this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
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Spent a morning out on the town on my day off, and everyone is just fucking buried in their phones 24/7. This realization was so absurd to me

Of course I’m not exempt from this shit, but no wonder people are having so much trouble making friends and creating meaningful relationships in this day and age. So fucking bleak

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[–] MF_COOM@hexbear.net 87 points 2 years ago (3 children)
[–] JoeByeThen@hexbear.net 66 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Newspapers and what became before them weren't addictive, dynamic skinner boxes with millions of dollars in machine learning behind them trying to map out and manipulate every aspect of your behavior. It was just good old fashioned one way propaganda.

[–] Dolores@hexbear.net 33 points 2 years ago (2 children)

that's the individual analysis, i'd argue newpapers could occupy a similar function in public spaces of a tentative 'do not disturb' sign that phones do. the OP is talking about people in public and it's a pretty valid observation that people used to have ways to avoid talking to others and making relationships too.

[–] JoeByeThen@hexbear.net 10 points 2 years ago

Oh, yeah, fair enough.

[–] MattsAlt@hexbear.net 9 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Eh at least it wasn't so easy. The generation of "meet people or practice socializing in lines" is gone due to phones imo, bit harder to do that with a newspaper at every 'empty' moment

[–] Dolores@hexbear.net 16 points 2 years ago (1 children)

yeah paper's a bit less conveinient and vulnerable to people seeing what you're reading & inquiring about it. phones have definitely improved upon the "don't talk to me" meta, especially with headphones

[–] OgdenTO@hexbear.net 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Fuckin headphones. Everyone has them on. How do people feel safe biking in the city with headphones on?!

[–] Nakoichi@hexbear.net 5 points 2 years ago

Also with a newspaper, you didn't have a real time comment section and if you are all sitting around reading a paper you're probably all reading the same few papers and it could even foster in person social interaction and discussion. I remember a time where I would come to work and eat lunch in the break room while reading the paper and talking about whatever was in the news that day with my coworkers for example.

[–] HexbearGPT@hexbear.net 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If this is what it sounds like, why isn’t my phone more entertaining? Do a better job, manipulators!

[–] JoeByeThen@hexbear.net 21 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Something being addictive doesn't necessarily mean it feels good; often it's just the cessation of the withdrawal symptoms.

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 18 points 2 years ago

This is part of why it's called "doomscrolling", because it doesn't feel good but you feel compelled to do it (implicitly because not doing it agitates you or something)

[–] GarbageShoot@hexbear.net 26 points 2 years ago

I think the non-thought-terminating way to interpret these datapoints is that the modern version is an amplification of whatever you want to call this, just like the 24-hour news cycles have been compounded by minute-by-minute updates from news delivered by social media pages and now Telegram groups and such. It's not the same because there are (real and substantive) parallels with what came before, that's a crass simplification.