Not exactly original thoughts on technology .... the pencil or all this other shit?

[MrsGamp]

What just occurred to me is this: if your life was in danger AND for some reason you were unable to talk ...

wouldn't you rather have a pen and paper - or even ANYTHING you could write with, such as a lipstick, than have to depend on your fucking phone?

I would.

Doesn't this mean that SmartPhones etc are sort of anti-technology?

 

[MrsGamp]

Another thing - it's related to the example above .... I am SURE that our tech is getting INCREASINGLY anti-tech, by which I mean anti-useful.

What the fuck has happened since the late 90s/early 2000s?

I'm not going to go on about the internet because I am sure most people can see that increasingly, the internet mostly a fuisillade of nuisance-value. It seems deliberate.

Many people much better qualified than me to comment have written about the capitalistic appropriation of the internet in recent years.

What I am talking about is deliberate time wasting crap that anyone online must now cope with, as they fight their losing battle to do the stuff that they originally intended to do when they "jumped online".

Not just the internet, either. Even offline the applications are increasingly meant to cripple you.

I am so sick of having to get rid of "notifications" or unasked for "help" while trying to read or write on my computer. Like having to tick a box that says "GOT IT" in order to make some bullshitty thing GO AWAY.

I'm sure someone will say, "you can block all that stuff".

Not without descending into vortexes like "Settings", though.

Is anything more time-wasting and dull and infuratiating that fucking about with

SETTINGS?

By the way, I used to be capable of articulating what I mean much more clearly and cleverly.

But the TECHNOLOGY is increasingly robbing me of my ability to concentrate for longer than about ten seconds at a time...

SO LIKE THE DUMB ASS I'VE BECOME, I"M DEPENDING ON

CHANGING FONT SIZE

to make my frustrations palpable, if not intelligible.

 

[JessFR]

I'd want the phone, no question.

Ok there's one exception to that. It depends on why my life is in danger, if it's anything involving an attacker, the pencils a better weapon.

Otherwise the phone (if it's heavy enough it could serve as a weapon too though).

Think about it, the phone can do what the pencil can, only ever so slightly less reliably.

But it can do soo much a pencil can't.

If there's noone around to read my words, I can try and communicate online, wifi or cellular, or via text. There's just so many more ways to use it to communicate.

What if the person I need to talk to is blind? I can use it to speech to text.

Obviously this all assumes a charged phone.

I don't think it's so much technology being bad as it is possible to misuse.

Even the internet, you can learn SO much on the internet for basically free, if you use it that way (and I do). And I don't mean the conspiracy theorist celebrity gossip mindless trivia bullshit most people learn, I mean actual educational shit.

It's just most people use it to trade bullshit and lies on social media. Which I don't use.

 

[MrsGamp]

But look, Jess ... supposing that you were NOT in a foreign country, or surrounded by blind people, but just in your usual setting ... and urgently needed to get people's attention ... well, whipping out a can of spray paint and writing HELP would get you seen to more quickly than trying to text someone, surely?

 

[JessFR]

Well, I suppose, but this is getting very specific. I have no doubt specific situations can be thought up where it's better not to have technology.

I just suspect in most situations I'd rather have the phone.

And you know, while a phone can certainly be flat, pencils can break and pens... Well pens don't seem to work 90% of them time I try to use them anyway and I have to scribble them to get them to work then they only work on part of the page but not the other part and WHY WON'T YOU WORK YOU STUPID PEN.

So yeah old school isn't perfect either. :D

 

[MrsGamp]

You are right about pens. The first one you try never works,

In my current mood I am inclined to blame Microsoft for that as well.

 

[sekio]

I have an Android phone, and have everything set up how I can use it efficiently and without too much distraction. I run a custom OS (Lineage), have Adblock system-wide and also uBlock on Firefox, and whenever possible I will use open source apps. When I have to use an app that has intrusive adevertising and no free alternative I will patch out the advertisements with something like Lucky Patcher. (Anything else must have advertising so deeply rooted in the app that I don't want it on principle anyway.)

Is this more work than 90% of people can be expected to do? Yep.
The way I see it, though, is that almost all of the "hard work" is a one time up front investment that more than makes up for itself in time and hassle saved later. Setting up the OS how you like it, figuring out which apps, etc. can be done in an afternoon if you know what you're doing (or are willing to follow a guide online). You can also find someone in your social group who is technologically apt and ask them to do it for you, in exchange for a box of donuts or something. Either way, after you have everything set up, you can hopefully have your phone behave how you'd like it to, saving you hundreds of irritating 3-second time wastages.

 

[MrsGamp]

but it never ends in just one afternoon, really ... I mean there's the constant "updates" and hectoring, and even as a person buys their brand new phone or PC, it's obselence has already been planned.

 

[Zephyn]

You should really try an operating system other than windows, and as for mobile try a slimmed down version of Android, iOS suckz too.

 

[birdup.snaildown]

I don't know why it took me so long, but I finally installed a free Ad Blocker on my computer this month and all ads instantly disappeared. It took me about three minutes to research which one to get and install it... As for apps, I pretty much don't use them other than a couple of messaging apps. My android phone is basically empty. I disabled the Google Chrome browser and Google search bar because they can't be removed. No ads.

Personally I prefer typing than writing with a pen. My handwriting is god awful and I type insanely fast, so there's no contest.

But I do spend too much time on my computer and that's something I'm working on. I drilled holes in my computer desk so I could install a latch and a padlock. This way I need to go and get the key and unlock the desk to turn on my computer. It prevents me from going online without thinking about it. I find technology as addictive as any drug and I've been heavily addicted to: heroin, meth, methadone, dexamphetamine, benzodiazeipines / thienobenzodiazepines, cannabis, tobacco, alcohol, amyl nitrate, nitrous oxide, psilocybin and dextromethorphan. People don't realize how addictive technology is because they never try to quit it. It is like a leech constantly sucking on my brain.

I've found detaching from technology and going offline for half the day to be really rewarding. I'm planning to start doing electricity-free days once a month soon. Long term, I'd like to seriously minimize my screen time... but like I said, it's harder than kicking drugs. I'm totally sober at the moment. No drugs, no alcohol. I don't even take painkillers. But, I can't seem to shake technology.

I mean there's the constant "updates" and hectoring

If you keep your phone and your computer simple, there's not much in the way of maintenance. The more apps you pile onto them, the more you're going to have to deal with settings and updates and SPAM and all that bullshit. I don't like apps. I don't need them. Since removing them, I don't miss them at all. I recommend gutting your phone and your computer and just leaving the bare essentials.

Personally, pretty much all I need on my computer is a browser, a word processor and a whole shitload of porn.

 

[jpgrdnr]

More broadly, there are a lot of technological things we've never really come to terms with. Television, refrigeration, birth control. I'm kinda parroting Jordan Peterson and a few other people, but there you go.