyone around me has a "smartphone" so if I really need to look something up I can just ask my friends, co-workers, neighbors, etc., to let me borrow their phone. This has happened only once or twice.

I prefer to less connected.

You may think you are "less connected" but in reality, what would you prefer to be more connected to? A virtual world? Or your actual, physical surroundings? The more connected to get to the messy web of social media, the more disconnected you get from the realness of the things around you.

I own a solid Samsung basic phone which is incredibly responsive, fast, and durable. I am personally surprised by how many RVFers own smartphones. I too use purely face-to-face interaction to pickup, and get around my large city without the use of a GPS, google maps or whatever other bitch-technology has come out since then. Men were born with the innate ability to feel for direction, fucking use it.
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[Cyclone]

Also, this

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[Aliblahba]

I work in fast-paced industries. Back in the flip-phone days when I was John Wayne'ing it, I'd go off on a 3 day jaunt, only to come back to find out there was an email in my inbox about a job. By then the window was closed, as there are a lot of swinging dicks applying to 100k yr jobs. That is the nature of the beast. So I started carrying a laptop and would periodically run back to the hotel to check my email. This was time/quality of life detrimental. Bought my first smartphone around 4 years, and when I realized the power of Google/Android, it was a massive time saver. Now I can respond accordingly to what I need to on the fly. It's that simple. Smartphones are simply a wise business tool, nothing else. And this has nothing to with how much time and effort is saves me on my actual jobs. Camera, scanner, pdf. ect, schematics, blueprints, manuals, ect. The list goes on of how I am far more efficient than the bar phone guy.

tl;dr- Smartphones save me time and make me money.

[Pontifex Maximus]

The smartphone isn't the culprit. The mentality is. Use it as a tools for self improvement and there's no problem.

I do business and industrial sales so I check mine at all times, plus smartphones with dual SIM are ideal for the self-employed. I use Tinder in front of some women on movie dates to keep the hamster running. I'm using Pimsleur method to learn German and Dutch, and keep the PDF. manuscripts on my phone so I can practice while on public transportation. As long as you're a focused individual it's an efficient tool.

[Kingsley Davis]

(11-15-2014 01:52 PM)Moma Wrote:  

(11-15-2014 01:32 PM)Giovonny Wrote:  

I don't have a smartphone and I don't need one.

- I know where I'm going before I leave my house.

- If I get lost, I ask people for directions.

- I don't need social media, I have plenty of social interaction in real life.

- I don't use email for work.

- I don't like to surf the web all day

- I don't do online dating

I have never said to myself -- "I wish I had a smartphone right now"

Everyone around me has a "smartphone" so if I really need to look something up I can just ask my friends, co-workers, neighbors, etc., to let me borrow their phone. This has happened only once or twice.

I prefer to less connected.

How would you check the RVF if away from home?

RVF for me is how i unwind and kick back at base.

[Moma]

(11-17-2014 12:40 AM)Kingsley Davis Wrote:  

(11-15-2014 01:52 PM)Moma Wrote:  

How would you check the RVF if away from home?

RVF for me is how i unwind and kick back at base.

That was a slight joke. Living in America which sit on a fairly advanced information tech base, not having a smartphone is a disadvantage. You lot talk about facebook and all that jazz and social media as if that's the main purpose of smartphones.
Utilisation of a tool is dependent on the user.

I can whatsapp with family and friends across the pond, I can forward picture messages, I can quickly research information with my smartphone. Without a smartphone, if I need to confirm information or check my mail or transfer money to my card, I have to go and ask someone to use their laptop/smartphone. That's like asking someone to drop you off at the store so you can go and buy something. That is possible yes but it's not convenient, it's time consuming and you are solely dependent on the hospitality of the person (and if you are asking a smartphone user for their phone, the user will differ each time).

With a smartphone, I can stay connected globally. For those who only stay in their city and never travel, yea, it can work but I leave the country at least once per annum and I leave my state every 3 months on average.

[jimukr104]

I have a cheap 20 dollar one and no data plan. It is good for playing games in the waiting room. Otherwise of course most people don't need it.. we lived thousands of years without one. And most people do things with them that normally they wouldn't do.

[redbeard]

Here's a Nokia candy-bar style phone I've been thinking of purchasing. Smartphones definitely have advantages, but there are times when I don't want to be distracted by email, RVF, etc. A dumb phone would allow people to call me in emergency situations, and I'd also be able to text hoes to meet up.

