We were talking about [Maya Posch]’s rant on smartphones, “The Curse of the Everything Device”. Maya’s main point is that because the smartphone, or computer, can do everything, it’s hard for a person to focus down and do one thing without getting distracted, checking their whatever feed, or getting an important push notification about the Oscars. She was suggesting tying your hands to the mast by using a device that can only accommodate the one function, like a dedicated writing tool or word processor.
[Kristina Panos] compared the all-singing, all-dancing black rectangle to an everything-device of old: the all-in-one stereo receiver with built-in tape player, record player, and not just FM, but also AM radio receiver. The point being, the hi-fi device also does a whole lot of things but isn’t similarly cursed. The tape player never interrupts your listening to the AM radio station. When the record is over, it doesn’t swap over to FM. Your agency is required.
Similarly, it’s probably not intrinsically problematic that the smartphone has a camera, a web browser, text messages, and heck even a telephone built in. It’s how they interact with each other and the user, each vying for user attention, and interrupting with popups and alarms. It’s maybe a simple matter of software! (Says the hardware guy.)
Where would a distraction-free, but fully featured, phone begin? With the operating system? It would be perverse to limit you to one app at a time, or to make switching between them more cumbersome. How about turning off notifications, and relying on changing context only when you think about it? Maybe that’s a middle ground. How do you cope with the endless distractions offered to you by your smartphone? By your main computer?
I think the main difference is that the Hi-Fi set isn’t trying to make money from your attention.
I think a distraction free device starts with the network in is connecting to. Maybe a phone that can only do the Gemini/Gopher thing for web access.
Leave it face down on the table with mute on, then it doesn’t affect what you’re doing unless you keep picking it up to look.
Did anyone really want to get rid of the headphone jack? No, and yet it has vanished and we were told it was because of “courage”. Usability without a data plan, usability without an online account, sensible battery life, replaceable batteries, headphone jack, an OS that doesn’t spy on you, and a usable internet that isn’t all vying for all your time are all things that are long gone. This raises the question as to why these options are gone.
There are core problems: smartphones created to be indispensable and the psychology of modern era is effectively to follow the path of least resistance. As such, the entire concept of personal responsibility has been lost in it’s entirety and deemed too inconvenient to deal with. Why do you think people keep using Windows/Facebook/Google/smartphones despite the ever-expanding enshittification? At total lack of personal responsibility because making any sacrifice is one sacrifice too far.
There are two realistic options: abide uncompromising greed of corporations or reclaim personal responsibly and choose a less convenient life. People who try to have it both ways either have unusual resolve or fall victim again to their own foolishness. It’s usually the later.
See, Elliot, THAT’S how you do a rant.
“She was suggesting tying your hands to the mast by using a device that can only accommodate the one function, like a dedicated writing tool or word processor”
I’m waiting for the rant to start addressing this singing, dancing box we sit in front of all day, almost every day. Maybe tuned only to the HaD channel.
I hate everything about smartphones and mostly just use mine for two factor authentication or as a way to play the New York Times Spelling Bee (check our my open source version that plays the exact same game per day!) — I hate the lack of a keyboard, the ads I cannot block, and the proprietary incompatible nonsense and black-box data encryption of apps. A laptop is much prefereable, even though it is arguable more distracting. But I only use one when I decide to instead of carrying it around in a pocket, pulling it out every time it make a sound.
Use the web sites instead of the apps, and use Firefox with uBlocks Origin to block the ads.
No ads on YouTube, no ads on Reddit, no ads on most any site.
When a site wants to set cookies, open it in a private tab and let it knock itself out – all that shit disappears when you close the tab.
The internet doesn’t have to suck as bad as everyone says. You just need to make a little effort to block the shit from the enshittification.
I have pretty much all my notifications turned off. I get phone calls beeping at me but I get those so rarely they usually do require my attention. Social media notifications are completely off except for DMs which show in my car but are silenced. The only other audio notifications are things like people detected at my front door.