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Comment by aranelsurion | Hacker News Reader

Eh, IDK. Seems to me iPhone, and the 21st century tech it symbolizes in this article, made people's lives more intentional than anything. The option to wander aimlessly is still there, and some take it. Yet being presented with options, I'm not surprised that to many it might sounds as enticing as watching paint dry.

As for the rest of it, it sounds a little.. forced. As if there's some kind of conspiracy. Can't it be that people value control of their time/life over some amount of spontaniety? Tech provides them that, which makes all this a side effect of a choice people make.

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That’s what I generally consider when I reject most forms of “it’s the fault of tech that the ways I likes it is changing!”

The old options are all still there.

I feel this fits into our generation’s epidemic of, “everything bad is someone or something else’s fault.”

>The old options are all still there.

Increasingly this isn't the case. I'm Amish and people get hostile when I don't have a phone much less a smartphone. Flights, financial transactions of all types, a lot of travel requires it now for some aspect. Those services do not exist for us anymore. Most recently the nearby airport stopped being able to use printed flight passes because the new scanners were built to interface with the smartphone app for the airline, which uses a navy blue background on the boarding passes. Having a printed pass relegates you to a secondary delay to account for that regardless of boarding class.

Does someone paying for identical service as a person owning a phone still deserve to board with others despite the airline's issue with their hardware?

I've been considering the idea of going back to a "dumbphone" once my current phone kicks it, but this kind of thing gives me pause. More and more everyday activities assume you have a smartphone with an Internet connexion.

During the pandemic I went to a couple restaurants. They used to have printed menus, but they got rid of them as part of a "zero-contact" policy. Instead, they put little stickers with QR codes on the tables, which you had to scan with your phone to see an online version of the menu. Even now that COVID restrictions are basically over in my country, a lot of places seem to have decided that not having printed menus any more is the way to go. No smartphone? No food for you!

I would like to give you words of encouragement, because for these minor conveniences there are ample gains in the quality of relationships and interactions with my peers.

> During the pandemic I went to a couple restaurants.

One more detail about being phone-less, I was almost denied my 2nd vaccine for not having phone or email until I asked why Amish and homeless couldn't receive vaccines. I received it ultimately, but was warned that I would have difficulty traveling as I'm not 'in the system' as a result of this.

>for these minor conveniences there are ample gains in the quality of relationships and interactions with my peers.

Do these peers also (like you) live life without routine access to a smartphone?

There are always various shades of adherence to those types of things, so there are a few who might value smartphones. Not every Christian follows all 10 commandments all the time, and our community is similarly human as well. Though there are many shades of devoutness, all sects generally center around community, simplicity and maintaining a small distance from a varying range of modern conveniences.

Your story is inspiring, I'd like to go phone-free more days (than I currently do).

I believe in you and trust that you'll ultimately find what works best for you

You've probably looked into compromise solutions that let you do these things in the same way you've found a way to use the internet that's compatible with your values. Can you share your thoughts on those for people looking to get away from smartphones without losing access to things? You might have some insights that provide a solution to someone.

That's a good question. One is to be a good note-taker. Another is to deal with community-first and work your way outward when it comes to business, buying things. Your local butcher or farmer knows you better than any Amazons or delivery services and will generally accept cash. A good alternative to modern banking is a credit union, which are owned by the community and run by community members. Time is another consideration; phones have influenced culture in a way that makes this generation crave immediacy, and similarly people's schedules are tight for most of the day. Plan ahead to be punctual and make time for things like finding your way to a new place, or extra time needed to use a printed boarding bass.

Does that help answer your question?

It seems like having a physical boarding pass would slow down the processing. It's nice that the offer that service at all no? They could just say "Nope you have to go digital"

I'm simply a person with a very old but working phone (2011?) and I'm increasingly running into the same problems. (It even had internet, with a constantly crashing browser, but it was 2G and that was switched off. (I wasn't using it anyway.))

I'm not sure how to proceed. I don't like how the modern phones feel like you do not have control over anything but they do so much in the background. Any freer option seems to be a lot of compromise and work, and is only ever supported so long. I will have to take some time to look into it at some point, but I have managed to hold on for now.

Do you have any kind of plan or thoughts about the future?

> Do you have any kind of plan or thoughts about the future?

With regards to phones? I probably will remain without a telephone as it hasn't become a barrier to things that are must-haves, mostly nice-to-haves.

You adapt to the new way of doing things.... Why is it so hard? Why choose to go the way of the dinosaurs?

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