Okay so I’m Gen Z so for the older generations, this might not make sense to you. But basically, this is my experience with life as a Gen Z:
When I was in high school some years ago, everyone in my class had smartphones, and I did, but I’m horrible at taking care of my stuff, so I kinda just broke a lot of phones.
When I was in Middle School, I had one in like Grade 7, I broke it in like about a year, then in Grade 8, I also broke in in a year. It was some budget phones that did not have any water resistance, and did not have gorilla glass like modern day smartphone do. So, I don’t even have to explain, I don’t remember what exactly happened, but its probably a combinations of drops or water damage, plus budget phones are very poorly designed. And in Grade 9, I also got a phone, and broke it in a few months. And, since I didn’t really have a job (already stuggling at school and my parents were not struggling financially in any way so… yea there was kinda no push for me to get a job, don’t judge pls), and my parent’s weren’t very happy with me breaking stuff so often, so I never got a phone ever again. I mean, they could afford it, but they were reluctant, and I didn’t wanna push for it since I felt bad for asking.
So basically I spent like the rest of high school not having a phone at all.
When ever there was a class assignment that required doing online research, the school would often not have any chromebooks available (this was in like 2018 to 2020, for context), so teachers just asked the class to use their phones to do research in class. So there was valuable class time that I WAS UNABLE TO DO THE ASSIGNMENT. 🤦♂️ And this happend quite often. So often that I lost count. Probably over 100 times throught highschool. So I just sad there, bored, doodling on a piece of paper. Sometimes its worse when it was a CLASS ASSIGNMENT that aas due at the end of class, and the teacher had to ask a classmate to lend me their phone, or the teacher had to lend me their laptop so I can do the research or whatever that it was. Makes me feel like a caveman lol and I felt awkward af.
Also, my acquaintances (I never felt like they were “friends”) all have smartphones, but I didn’t so we kinda didn’t have a connection outside of school. No jokes, no shittalking teachers behind their backs, no meme sharing. I kinda felt left out. I mean it didn’t even matter if I had android, MMS groupchats still would’ve worked, and some circles used discord.
But I didn’t have a phone… so FOMO to the maximum. And thats probably why the acquaintances remained acquaintances.
These days, everyone is on their phones. If yiu didn’t have one, you stood out. Like the standard thing when there was no assignments, boom, everyone pulls out their phone. Substitute teacher, boom, everyone on their phones. Lunch time, boom, phones. On a school trip, phones. Any “downtime” is apparantly phone time. And of course, its fueled by boredom, before phones, people probably just got bored and stared into space. So I get why people use their phones. But they could also TALK TO EACH OTHER. Today, if you tried to have a conversation, you’re a weirdo. Its all just Instagrams, Snapchat, and lately, fucking TikToks 🤨 (circa 2020).
So at lunch time, I’m just some weirdo doodling, or finishing homework assignments because why do it at home, when there a whole free lunch period that have nothing to do?
And the worst thing is this thing called “Kahoot”, its a classroom game thingy where the teacher sets up like a “game room” where the class joins it using their phones to answer (class related) questions, sort of like a quiz, or sometimes its just a fun practice thing. And you get a score for getting it right, and also extra point for getting it faster. So sometimes the first place gets extra credits, sometimes the 2nd and 3rd also get extra credits. But you need a phone to participate, and I don’t have one. Meaning, no chance for extra credits. Like, Fuck My Life lol.
So yea…
TLDR: Everyone these days just expect you to have a phone, in school, in social life, in work, everywhere, and, according to society, you’re a “weirdo” if you don’t have one.
I’ve wondered this too. I’ve seen more and more places where you’re supposed to use your phone with seemingly no other option. For instance restaurants that only have digital menus, or I’ve seen things like promotions or giveaways that require a phone as well. I know I’ve seen some other spots that seemed more critical too, like a public service kind of thing, but I’m forgetting now what they were.
I have a phone, so it doesn’t affect me, but I still always wonder what they do if someone doesn’t have one. It feels like another vector for wealth inequality. Not to mention the fact that if cell service and internet went down anything that’s phone/computer only will instantly stop working entirely. It just seems like a problem waiting to happen to me.
So I’m a millennial, and it’s interesting to hear what you said about every dull moment being phone time. I was just talking with some friends yesterday about that and trying to remember what we used to do instead. To be honest there were plenty of times where we were really bored, and I don’t know if that’s better or not. I do feel like there is so much stimulation now that my brain never gets a chance to rest and decompress without making a very conscious effort to take moments like that. Can’t say I’m very good at that either. So maybe the boredom was a good thing in a way? I’d be curious to hear your younger perspective on that if you read this.
