People cannot distinguish a smartphone from Internet anymore. I come to this reading a comment about a downshifted couple https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSSzEGYa_sk
At one point the guy, who proudly owns a dumbphone, shows his laptop with Internet connection. A comment point out that he is an hypocrite and a clown.
The smartphone is a portable device with a touch screen, designed to be always online. Social apps are designed to be addictive.
The PC with Internet is another device, less portable and more customizable. The issue of this time is smartphone + Internet + social networks.
Jonathan Haidt correlates mental disorders in youth w. the iphone 4 commercialization.
Are we living in a cyberpunk nightmare?
6 months ago 路 馃憤 half_elf_monk, cobradile94, anthrax, fab, edanosborne, bronzie94
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSSzEGYa_sk
That said, I'm wondering whether the Patriot Act marks a sudden sprint towards the deep end. I imagine a lot more surveillance occured after that. The rise of smartphones and social media also did a number on us, but that's not like... a specific date. 路 5 months ago
@chirale - idk if there's an exact date as to "when" ... the seashore analogy seems like it might apply here. There's a point where you're definitely on the beach, a point where you're in the water, and a shoreline where... you're not quite sure what it is. History is like that. 路 5 months ago
Added to my book list @half_elf_monk, thank you for the suggestion. It sounds familiar. @hanzbrix I'm wondering when it became dystopic.
What it's confusing is that is a mix of stories we have seen. There's a bit of Orwellian's newspeak, a bit of Huxley on cultural flattening and heterodirection, a bit of 451 and a lot of cyberpunk themes all mixed together. 路 5 months ago
Yes. @chirale have you read Niel Postman's book "Amusing ourselves to death" ? It's about how digital/screen media changes the way we think. He wrote it in the 1980's as a prediction... but it reads like a history of the last 40 years. 路 5 months ago