Greentext

The smartphone didn't ruin those things. Capitalism did.

The person who wrote this wasn't alive before smartphones and are doing the whole "I was born in the wrong decade" thing.

I have a smart phone with a custom ROM, and a dumb phone (Sunbeam Mobile). No, I am not a drug dealer. Sometimes I change out my SIM card and will use the smart phone (especially if traveling to another state or country), and because it can make my life easier.

Here are some rambling thoughts I have on the topic:

-If you don't want to have a smart phone, and opt for a dumb phone, you need to be careful not to let your PC "replace" your bad smart phone habits in terms of scrolling, etc.

-For the peeps worried about privacy, I'm not sure if dumb phones would be an ideal choice. I'm not so sure how secure SMS and phone calls are. I am not an expert, so I have no idea about this, though. I usually use Matrix to have at length text conversations on a PC when I am not using a smart phone, because texting is annoying on a dumb phone and who knows if cell phone companies or other people are intercepting data to market more crap. I'm not so schizo about this, but it is annoying and creepy.

-People are isolated and need a way to build and maintain communities. These days, it is difficult to walk places and build community in the physical world. So that is why you have people getting together on Discord, Instagram, etc. I have definitely been isolated or lived in rural areas and having these outlets has been more helpful than harmful for me.

-If you want a dumb phone, I do recommend a Sunbeam Mobile phone. It supports group texting, navigation (with HERE Maps). I have an SD card full of music I put in the phone and it supports Bluetooth. I recommend the models of phones that are completely de-Googled.

-I don't think people should feel bad if they need a smart phone, especially if they are living in circumstances beyond their control which puts them in an isolating position.

-I think that ultimately people need to want to wake up to all of this. I want to be more involved in making my life more community oriented. I do live in a city, but it is very car dependent. I think that we need to push for development and policies that support community building over the long term, because most people are not happy having smart phones a fixture of everything. For example, is creepy to me that in any moment of time, I can guess what most people are doing (and that is that they are sitting on the Internet in some capacity or a smart phone).

-I hate Google and Amazon. Any way that I do not support them and boycott them is a win for me and society.

-I find it interesting that whenever I am using my Sunbeam phone, that younger people will come up to me and start asking about it. People are desperate to escape smart phones, but there are so many macro political and macro economical problems that create the situation we are in now. We see ourselves as so atomized that there is no examples of any organization or collective rejection of this crap.

Here is a great blog post, which I highly recommend reading: https://wrongthink.link/posts/re-life-in-dysfunctional-world/

I like having maps and gps with me

Amateur photography has gotten pretty darned good.

Yeah definitely the smartphone is why I still don’t have a girlfriend yup yup

Proved the underpaid math teacher wrong when they said we wouldn't always have a calculator in our pocket.

Ruines photogrpahy ?

Rhien II sold for $4.5 Million in 2011

I'd suggest that ruined photography.

https://expertphotography.com/most-expensive-photographs/

Ruined photography?

Professionals or hobbyists can still use a proper camera but the old maxim "sometimes the best camera is the one you have with you" often applies and cellphones do fairly well in that regard

The problem isn't smartphones, it's capitalism.

All of those things would have happened anyway in a different form factor because capitalism is just a race to the bottom.

Except maybe UI design. That has been special in its enshittification.

GPS, music, and I disagree about the camera. I’d love a dumb phone that could do GPS music and a camera and nothing else besides text and calls.

“There’s something so human about taking something great and ruining it a little so that you can have more of it”

There’s (mostly) nothing wrong with the technology. It’s the enshittification and profit motive behind nearly everything that’s the real problem.

Yeah, none of that is the phone's fault. That is like blaming fast food for being a fat ass.

Maps/gps navigation and being able to talk to someone across the world for free (provided you have an internet connection). Genz and younger millennials don’t know how expensive long-distance calls were back then.

Ruined pointless but enjoyable arguments with mates in the pub. In the old days you could get a good 15 minutes of entertainment out of 'Was it Matt Damon or Mark Wahlberg in that Three Kings movie?'

Now some asshat with a phone will kill that argument in 5 seconds.

You don't hate smartphones; you hate capitalism.

Anonymous does have valid points. The devices and internet all released with the governments blessing, for tracking and spying.

smartphone manufacturers have almost no common standards, they are made to be bought and then disposed of instead of upgrading the specs

it's impossible to do stuff like upgrading ram which would be very easy on a computer, and every smartphone has a different cpu

companies are doing their best to keep the open source guys out of the game, which in my opinion would solve a lot of the issues if this weren't the case

I want a smartphone without ios or android but just plain linux, which should be upgradable and durable, possibly with open source firmware and that kind of stuff

Calling out cops on their bullshit, troublshooting your pc when you bork the ethernet, sending photos of your feces to your friends to name a few

I'm prepared for the downvotes knowing where I'm posting.

If you hate it that much, why are you using it? It's a tool. It's useful. It also allows you to overindulge, but that says more about you than the tool.

I honestly hate smartphones as well, not because of any of what OP posted. On my PC, I can install whatever I want, including swapping out the OS. Most smartphones are locked down, and the few that allow alternative ROMs have huge incompatibilities w/ FOSS OSes (i.e. getting SMS to work is a bit spotty).

My phone runs GrapheneOS. I would much rather use something else (e.g. PostmarketOS), but it's the least bad option that supports all the features I need. I am still limited to Android-compatible apps, and developing for my phone is a lot more painful than any other ARM-based device because I'm stuck w/ the Android ecosystem.

The end result is that I don't feel like I truly own my phone, whereas I definitely feel that way about my PC. Yeah, my phone is convenient, and I don't use most of the nonsense Anon is complaining about (I mostly use websites on my phone instead of apps), but I still generally dislike having a thing in my pocket that I don't actually control.