It feels like another vector for wealth inequality.
Its actually funny how even homeless people have smartphones in order to beg for money, so people can’t pull the “I don’t have cash” excuse to “save face” (Eg: China has homeless people showing a QR code linking to their digital wallet to beg for money, very… interesting…)
To be honest there were plenty of times where we were really bored, and I don’t know if that’s better or not.
I mean, remember that earlier in Elementary School, like maybe around 2010 to 2016 time period, there were no smartphone yet, most kids didn’t have one (or at least, not that I know of). Not sure if it was just because phones weren’t popular yet, or it was a school policy. But anyways: in Elementary School, we had recess so most kids would just play, but I don’t really play much, I kinda just fold paper airplanes and play with them. Sometimes I make other Origami stuff like the Eight-Sided Transforming Shuriken/Ninja-Star (google it, its awesome). In middle school, they stopped doing recess, so I kinda played chess with other kids, and everyone else sucked at chess lol.
Like, before smartphones, there was boredom, which isn’t fun, but not being able to make friends because everyone is busy on their phones… feels kinda dystopic…
Like phones aren’t necessarily bad, its just, nobody wants to talk to you anymore unless you start the conversation with some meme you found on the internet.
And there often where a group already found something in common, like a mobile game, or whatever, then they make a group chat, and that’s it, everyone else that didn’t make it in is an outsider. This “in group” and “out group” also existed before smartphones, but smartphones definitely made it worse.
Like, even if you had a phone, if its not good enough to run the latest PUBG mobile, or if your internet is to laggy to play Clash Royale, then like… you’re just not part of their group. Its not even an “Android vs iPhone” thing. Its “You don’t have a flagship phone, and don’t have high speed mobile data”.
Like I don’t hate phones, I just with it was more like:
People start talking about a subject, like idk, Space Travel, Future, Technology, Geopolics, whatever, then when there is a disagreement on facts, pull out the phone and google it, then promtly put it away when its not important to the discussion. Not like using it every moment 24/7 with their face burried in it. Just use it when you need it to search for stuff… like, ye know what I mean? Moderation is the key.
But kids be using it for trivial stuff like tik tok dances, which doesn’t brew creativity.
Thanks for the reply.
It feels to me like tech has been trying to remove humanity from every part of daily life it can. I don’t think technology is bad but I do think that goal is bad. It’s often done with good intentions, too, like making things more convenient. We lose a lot of opportunities for connection because of it.
It’s a quirk of human nature though, clearly. We need socialization but we don’t like to instigate it (at least many don’t). If you look at old photos of trains or busses everyone was reading the paper or a book. Phones aren’t that different, except the content never runs out. You can look at it forever and you’ll never see it all.
I heard someone describe looking at social media as a state of engaged distraction, and that really fits I think. A book is something you have to engage with and process in your mind in order to follow it. Social feeds are sort of the opposite. They take your attention, but it’s a constantly changing thing you’re looking at, often trying to get an intense emotional response. Your brain is just jumping all over the place (I’m using the general you in all this, so not trying to speak for you specifically). You can spend hours on a social feed and barely remember anything.
I think hearing takes like yours is a good thing for older people like me cause there’s way too much rhetoric about how the youth are phone addicted. You’re not the first person I’ve heard have this negative or mixed response to it, and your feelings about it are totally valid. I honestly feel really similarly. I don’t hate all of it, but I definitely think there are some major problems with what we currently have.
I hope eventually we create some apps that encourage human connection off the phone. There’s clearly a very human need for distraction and entertainment, so I don’t think abstaining from that is the answer. Pokemon go is probably one of the most successful examples of an app doing something like that. I never used it, but I’ve heard lots of people made friends that way.
I do feel like especially in school smart phones have become more “essential,” both for the kids and the parents. We live in a rural area where some areas have no cell service and not everywhere has affordable internet access. Yet at least monthly I’ve had to fill something out or sign something in an app or online. Plus most of the middle and high school teachers use Google Classroom for assignments and providing materials.
The good thing is my kid’s school does make sure to have a chromebook for every kid, but they typically stay at school unless it’s a virtual learning day. Also the kids have to turn their cell phone in when they get to school and pick it up at the end of the day.
I do feel like smartphones are close to essential in modern society. I can’t say I like that, but it is what it is. From all the things you describe to stuff like sending money between each other and paying for services in today’s cashless society you really kind of struggle without one.
