AIBU to find it sad that staring at our phones has become the default human activity?

Your not you're

@GarlicGrace That is pretty condescending towards younger people. I know loads of people under 35 who are extremely bright and switched on, perfectly capable of critical thinking and excellent communicators.

I also know lots of older people who are the complete opposite.

You sound a bit snobbish to be honest, like you feel you are somehow superior because you like discussion and analysis. That's not an age thing. It's a personality thing.

@TrustPenguins @DataNotLore I agree just saying that it is incredibly difficult to be phone free when you're whole life is dictated by that tiny screen. I find it sad that couples and families are all on screens in restaurants and cafes, kids must be missing out on so much by not having the same interaction with their parents and the world around them.

I find it really fascinating. Human behaviour has changed massively. I'm sure our brains are changing too as a result, we certainly have shorter attention spans.

90% of the time I don't notice it because I'm looking at my phone. 10% of the time when I look up I think it's kind of sad, but then I just get back to Insta/ Facebook/ whatever I was doing!

Books and magazines are different coz you wouldn’t normally read a book while in the pub with friends. Or during a family meal. Or while exercising.

My social media use plummeted with the growth of Instagram & TikTok. I don't live my life in photos or tiny videos, and realised my screen addiction is to text. I like discussions, news and analysis, fiction - all things I used to consume on paper or engage in by talking.

It's the reason I came back to MN, actually! So many people left Facebook or disappeared into groups & messaging, and Twitter got ridiculously segmented. I prefer the 'random pub conversations' aspect of boards like this - and Reddit, once you find your subs.

I'd like to think it's an indication that forums might make a comeback. I suspect it's more of an age thing, though. People under 35-ish seem to be predominantly visual, having been trained by the algorithms you mention. I do worry about the effects on critical thinking (or any thinking) and communication skills, and suspect it may be blunting people's sensory capacities. It's pretty sad, imo.

It may be the way humans have always been heading, though: striving to live at one further remove from the tangible world. I mean, I'd hate to have to fetch my water from the river and cut my own peat for the fire I would have to build. There were, and still are, people who say total DIY is the only way to truly live. Reading a magazine in the park, whether on paper or a screen, would look to them like a refusal to face reality.

As younger humans filter all their experience through digital imaging, tweaking it with enhancements, changing it with AI fakery and adding to it with augmentations, they're probably just taking the next step. I'm okay with being left behind in my 'distracted but not removed' state, tbh.

Stolen Focus is a great book.

Yes I hate it when people ignore the rules on this

YANBU - that film WALL-E in 2008 was scarily accurate about what looked fe would be like and it feels like we’re half way there:

1. rampant consumerism corporate greed, and environmental neglect has caused Earth to become uninhabitable

2. Earth over populated by humans

3. Humans addicted to screens

4. Humans increasingly obese

5. Robots providing endless loop of pleasurable living and doing everything for humans so they are incapable of critical thinking

I hate this. I went to a pub quiz last week with 4 friends. During the break they all instantly reached for their phones and just looked down, not speaking. I started a conversation, got some vague answers and they went back to their phones. L So I gave up and I went to the bar ☹️

Looking around, most tables were similar. It’s so sad to see

None of that previously took place at a restaurant table however.

Now it does. Why?

Very true - but there's a time and a place. Not always easy but surely we should be prioritising time / attention with our children.
There can be rules like no phones at meal times etc.

Given that almost every aspect of life - work, kids homework and activities, tickets, banking, news, shopping, paying bills, train tickets, bus times, holidays etc is all online or via an app it is very difficult not to be on your phone a lot of the time even without any social media.

my ADHD brain loves a smartphone, I can spend hours scrolling on how to clean more, be organised all that great stuff… and then my rational brain is like WTF in the 6 hours!!!! a day you spend trying to obtain this perfect organised lifestyle by reading about it on your phone, your house would be immaculate and u could read that book, exercise and cook and do an epic job at work.

… I love and detest my phone in equal measure…

its when you pay £££ for tickets at a show or concert and literally everyone is on their phones. Went to see Donny Osmond in a panto at the palladium and people were specifically told no filming. Oh no, some woman felt the need to film it in front of us. Went to see a band and again told no filming which a fella thought he was above the rules. Band stopped and called him out on it !

I agree with you fully, and I am guilty of being on my phone FAR too much. No judgement of others from me, I'm absolutely the same. I have been making an effort to put the phone away. I read a lot so that helps. I also make a rule and stick to it that on holiday I don't use my phone beyond checking it once in the morning and once in the evening for any emergencies at home. It then goes in the safe. One image that really stuck with me was the Maxi Jazz Insomnia tribute played by Michael Bibi at Printworks. Watching a clip all you could see was phone screens being held up. A sea of screens. Nobody living in the moment. Nobody just enjoying the time. That made me want to put my phone down.

Its a good crutch for passing the time, particularly when you are by yourself.

Before phones - I spent that time smoking cigarettes. Phones are better.

I agree. Another important difference is that some people are glued to their phones while they’re walking. Not many people used to do that with books. Add headphones to that and you have someone who is not present, they’re somewhere else. I hate to see people doing this while they’re walking the dog because their attention is not on the dog at all. I also think it’s sad when parents are constantly checking their phone while they’re feeding or bathing young children. Again, they are not there and their attention isn’t on the child.

I’ve noticed that my teenagers and their friends are much less observant and aware of their surroundings than I am. They miss a lot of interesting things because they’re walking around in Phone Land. It isn’t that they’re not interested- they are genuinely fascinated when these things are pointed out to them- they just can’t spot things themselves. Also they are terrible at navigating using signposts and cues in the surroundings. They just blindly follow Google Maps.

Gosh this is very sad 😞

But it’s not a book. It can be a book but it has an insidious element inherent in it that books don’t have. A master and slave dynamic. People are slaves to screens.

So true.

OP YANBU. I hit 50 this year and remember managing perfectly fine without smart phones. I wish we could go back, but of course, this particular genie is never going back in the bottle. I have a definite addiction, as do my family. I hate it. We have phone-free tables and that's pretty much it. Also kids have to hand in phones before bed. My excuse is that my DS has his blood glucose on his phone which feeds to mine, so I obsessively check that, which is not healthy either. Yuck. Any suggestions for family detoxing?!

DH and me have just spent a couple of days in a beautiful village in North Yorkshire. We were sat having lunch in a lovely pub garden complete with containers overflowing with summer bedding, a family of ducks from the nearby stream were wandering about and it was idyllic. My DH said " Would you believe everyone around us are sat looking at their phones"?

Didn't surprise me.

Nothing says phone addiction like defensive posts about phone addictions.

I'm so bored of threads like this now, they seem to be popping up over and over and they're always written in a similar romanticised style; 'garden in full bloom' 'whipped their phones out' etc etc

I'm a normal adult woman who can interact perfectly find when I need to. I also have to keep up with news, emails, WhatsApps, Teams etc because I have a job and friends and interests. I'm learning a language with an app. I order my shopping online which I can do in a 'garden in full bloom' instead of under harsh strip lights in a supermarket. I book GP and dentist and vet appointments via websites, and I plan and book holidays with apps. I could go on. All of this contributes to my happy and healthy life.

Maybe, rather than being so bored looking at the garden because you're so superior to those on their phones, you could mind your own business?