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Hidden in the NY Times Business section, the story of one smart phone addict's attempt at recovery.
Do Not Disturb: How I Ditched My Phone and Unbroke My Brain
By Kevin Roose
Feb. 23, 2019
"I’ve been a heavy phone user for my entire adult life. But sometime last year, I crossed the invisible line into problem territory. My symptoms were all the typical ones: I found myself incapable of reading books, watching full-length movies or having long uninterrupted conversations. Social media made me angry and anxious, and even the digital spaces I once found soothing (group texts, podcasts, YouTube k-holes) weren’t helping. I tried various tricks to curb my usage, like deleting Twitter every weekend, turning my screen grayscale and installing app-blockers. But I always relapsed."
...
"When we started, I sent her my screen time statistics, which showed that I had spent 5 hours and 37 minutes on my phone that day, and picked it up 101 times — roughly twice as many as the average American."
...
"Allow me a bit of bragging: Over the course of 30 days, my average daily phone time, as measured by the iPhone’s built-in screen time tracker, has dwindled from around five hours to just over an hour. I now pick up my phone only about 20 times a day, down from more than 100. I still use my phone for email and texting — and I’m still using my laptop plenty — but I don’t itch for social media, and I often go hours without so much as a peek at any screen."
...
"But there is a way out. I haven’t taken an M.R.I. or undergone a psychiatric evaluation, but I’d bet that something fundamental has shifted inside my brain in the past month. A few weeks ago, the world on my phone seemed more compelling than the offline world — more colorful, faster-moving and with a bigger scope of rewards."
When I was growing up in Western Pennsylvania in the 1950s, some days I used to just lay in the tall grass on a hill and watch the clouds pass by for hours. I'd imagine shapes in the clouds and just let my mind wander, there's a pirate ship, an angel, a bear, a castle. Children would run the hills all day, assembling teams for baseball or football, building igloos, or just wandering aimlessly alive.
We were learning important social and life skills. We were learning to deal with people one on one and in groups. We were connecting with the natural world around us. We were mapping our entire environment in our heads.
Today, people are sacrificing much more than they realize with their addictive dependence on smart phones losing those critical mental and social skills while occupying a solitary confinement cell of their own making. Technology, like just about everything else, has its positive and negative sides. Information at your fingertips is an incredibly powerful tool but when the tool takes over for your brain, becoming in effect an "exo-brain", who is the user and who is the tool?
I truly believe smart phones are a huge cause of many of the problems we face today. They've fundamentally changed the way our brains work, how we process information, use (or more accurately no longer use) our short and long term memory, are losing our brains' critical ability to map our environment, shortening our attention spans to milliseconds, etc. They are constant companions surreptitiously changing our brains and the way we view and understand our world. They can and are being used to manipulate our minds, including during elections, the effect of which alone should be cautionary tale enough to shock people back into reality. But so far, it hasn't.
I don't need a smart phone. I'm smart. So is everyone else. Until they become addicted to their smart phone.
Now put down that damn smart phone and read on:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/business/cell-phone-addiction.html
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SallyHemmings
(1,819 posts)
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)That's funny in an ironic and thoroughly disconcerting sort of way. 
SallyHemmings
(1,819 posts)
SammyWinstonJack
(44,129 posts)
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Does that make a difference? 
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)
csziggy
(34,131 posts)This means I have to maintain a landline, but with my DSL I would have to pay for it anyway. Many offices and people can't seem to handle this.
I recently had a problem with one doctor's office - their new appointment reminder system only uses texts to remind patients of their next appointment. Their system does not even have a possibility that the patient does not provide a cell phone number. And no way to detect that the text failed - as it would have for my landline number. The system is supposed to make an automated call if they do not receive a response from their reminder text but it did not in my case. If I had not had the appointment (made six months in advance) on my calendar and called them to check on the appointment, I would have missed this very essential doctor's appointment (followup on my kidney cancer).
I'll find out with my next appointment if they have fixed this problem.
Yes, I have a smart phone - it's for making calls in emergencies, for consulting my online calendar, and for when I am traveling so I can look up weather, maps, and locations. But I seldom use it for anything else.
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)Not getting signal at home, I mean.
I have the same problems with doctors' appointments, etc. They assume everyone has a smart phone. When I tell them my number is a landline with an answering machine they laugh and look at each other as if they've just discovered a dinosaur fossil.
I had DSL until we moved in 2006. I still don't have a smart phone and I realize I'll have to get one sooner or later. I'd like to think I'll only use it for those truly important tasks such as you've described.
csziggy
(34,131 posts)They've been getting a LOT of calls from patients who didn't get reminders. Some have missed appointments made months in advance - and were charged for them. I also told the doctor about it and he was not happy.
Some of the medical offices I go to ask on their forms what method of contact the patient would prefer. I mark email or phone, NEVER cell phone. The office whose system only uses texts did not have that on their patient forms and they NEED to add it. I have another appointment with them in June and I will find out if they have fixed their system.
We'll probably have DSL forever - unless they can upgrade us to direct fiber optic. We're rural and while fiber runs down the road in front of the farm the last quarter mile from the road to our house is copper. Even if they can run fiber optic to the house, I'm not sure if the main box on the corner of the highway can handle a lot of houses with that high speed access. They just ran new fiber optic the other direction up our rural road (the dirt part) for all the houses built up there in the last ten years. But they have not increased the capacity of the original fiber optic since they originally ran it - though they have spent the last six months fixing the boards that burned out during the outages from Hurricane Michael.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Real obvious..."you are blocked, put your phone number here to get a text code to unblock"
I looked it up. they have been doing that for some time now, in order to harvest phone numbers.
