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TruthBomb#2 "phone addiction" is simply proper evolution of communication

posted a month ago by 123Guy (7838)
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TruthBomb#2 "phone addiction" is simply proper evolution of communication

We started with grunts and flailing arms about.
Starting scribbling things.
Created written language, and words. Wrote and printed them.
Educated others.
Every time we grow, we expand communications. From books, to movies, newspapers, then voice over wire, and live video feed, and sending more and more communications all over.

What better way is there than sending all possible knowable info to a small device that fits in your pocket and you can read anywhere?

It's not "Addiction", it is advanced communications... information trasnfer, anytime, anywhere, and humans eat it up.

Next step will be the wireless chips hooked to brain creating even BETTER evolution of communication.

At every step of communicaion evolution, some group of people complain about it, die off, then it is accepted as normal, no big deal.

[–] 123Guy (7838) a month ago

am i wrong?

[–] Kowalski (79077) a month ago

YEAH...YOU ARE.

[–] CaptBeefBlower (365) a month ago

That's rather idealistic. Look at what people actually do with their phones and it's mostly doomscrolling and sending emoticon-filled ungrammatical brain farts. Far from being better, it's a degraded form of communication that seems to be having significant negative effects on mental health and reducing productivity. Focusing on screens may even be reducing the rate at which people form real relationships and have children, literally making our civilisation less sustainable. I'm as addicted as anyone else, but I have no illusions that smartphones are an unadulterated good.

[–] 123Guy (7838) a month ago

do you suppose when the original telephones appeared, people started complaining about how people were wasting time talking to people somewhere else instead of the people near by? I think there are always good and bad sides to tools.... knives are mostly used for good, but one can use them for bad also.

initial human use can be a mess until it balances out. besides people staring dumbly at pointless things, there are millions of good uses we all use now without thinking twise. storing notes and numbers, maps, finding things, sending quick notes, keeping in contact with family, reading books, research and learning new things and skills.

this is why I see this as a continuation of our communication abilities.
if the majority of humanity alters the way they form "real" relationships and have children etc, this all seems like an EMBRACED and NORMAL evolution for us. people are not pushing this all away, they are accepting and adopting... EVOLVING, if I may

it's human evolutionary progress... like going from grunts to written language.

[–] VinceD (10408) a month ago

Ok, this one I mostly agree with, with the caveat that when many people talk about phone "addiction," they are misusing the word and just throwing it around.

In other words: clinical addiction involves compulsive behavior that disrupts daily life and causes significant impairment in functioning. If someone is using their phone -- or anything else -- to the point where it's causing problems in their life, it's either a compulsion or an addiction.

But I don't think that's what you're describing. It sounds like you're talking about people using their phones the way they were intended -- for communication -- while more Luddite types are mislabeling that behavior as "addiction."

In that sense, yes, I actually agree with you here

[–] OnanTheBarbarian (13152) a month ago

No, I think it's a dying decadent culture where people avoid contact with others. It's cultural autism. Go out and get laid, idiot.

[–] [email protected] (6247) a month ago

LOL. It is true that people don’t know how to talk to each other when they spend most of their time texting.

Of course the cell phone is a practical device. It has many uses.

But it IS an addiction when people are in line at the grocery store and cannot seem to put down the damn phone! They can’t even give the live person in front of them, namely the cashier, their full attention.

I used to be a hostess in a restaurant and we were supposed to give patrons our specials of the day and take their drink orders. So many of them were busy yakking on the phone that it was hard to do. That phone had to be out on the table at all times! You would try to put their drinks down, but the freakin phone was in the way.

To me that is an addiction. When you cannot be without something for two minutes, but you must have it in your hand or nearby.

The phone was a great invention. But when we were kids and the parents took us out to dinner, dad did not bring the house phone along and ask where he could plug it in just in case he got a call!🙄

[–] OnanTheBarbarian (13152) a month ago

I'm only guilty of staring at my phone when I'm out and want to check the internet. I suppose that's what many of these fools are doing as well.

Also, it used to be, when I was a kid, that girls were notorious for hanging on the telephone. Guys couldn't be bothered. Now it's both males and females.

I smoke mainly because I want something in my hands. Maybe that's why they need it, like a pacifier.

[–] 123Guy (7838) a month ago

but, isn't this a natural evolutionary adoption of the progress? how humanity does it? if it is adopted without force, by like 99% of humanity, doesn't that mean it's pretty normal/natural?

remember: people used to think electricity, telelphones, and TV were of the Devil also. Now, it's baseline.

[–] OnanTheBarbarian (13152) a month ago

I honestly think it's an unnatural obsession created by an unhealthy society. It will be seen as an odd social practice of our time. 50 years from now we will have progressed out of it.

[–] 123Guy (7838) a month ago

While, on one hand, I fully agree with you, on the other.... how do you differienciate against generational unacceptance? I mean, what modern generation sees and does s NORMAL, previous gens vilify.... like say, electricity or TV or more recently, digital cameras, or CDs... or remember when HD started happening? ALL the pushback everywhere, yet here we are. :)

This is mostly what lead me to this discussion.... ARE WE seeing this in the proper perspective? What WE think is bad, is NORMAL for future people. It just seems bad to US, NOW.

I see our 50 years progress into head-chips that do all this stuff and more, instantly, at the speed of thought. That will be very handy. That could seem inhuman, or demonic to some.... just like photos and TV was to primative tribes people.