Punkt MP01 dumb phone

https://www.punkt.ch/en/products/mp01-mobile-phone/

$295



"Battery - 1000 mAh, talk time: 290minutes; Standby time: 500hours; Charge time 2hours"

[Razgriz]

I half quit my smartphone. I have it to use around the house when I'm on wifi. But for my everyday contact in back to a regular qwerty keyboard phone. It's been great with work as I'm doing electrical line work now and the thing that pisses the journeyman off the most is having the apprentice on his phone throughout the day. It was tough the first week or so but now I notice how much more observant I am of my surroundings. Good to keep up the situational awareness.

[jamaicabound]

I was a late adopter to smartphones and prior to having one despised going out to eat with friends and having everyone with their head buried in their iphone. I've become one of them. There's apps you can use to turn off internet or social media for blocks of time or just excercise some self control and bring a book or newspaper instead or just make a decision to people watch and be in the moment.

[rockoman]

I was also a late adopter of Smartphones - in 2012.

It's just too useful a tool to give up completely - I get more bangs with it than I would without for example. I only turn it on 5 or 6 times a day to send/receive messages. In my early to mid-fifties now I am young enough to use it as a tool but too old to become addicted.

I think being quasi-religious about it and renouncing smartphone-use is just as irrational as addiction. It is just a useful tool, neither more nor less.

[MikeS]

It's a very useful pocket sized computer and camera - I see no reason (other than the usual privacy and tracking related ones that apply to all Internet use, but I'm not quitting the Internet) to discard that convenience.
If I was addicted to social media I guess I would have a good reason for not carrying around a smartphone, but I only log into Facebook every few months to keep in touch with family and I don't use Twitter, Instagram etc.

[Cr33pin]

Let's take a moment to reflect on how hilarious I am

(11-15-2014 03:47 PM)Cr33pin Wrote:  

[Cr33pin]

[jamaicabound]

This is a fascinating topic to me. I was just watching a Joe Rogan Podcast the other day where he was chatting with some dude who had a flip phone and said he didn't want to be part of the smartphone world. He said if he needs to do something online he has the internet at home.

Despite smartphones being incredibly valuable ie directions, restaurant reviews, etc, one thing I really dislike is none of us are willing to sit with our own thoughts anymore, if you have even 30 seconds of downtime most peoples reaction is to pickup their phone as opposed to maybe doing some self assessment, thinking about life, etc. Sure you could excercise self discipline and not pick up your phone but again most of us don't.

Smartphones seem to to make people more depressed as well, suicide rates are up like 30% from 2000, the levels of happiness are down. One thing they talked about on the show was how back in the day even if you were bullied and unhappy at school you could escape all that from 3pm to 9am the next morning and on weekends, now days with social media you can be harassed, bullied, made fun of 24/7.

Joe Rogan had kind of an interesting analogy about imagine if a drug made us all look down at our hands, made us less social, etc, etc, etc. People would be up in arms, yet you got to a restaurant or bar where people should be socializing and everyones head is down.

I purposely leave my cellphone home alot when I go out with friends, however instead of me being more social what winds up happening is all those fucks are on their phones and I'm just sitting there bored.

[General Stalin]

Overuse of smartphones is 100% self-control. Its completely up to the individual if you want to look at your gadget every 30 seconds or only pick it up when you want to talk to someone or use GPS directions.

My gripe with smartphones is that they are too big, too fragile, and too expensive. If I ever got rid of mine it would be for those reasons. I hate paying over $100 for voice text and data service, and I hate that my phone is larger than a wallet. The phone I use now cost me like $750, and one good drop from hip height and the thing is toast (unless I want to make it even bulkier and inconvenient with one of those life-proof cases). They don't make small smartphones. They have only gotten bigger and bigger over the years and nowadays even the smallest ones have a 4" screen.

I love the idea of having an early 2000's era candy bar phone or flip phone that is barely larger than a tic-tac container, but I can't see ditching the convenience of having an always-up-to-date GPS navigation in my pocket among other things.

Back in 2008 I had a Palm Pre and that thing was perfect. It was a smartphone with a tiny 3" screen and a slide-out tactile qwerty keyboard. They weren't the most durable though but it was still a full touch screen smartphone with all those capabilities in a small form factor. Why don't they make that kind of stuff anymore?

[inostranec]

Last year I threw my smartphone to the door with anger and I walked without a phone for a month or so. That made me realize how glued people are to their phones. On public transport, at restaurants or parks. But people I work with and my parents couldn't reach me so I had to buy one. I don't do social media stuff so the battery easily goes for at least a couple of days. If I could find a phone that I could listen to podcasts and check email and basic internet I would take it.