Took 4 days before there was a response to my email, where I said I did not have a smart phone, and they unblocked me.
Now Netflix streaming is "asking" for a phone number.
We have same situation as you, which makes internet connection a pain in the ass. But I want my landline, which is a backup to Mr. Dixie's dumb phone.
I have actually thought of getting cable for internet just to use as a backup. Internet was out for 4 hours across town yesterday...must have been fun for all the Friday afternoon paycheck depositors/shoppers.
csziggy
(34,131 posts)I use Facebook (on my computer) to post articles where my husband will see them. Since I only have three friends on FB (my husband, my sister, and my niece) - and he is the only one who really follows me, I don't worry about what I post. The only real reason I am on FB is to follow some of the groups I am in that only post info there.
Our only choices for internet are dial up via landline, DSL with landline phone, and satellite. We gave up on satellite TV because our trees got tall enough to block the signal so internet over dialup is a no-go. Cable only comes to about five miles away from us with no plans to get closer.
dixiegrrrrl
(60,010 posts)Said severe storms the reason we need internet to see the radar to know what to do, we don't have tornado sirens in our town, which is really a shame.
OTOH, we rarely get them here, but they do pop up just a couple miles south in the flatter areas.
good news is our town of 6,000 souls is now aware that all the plans to bring business in will turn on decent internet, so maybe hopefully the city will step up.Other towns do. We live on edge of in-town limit.
csziggy
(34,131 posts)Even during hurricanes we mostly got good reception. But when we built our new house, the location just over the edge of a ridge with trees along the top became a problem. The first few years it was OK but the trees have been doing great and just got too tall.
We're out from town - used to be twelve miles from city limits, now it's closer to five as town moved this way. So we're happy to get decent DSL service!
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)From a main phone company building. Our DSL was fast that close. We had DSL until we moved to a neighborhood with fiber optics. I found some of my old DSL equipment the other day. Phone line jacks and such. Ancient history already. lol
One medical office I go to has many of their office functions automated by an outside company. Maybe that's the problem with your doctor's office? All the doctors around here are charging $30 to $35 for a missed appointment now.
csziggy
(34,131 posts)Then nearly a quarter of a mile from the road to the house. Not sure how many feet that is.
I just upgraded to 40mbps DSL and it's pretty good. The biggest problem is that they are constantly upgrading and messing with the big box at the corner and service is interrupted.
After Michael went by the power was out for nearly a week. The phone company had a portable generator running but it kept running out of fuel so the power was up and down. We were out of town - long planned cruise to Cozumel - and didn't come back until power was back on. For two months, they kept having to replace cards that were fried by the unreliable power source. Now they are upgrading the service in the area but that still means that service is up and down.
John1956PA
(2,654 posts)DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)jodymarie aimee
(3,975 posts)and will avoid it like the addiction that I do not need...
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)Today, smart phone users are paying for their own surveillance, IMO.
They pay for the equipment and the "service".
Government always wanted to get inside our heads. Smart phone users are inviting them in, IMO.
jodymarie aimee
(3,975 posts)yakking read loud on her phone...it just is so RUDE and I think uncouth...I don't care to know her family business !!
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)Who don't realize their entire conversation is being broadcast publicly by the sound chamber created by the speaker in their car door.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)Really, is that any more rude and uncouth than someone who is yakking real loud to someone who is physically present?
jodymarie aimee
(3,975 posts)not understanding your logic at all... you want to fight...look elsewhere..I don't know you and will never meet you. I am telling you my experience with proximity to cell phone yakkers...and it is uncouth...
CountAllVotes
(20,866 posts)n/t
ismnotwasm
(41,965 posts)I love that when I want to look something up it’s at my fingertips. I love if my patient is questioning the appearance of a medication I can easily identify it on-line. I love being able to FaceTime with my daughter in Ohio. I love finding and reading books. I love YouTube, I find great craft ideas.
Not as fond of social media as some. Perhaps.
Way back in old days traveling bards memorized the news of the day and traveled from town to town. The capacity for memorizing was prodigious. I used to wonder what we lost with the advent to the newspaper, not to mention The widespread ability to read. Modern commutation is just that modern. If you don’t like smart phones, just wait until nanotechnically comes in to its own.
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)And so many others.
I love technology too. I built a computer back in 2002 or so and I still use it for video editing and such today. I maintain our home network and repair our computers. I still have a Dell Dimension 4100 that works just fine.
Back then, I thought technology and the internet, with all that information and knowledge at our fingertips, was going to change the world. It certainly has. Just not for the better.
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)That explained how our brains are changing because of smartphone use, etc. I found this one.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201706/are-smartphones-making-us-stupid
'Adrian Ward summed up his team's research findings in a statement to UT Austin: "We see a linear trend that suggests that as the smartphone becomes more noticeable, participants' available cognitive capacity decreases. Your conscious mind isn't thinking about your smartphone, but that process—the process of requiring yourself to not think about something—uses up some of your limited cognitive resources. It's a brain drain."'
I can't find the article that explains how smartphones and GPS are destroying our natural ability to map geographical areas in our brain.
I read a book on Red Cloud a while back. There was a hunter/trapper out there, I forget his name, who had all the trails and passes, etc., in the entire northwest memorized.
Today, people can't make change without the computer/cash register doing the calculation for them. And even then they make mistakes counting it out.
ismnotwasm
(41,965 posts)I wonder what the proper balance is?
PatSeg
(47,252 posts)Love this quote: “Your life is what you pay attention to."
Perception is reality and we generally perceive only that which attracts our attention.
What we see everyday.
The Silence of the Lambs Movie CLIP - What Does He Do, This Man You Seek?
Start at 00:59
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)Always amused by this kind of stuff.