For me, I got my first phone at 11 or 12, but back then it was of course not a smartphone but a regular cell phone. Times were different then. Kids still interacted with each other during recess, the best distraction your phone had available was Snake. The internet as we know it wasn’t a thing. The main thing you used your phone for was actually calling people.
As of this calendar year, my school has implemented a complete smartphone ban. We used to have to put them into a holder at the start of every class, but that wasn’t always well-enforced. Now, they’re not allowed to be visible, audible or even on you at all. If you’re caught with one, you have to hand it in and you’ll only get it back at 16:00. There are still some dumbasses who get caught using one during the lesson, but it’s now much better than before. People also talk to each other during the breaks now.
Personally, I got my first phone when I turned 16, in mid 2015. Before that, I never really saw the point in having one. It was a cheap, low quality budget phone, that got unbearably slow after two years. In 2017, I bought a Samsung Galaxy S7, which I am still using right now. I put the latest LineageOS on it about a year ago, when it turned out a common payment app no longer supported Android 8.0.
In the years after obtaining my first phone, it indeed soon became apparent that everyone and everything expected everyone else to have one. The schools and universities I attended since indeed held Kahoots (the winner often received a free bar of chocolate), and looking something up online on a phone was often required.
Meanwhile, there have also been a few months in which I refused to take my phone with me to school, because teachers could request all students to hand in their phones upon entering class at will (smartphones can be a major distraction, afterall). This has made it harder to do some assignments, sometimes, but I still believe my “protest” was worth it.
Man, when I was in high school, smartphones were getting big, but the school always tried to crack down on their very existence in school grounds (much less usage).
Got my first cell in the 8th grade. Never been fond of the things.
the “can’t live without a phone” culture/mindset is intentional of course, to harvest your data and spy on you
currently looking to replace my smartphone with a dumb one, but there are a lot of things i have to find solutions for like MFAs etc–things that require my own research into what can reasonably be considered trustworthy
If you need a smartphone for MFA for another device, I would suggest a password manager. Something like bitwarden.com can store TOTP secrets (the six digit rotating code) that aren’t as easily obtained through fishing. I use KeePassXC, but that’s because I also have my own Nextcloud instance to synchronize my .kbdx file across all of my computers.
I got my first phone when I was like 8 years old. Ever since that I’ve pretty much always bought the best phone you could buy at the time and this was true up untill around 10 years ago after they all started going to shit and I lost my interest in them. And yeah, you’re gonna struggle going without a smarphone in today’s world.
Nokia 3210, Nokia 3310, Nokia 3510i, Nokia 5140, Nokia N73, iPhone 3G, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, Samsung Note 3, LG V10, LG V20, Samsung XCover 6 Pro
My 13 and 17 year old daughters have smartphones, and they haven’t broken them ever. You need to take better care of your shit.
I haven’t broken a smartphone once. Since the original HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1) when smartphones first became a thing. Didn’t even use protective cases on any of them until my latest one, the OnePlus 6T, and I only did that because it came with it in the box.
At the same time, none of my family besides my wife really use theirs for much besides texting each other, gps, and some other shit. My kids much prefer their desktops over their phones.
Not required but makes life easier.
I think in sone places for example Singapore, Japan etc where most people are more with phones its really required.
I needed my bank card for example in Singapore to use the MRT but the App makes it so much easier. Or moving from A to B with Grab, uber, etc.
And without a phone you look normal in those places cause almost 95% staring at a screen. You got nothing to do, no one to talk to cause all on phone.
At first you think you are superior, dont rely on ohone and you arebt addicted like they are. But after that thought pops up 20 times in the same train ride you notice its just an illusion and not worth the energy to pretend you arent one of them. If I had a phone Id def watch shows or read news during public Transport. Its like reading news paper 20 years ago.
Nothing bad about phones. Its really just people using them 24/7, for example during dinner with family or friends. Go to a Restaurant. People have phones next to their plates and grab them every 10 seconds.
It might be cause they got nothing in common with the ppl at the table but why go eat out together then if all your phone contacts are better?
One day I will take a book with me to a table if someone uses phone. Ill double down being a better Person. For not using phone and for reading.
But the real thing is: why should they pay attention to you? You are competing against an algorithm that knows everyone better than you do and ever could. The question is: do the people want to fight that or just go with it? Its Hard to quit phone though with how Apps are designed. Just one more Clip, just one more message.
I swear in Singapore people walking while watching phone. They were able to dodge etc.
