Societal addiction to phones

KrisZ said:
There is no denying the youth of the past spent a lot more time outdoors. I know I did as well. It was either that, or stay at home and essentially do nothing.

My point is that the youth of the past looked for entertainment just the same as the youth of today. It was simply the lack of entertainment at home that drove them outdoors.

And I’m sure the elderly of your youth, probably complained that all the youngsters of your time did, was play outdoors and had too many toys, instead of working and contributing to the family, like they had to.
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Oh yeah. It is a real shame. I tell the wife all the time. There is really next to nothing outdoors for young kids to do. Also we live in a much more dangerous world. Most don't want their kids running the streets.
I grew up , worked and raised a family all in about a 10mi radius from my parents house. All the woods and empty land that we roamed, hunted , fished and played on are all long gone. POSTED / KEEP OUT or developed into subdivisions of houses and condos.

We are living in the 5th house in that same area. We have been in current home now 26 years. Our street has about 25 to 30 homes down it. We right now know only about 3 - 4 families on this street. So many houses have sold and some more than once last several years. Times are truly different. It is even hard at times to remember when there were no cell phones.
 
I fake programmed mine so my headphone battery life shows next to my phone battery monitor

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Pablo said:
It’s a tool

Use it responsibly
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Exactly! I never said I was against smartphone usage. My point was that so many people seem to have a weird addiction to them. They go to the park with their grand kids and instead of enjoying life, they got their head glued to the phone! Walking down a bike trail and can't remove their eyes from the f-ing phone!

But I love my iphone. It is a marvel of technology that allows so many things. But I keep it in proper perspective. When I walk my dog, I don't even take the phone. Why should I? I lived 75% of my life without a smartphone and I got by just fine.
 
Finklejag said:
We were one family that didn’t have a TV in the dining room or kitchen. I know many families that did.
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There was a period where we didn't even HAVE a TV for about 14 years. Came home from school one day and it was broken. A friend jokes about it saying "You were like the kids in the bunker in The Terminator, watching the fire in the TV.":ROFLMAO: Yup, just about.

We only watched TV during dinner on Sunday nights when Wild Kingdom and Walt Disney were on.
 
lakestone said:
Remember about thirty-some years ago when all the doomsayers and prophets predicted that we'll have barcodes tattooed on our skin, or we'll have subcutaneous microchip implants, so that we could be tracked controlled, dominated, etc.? No need for that apparently! It seems to me like everyone is doing it willingly and voluntarily through their phones. It seems that most people can't go mere minutes without a dopamine hit. Do you guys think people will ever get over their smartphones?
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I absolutely believe that people will ditch smartphones. When they get the chip in the brain perfected.


Of course, I am also convinced (no being sarcastic for once) that The Terminator films are documentaries, not movies.....
 
GON said:
TV is still forbidden in our home during dinner, just Wife and me now. Wife never will allow a TV on during dinner, never.
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Phones are forbidden at our table...I made a phone box that my wife and I try to deposit the phones into at dinner and they don't come out again until hours later when the 4 year old is put to bed. Doesn't happen every night like it should, but it's our intent.

Of course, to forbid phones at the table, families need to eat together at the table...another societal issue.
 
opus1 said:
Yes, Times are different as far as kids being outside, unsupervised. Sad, in a way.
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I guess it depends on the community? To let your kid loose you have to trust that there are more good neighbors than bad, and hope that your kid and their friends aren't going to do anything too stupid...

In my little town, some kids do roam unsupervised, and mostly without causing too much trouble.
Unsurprisingly a once in a while a group of young teenage boys will do something that isn't very smart, but never expensively damaging, and there's always a group of people online acting like the kids are stealing cars and robbing banks, and asking where the parents or police are... Fortunately most people realize that kids being kids is OK.

My youngest boy was involved in the latest incident along with several friends. They were on some vacant property and did some minor damage to what looked like old junk to them. The owner was initially quite upset that his community trust had been broken, and posted on facebook what happened , and us 5 sets of parents realized it was our boys that did it! We got our tearful confessions and contacted the owner, and in the end he was very happy with the boys writing an apology letter each and doing some "community service" and helping him clean up his property well beyond what damage they did. A tough but good learning experience for the boys in a lot of ways, but it took the goodwill and community minded spirit of the property owner as well, not to make it into a legal matter, as he remembered being 12 as well.

So the same set of boys still roam around town and the country side after school, and I have even more confidence they won't be doing dumb things that damage property. I do like he has a phone so I can see where he is at least. They have been roving miles down the creek lately and figuring out an extraction point is much easier when you can see what road gets closest.
 
Pablo said:
I would argue the television. Or PC. Or Internet.

But your point is valid (name, yes) - seriously we dumb humans adopt these tools and don't add, nor read, the subtle safety instructions. In particular with our youth.
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Like a lot of things, it's what you choose to do with it. I mean it's astonishing that you have access to more or less have all of mankind's collective knowledge in your pocket, and it seems like most people use it to fill their heads with banal garbage and conspiracy theories.
 
Professor Gascan said:
Like a lot of things, it's what you choose to do with it. I mean it's astonishing that you have access to more or less have all of mankind's collective knowledge in your pocket, and it seems like most people use it to fill their heads with banal garbage and conspiracy theories.
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You mean the alien mega-spires on the moon aren't real? You need to watch the youtube video............ :cool:
 
It's true. I get criticized by many in my family for being on my phone a lot while they're also on their phones. In fact they're on them as much or more than I am.

*I find it troubling when parents give their kids an ipad at a restaurant to shut them up. I think it's not good for kids.
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