Many of us were old enough to have lived during a time where smartphones did not exist. My thoughts are... it is nice to have access to a great pocket-sized camera and communication device, though it is also nice to turn it off once in a while.
I disagree. My feeling is that life was much better, more "human" without mobile phones. I hate how everyone walks around staring down at their phones instead of looking at the world. It's like an addiction. It reminds me of the ST:TNG episode "The Game". People don't even acknowledge each other's existence anymore.
Face-to-face interactions (pre-pandemic) ceased to exist, attention spans dropped precipitously, laziness increased (I can't be bothered to go out anywhere when I can have it delivered to my door by a "gig worker".) It's truly become a dystopia. If you weren't alive or an adult in the years before smartphones, you may not realize what a dystopia this is in comparison. I'm not even idolizing the past — there were certainly plenty of problems in the past — but this is even worse, and none of the past problems were solved either.
One of the unacknowledged advantages of desktops computers is that you can't take them everywhere. You have to leave desktop computers on the desktop. You eventually have to get up, get away from the computer, and interact with other humans in person. I also feel that mobile phones decrease personal independence. The smartphone becomes a "crutch" that you don't know how to live without. You can't even function adequately without a smartphone in your hand or pocket.
When another person is in your physical presence, it's almost like you're deliberately ignoring them when your eyes are glued down on the smartphone. It's personal rudeness, a diss. "You're not even worth raising my head and saying hi."
The internet isn't some kind of fake virtual reality... it is just a communication tool. The draw to use it is created by real people sharing real ideas. I think this idea that people who are physically closer to you deserve more of your attention is misguided.
Who says you have to ignore internet messages? It took you a half hour to reply to my comment, and that's fine. That leaves plenty of time to acknowledge a person IRL.
The internet will still be there when we get home from being outside. That's one of the advantages of the internet.
> The internet will still be there when we get home from being outside
And won't the physical space outside still be there after you decide you're done talking on the internet?
It's impossible to overstate how useful GPS is.
That said, one could always get a dedicated GPS device instead of using a phone.
Maps are useful (and I think they're more useful in paper or schematic form optimized to particular use case), but GPS is really just a nice to have.