[General Stalin]

^Yes and the BATTERY! I forgot about that. Small non-smartphones would last for a solid week with no need to recharge. Smartphones, even when brand new, can barely go 48 hours without a charge. Mine needs to be charge everyday, and with heavy use it needs more than one charge daily.

[Northern Wastes]

I've gone through almost a dozen phones since I got my first one at 14.

I used a classic drug dealer flip phone from Walmart for most of last summer after I sunk my phone in a river.

After the initial withdrawals go away after a week or so you really realize just how dependent on your smartphone you were. And when you don't have one you notice just how often everyone else is on theirs.

It can be a very freeing experience, plus you get to look like a hipster douche bag when you get a call and you flip open your phone like Jason Bourne getting a call from the CIA and who doesn't like that?

The hardest part is re-teaching your brain how to text. I texted like a grandpa that whole summer.

I have a pretty base smart phone now and basically only use it for GPS, texting, calls, audio books, and google.

[Super_Fire]

(06-14-2018 10:52 AM)General Stalin Wrote:  

Back in 2008 I had a Palm Pre and that thing was perfect. It was a smartphone with a tiny 3" screen and a slide-out tactile qwerty keyboard. They weren't the most durable though but it was still a full touch screen smartphone with all those capabilities in a small form factor. Why don't they make that kind of stuff anymore?

They do:

http://bgr.com/2017/03/30/worlds-smalles...e-android/

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2018-SOYES-7S...2850991507

[Dragan]

I found the perfect solution. Have a main smartphone with a big screen, use it for calls and texts, just don't pay for the data.

Then, carry a second smaller phone that actually has data. Two phones may sound counter-intuitive but I guarantee you're not going to be pulling them out unless you absolutely need them.

[scorpion]

The sad fact is that without a smartphone these days you're literally handicapped. I personally hate what they've done to society, but the genie is out of the bottle. You're practically forced to use them if you want to successfully participate in the modern world. It's very similar to how our entire mode of living changed following the widespread adoption and resultant ubiquity of the automobile in the early 20th century. I'm past lamenting it at this point. I've just accepted it for what it is. I try to maximize the benefits I get from the smartphone while minimizing the drawbacks. But even while making that conscious effort it's apparent that many of the drawbacks simply cannot be avoided. Your brain re-wires itself to adapt to the utility the phone provides. You lose memory, concentration and focus in exchange for having the sum of mankind's information and instant worldwide communication at your fingertips. That's the bargain. It could not be otherwise. It's baked into the technology itself. And so we all accept the bargain, because we view sacrificing some of our mental horsepower in exchange for the benefits provided by the smartphone as an acceptable tradeoff.

[asdfk]

^ Fuck that, I’m cutting the cord.

Of course you can do without a smartphone and the internet. I would advise everyone to experiment with this or at least read the book “irresistible”.

Smartphones and the internet take your focus away from the present moment or working for the future, where it belongs. It’s sabotaging human progress.

The amount of ideas you consume is inversely correlated to how much you get done and how much meaningfulness you can experience. That’s a huge price to pay, one that I am not willing to cough up any longer.

Besides, the internet is almost completely controlled by businesses now, except the deep web. Most content is poorly written and useless in nature, solely designed to emotionally spike you and stringing you along. It is no longer a place for free thinkers but rather a place where free thinkers manipulate the masses into reading nonsense and buying shit they have no use for.

The internet is poison. The societal infrastructure has moved online, which means you are engaging with a web of bureaucracy.

Every business owned online service you use is a sales funnel that is observing you to figure out your weakness and then exploit that weakness to sell to you.

I would argue that it is almost impossable to think independently without unplugging from that crap every now and then.

[Tail Gunner]

My smart phone is always on airplane mode and I seldom bring it with me when I leave my house, unless I have a specific need for it. Having said that, it is immensely useful for travel. Try to navigate Panama City, which literally has no street signs in much of the City, without a smart phone (most of the maps are useless, because the streets have multiple names). It is also essential for meetups.

At home, I make the conscious decision to minimize my smart phone use -- and I shake my heads at the fools glued to it. Just within the past week, I almost saw a woman get hit by a car while walking across the street while looking at her phone. Just yesterday, a car almost took off the front end of my vehicle while quickly swerving over two lanes to reach a connector to another highway. I look over and I see a woman holding a cell phone up to her face. These people are losers -- and dangerous.

Like anything else in life, the key is moderation -- and a cost-benefit analysis on a case-by-case basis.

[Suits]

I'm still smartphone free.