Do you own a smartphone? Let's talk about smartphones.

[SpongebobFan1994]

Two days ago, I went out with few of my friends and some other people I've never met earlier (friends of my friends). I was hoping to chat with them the whole day, because I didn't have a chance to go out in last couple of weeks and i really needed to polish my social interactions.
All I could see was some people sniffing their shiny new mobile phones all day. Even my girl friend.
Tried to talk with them many times, but at the end I decided to go out and watch the nature alone.
It is really heart breaking to see what mobile phones have done to majority of the society.

I have seen it going on for years, a group of youngsters one end of the bar texting a group of girls at the other end of the bar, they seem afraid to open their mouths and talk, or too lazy to walk across the room

While these high-end devices are completely unnecessary, I wouldn't say they themselves are the problem. The underlying problem is actually the conditioning created by commercials, peer pressure, social media, etc. What's even more sad is a number of parents say they want to keep their kids away from that conditioning, but don't practice what they preach because they're stuck dealing with jobs and bills.

 

[SpongebobFan1994]

It's gonna take a generation or two to figure this out.

That's what scares me

 

[KGIII]

That's what scares me

Meh... We're humans. We're remarkably resilient. We'll survive. We'll be just fine. There are billions of us, after all.

The folks that run around screaming about how the sky is falling are the same people who have been screaming the same thing for decades and decades. So far, the sky has not fallen. I have no reason to believe the sky will fall in the near future.

As a species, we're still in our awkward teenage years. Yeah, this is a pretty major shift - but we'll adapt. We might even weed out the people who can't (or won't) adapt.

 

[JSteelinux]

I am from Genz and most of people in my age don't even own a computer. They are addicted to their mobile phones (even me) most of the time but they don't have even basic technology literacy.

I bought my current smartphone an year ago and it won't receive updates after this year. So, basically, I paid hundreds of bucks for a phone and it is useless after 2 years. (Google Pixel Flagship devices receive security updates for only 4 years).
Following Apple, Android phones don't come with a charging brick in the box now, but I wonder how it benifits to the environment when the customer has to buy a phone for every two years because the vendor company doesn't want to release updates for slightly old phones.

So, I decided not to buy another smartphone for next 10 years and install an emulator on my computer and use android apps on it when my current device doesn't receive updates anymore. I am already trying only to use my phone for text messages and calls while I run desktop applications for encrypted messaging applications, 2FA applications, etc. on computer.
So far, my experience is great. I could save lot of time and reduce addiction looking at the mobile phone screen for hours without doing anything meaningful. I might even sell my smartphone and buy a dumb phone for just for calls.

I have several unsupported phones that I bought years ago to learn on. I saved them hoping to learn skills to me them ultra private and safe to use. Anyone know where I can learn this stuff or have ideas I can work with to accomplish this and have fun. I read the books but learning single commands with generic examples doesnt work for me. I didnt get into this stuff until my late 30's and it was easier to do. I took a break for a few years and learning this is challenging when you can't get answers from search engines.

 

[Brickwizard]

his is challenging when you can't get answers from search engines.

you have 2 major problems, the first is beyond your control and that is search engines on mobile devices are all commercial ventures, so you will have reams of crap entries in the results before you get to the meat, and the other is asking the right question in the first place.
As an example one of my local pubs needed some canvas awnings repaired, I told the landlady to search for tarpaulin and canvas repairs and manufacturers, the next time I saw her she said google had not found any and most of the results were nothing to do with her search, I went to the car, got my netbook, logged on to the pub network, using DuckDuckGo I entered "tarpaulin repairs manufacturers *name of town* " [note exclamation marks] and the first result was a man working from his home workshop just two streets away

 

[MatsuShimizu]

The underlying problem is actually the conditioning created by commercials, peer pressure, social media, etc.

All I could see was some people sniffing their shiny new mobile phones all day. Even my girl friend.

 

[ML_113]

As a species, we're still in our awkward teenage years. Yeah, this is a pretty major shift - but we'll adapt. We might even weed out the people who can't (or won't) adapt.

When the outside temperature is 50°C in the shade, it's hard to adapt.

 

[KGIII]

When the outside temperature is 50°C in the shade, it's hard to adapt.

Oh, we'll be "just fine". We'll move to colder climates, use even more energy for climate control, maybe even start looking at in-ground housing - building down instead of up. Eventually, the sun is going to expand and scorch the surface of the earth anyhow, so we'll eventually no longer be able to adapt. But, we'll be good for quite a while. We're humans. We're pretty robust as a species.

 

[NORD]

You could go another route by rooting or jail breaking your phone. There are ways to delete the trash on smart phones like in the past I have done withe my Samsung phones with ODIN flashing software.
Basically you remove the current OS and put the rom in your phone that suits your needs.
Some roms will make blue tooth and other things not work properly .
I used to keep the stock rom and get apps to delete the bloatware witch made the phone run more efficiently.
But there's another catch if the stock roms have updates for security issues then it will remove your lets call it (super user) controls and restore it back to stock or in some cases brick the phone.