Smartphones have taken over our world!

I miss those days when I would go to the mall or a cafe, see a girl, we exchange looks, and perhaps even talk.

I miss those days when humans were still "humans" that you can interact with.

Now all I see in malls is 95% of the people walking with their head tilted down looking at their phone, bumping into this guy or that guy.

I go to cafe's and I notice literally everyone is on their phone. No one even knows who's sitting opposite to them.

Heck one time I was at a cafe alone wanting to have a hookah and there were these 2 girls opposite to me sitting. The entire evening, they did not even look at each other or have any conversation, they both were on their phones indulged in their own digital worlds! So I was thinking, what's the point of going out???? why not just stay at home with your lovely phone?

I go to government office, banks, shops, every one is multi-tasking (which I call really Switch-Tasking because you cannot physically do 2 things at the same time) doing the paper work with one hand and the phone in the other.

Even cab drivers now have multiple smartphones even, usually an iPhone and an Android where they use one as a GPS device and the other for chatting!

This makes me sick. I remember the first time I used a smartphone which was a BlackBerry Gemini I thought that was the best thing since sliced bread, to be able to have all your emails, chats, etc. in on little device. Now I feel that smartphones have taken over the world in such a way there is no going back.

How do you feel about this? Do you agree?

View attachment 176512

 

I was never socialable to begin with so I never really noticed my own usage. I am also not on any social media so I have nothing to check either. I dont really make phone calls or SMS anyone often enough of note. I got my phone for really one thing, with the supplemental reasons. Quad DAC for music, the occasional photo and watching media from local storage for plane trips.

People are going to do what people want to do. If it wasnt this, it would be something else.

I am a somewhat private person and I didnt really like the idea of being sold ads for things I dont have interest in. Even now I am thinking of getting rid of my Amazon Prime account because instead of getting shipment notifications I keep get suggestions for desktop component sales and I havent built a desktop since 2012-2013, same thing for ebay, keep getting sales pitches for XPS laptops that I have and never will have interest in purchasing and its annoying at this point.

If Im on my phone away from home its likely because I am surfing these forums, its my only presence online anymore.

 

I'd say I miss those days too, except i'm in my 20s so its been this way for most of my life.

I agree with what you are saying though, i'm not very sociable anyway so I can't spend more than 10 minutes on my phone without getting bored of it and putting it away (unless i'm listening to music). I notice the same thing though that when i'm sat without my phone out, everyone else is glued to it. I've noticed an increase in the amount of people walking into me as well because they can't stay away from their phone when they are walking in the street, even worse is the people who cause traffic accidents because they can't stay off their phones.

The damage to society though is even worse than that, and I don't see it recovering any time soon. Its easier than ever to make 'friends' on social media, but harder than ever to make real friends with real people.

 

<Post deleted>

 

I usually look if their necks are broken or not.. Haha.. they stare at their phones too much and I like to avoid hitting them and usually walk at a fair distance to avoid getting hit.

 

yeah it happened to me today as well. I went to The Dubai Mall with my wife and kid, that mall is one of the largest in the world, there are millions of people in there, literally everyone was on their phone. A lady was walking towards me with her head tilted down typing on her phone, I deliberately just stood there and let her bump into me to give her a wakeup call!

 

Avoid getting caught in #MeToo movt. My cousin misses Dubai Mall.

 

:O)

 

Couldn't have said it better.

 

Where's the "I don't care either way" option in the poll?

While you may notice that people are on their phones in stores/cafes/offices/etc now, did you ever stop to think how many people read books and magazines (and later, ebooks) in the past and the current day? That's essentially the same thing as what OP is complaining about, just with dead tree rather than silicon. Think of the other activities do/did outside of their smartphones too, such as playing Sudoku, napping, reading the newspaper, listening to music (be it cassette, mp3, whatever), etc. Why limit this complaint to internet-connected screens?

Anyway, it's not that hard to have the sort of face-to-face fun with friends, you just have to (like in the past) put some sort of effort into it. With strangers, it's never really been "easy" (especially depending on the local culture); might be able to pull off some small-talk in the southeast US with a stranger perhaps, though probably not so easy in NYC or London, for example. At any rate, talking to friends in person and talking to friends on the internet are not mutually-exclusive activities and it's possible to have both if you want.

 

A picture is worth a 1000 words:

 

Eh, this is really just shifting blame from oneself to the phone for a lack of interaction with other people. As I said in my previous post, it takes effort to actually make friends and do things with them. Sitting idly and then blaming something else for the result of that action doesn't really solve the problem.