I hate modern cell phones!

[Amaris]

I think we can all think of times when teachers were misinformed.

Many times.
I had to do all sorts of extra legwork, too, just to catch them up. No extra credit for it, either.

 

[Timewalker]

Our geography teacher changed his mind about what the capital of Iceland was every week. I never changed my answer on his pop quizzes but one week it would be right, the next not,

Didn't anyone ever point out that he was wrong?

 

[Catarina]

I have a tablet. I don't need a smartphone and carry a flip phone.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I wish I could get a 3G flip phone

 

[John Clark]

Didn't anyone ever point out that he was wrong?

Frequently, but he was of the variant "I'm the teacher here and never wrong" - even if you then answered "But last week you said"

Most of them were much better.

 

[Herbert]

True. But so often it seems that they only learn the stuff up to the grade level that they are teaching themselves, rather than becoming experts in the subjects that they teach. And then if a student finds out something beyond that grade level, the teacher insists that it's some made-up nonsense.

Kor

The good teachers aren't like this.

 

[Timewalker]

Frequently, but he was of the variant "I'm the teacher here and never wrong" - even if you then answered "But last week you said"

Most of them were much better.

If that happened here, a complaint to the Board of Education would be in order.

I'm glad I stood up to my teacher. Who knows how many students who didn't, and received unjustified grade reductions?

 

[publiusr]

I have a tablet. I don't need a smartphone and carry a flip phone.

That's all anyone really needs

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

If that happened here, a complaint to the Board of Education would be in order.

I'm glad I stood up to my teacher. Who knows how many students who didn't, and received unjustified grade reductions?

In primary school I had a bitch of a teacher but got her fired when she pulled me by the hair.... All for talking in class

 

[Astra]

Have we discussed these studies yet? I love especially the graphic from 1906 in the beginning.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/your-smartphone-is-making-you-stupid/article37511900/

Sean Parker, ex-president of Facebook, recently admitted that the world-bestriding social media platform was designed to hook users with spurts of dopamine, a complicated neurotransmitter released when the brain expects a reward or accrues fresh knowledge. "You're exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology," he said. "[The inventors] understood this, consciously, and we did it anyway."

It's common knowledge in the industry that Instagram exploits this craving by strategically withholding "likes" from certain users. If the photo-sharing app decides you need to use the service more often, it'll show only a fraction of the likes you've received on a given post at first, hoping you'll be disappointed with your haul and check back again in a minute or two.

The devices exert such a magnetic pull on our minds that just the effort of resisting the temptation to look at them seems to take a toll on our mental performance. That's what Adrian Ward and his colleagues at the University of Texas business school found in an experiment last year. They had three groups of people take a test that required their full concentration. One group had their phones face down on the table, one had them in their bags or pockets and the last group left them in another room. None of the test-takers were allowed to check their devices during the test. But even so, the closer at hand the phones were, the worse the groups performed.

Smartphones are making mothers and fathers pay less attention to their kids and it could be causing emotional harm. Lactation consultants in Canada and the United States have begun noticing the prevalence of women texting and scrolling through their phones while they breastfeed, breaking valuable eye contact with their baby.

 

[Amaris]

One of the first things I do, when getting a new phone, is disable all notifications and newsfeed updates. My phone still has the option for me to use the browser, but I remove its ability to tell me what's going on if I'm not actively searching for it. I do this because phones are giant distractions. They tempt you with the ability to access all of our knowledge with a few simple taps and swipes. My phone does not have Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube, nor Twitter. There are no games. It's a smart phone, but I've removed as much of its ability to distract me as possible. I use it for phone calls. Like @Catarina, if I want to access the internet using a mobile device, I have an iPad. I'm a last minute Googler, in that I wait until I absolutely cannot recall a specific piece of information, and have spent actual time working through the problem, before I look it up. As a result, my ability to retrieve information without resorting to the internet has improved, though only marginally.

When I was in high school during the mid-1990s, when the internet was just starting to become popular, I had a reputation for often having the correct answer, usually without having studied, because I had long since absorbed significant information from books as I was an avid reader. These days, however, my data retention capabilities have seriously diminished. I can read a novel, remember about 65% of it for a week, and then that information begins to fade quickly. In high school, that number was easily 90%, and would stick with me over the course of the school year.

So for me, the problem is very real, but the internet is everywhere, cell phones are everywhere, and I think it has negatively affected all of us. A cell phone can be a wonderful tool, but just like anything else, too much of a good thing can ruin it all.

 

[Avro Arrow]

Have we discussed these studies yet? I love especially the graphic from 1906 in the beginning.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/your-smartphone-is-making-you-stupid/article37511900/

Ironically, that very article came up as a suggested news article... on my phone!

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

One of the first things I do, when getting a new phone, is disable all notifications and newsfeed updates. My phone still has the option for me to use the browser, but I remove its ability to tell me what's going on if I'm not actively searching for it. I do this because phones are giant distractions. They tempt you with the ability to access all of our knowledge with a few simple taps and swipes. My phone does not have Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube, nor Twitter. There are no games. It's a smart phone, but I've removed as much of its ability to distract me as possible. I use it for phone calls. Like @Catarina, if I want to access the internet using a mobile device, I have an iPad. I'm a last minute Googler, in that I wait until I absolutely cannot recall a specific piece of information, and have spent actual time working through the problem, before I look it up. As a result, my ability to retrieve information without resorting to the internet has improved, though only marginally.

When I was in high school during the mid-1990s, when the internet was just starting to become popular, I had a reputation for often having the correct answer, usually without having studied, because I had long since absorbed significant information from books as I was an avid reader. These days, however, my data retention capabilities have seriously diminished. I can read a novel, remember about 65% of it for a week, and then that information begins to fade quickly. In high school, that number was easily 90%, and would stick with me over the course of the school year.

So for me, the problem is very real, but the internet is everywhere, cell phones are everywhere, and I think it has negatively affected all of us. A cell phone can be a wonderful tool, but just like anything else, too much of a good thing can ruin it all.

I bought a 3G flip phone for xmas for this reason and I still have my windows phone but that's at home on wifi for when I want to do internet stuff and this phone is perfect for me because 99% of what I do on a phone is talk. I don't google, facebook, or much of anything else.

I tried Instagram for a week as I have a few contacts but apart from those I decided after 1 week to dump that. Too many random people want to follow your feed and I found that a little off putting. Plus being a mostly picture oriented thing I didn't feel the need to continue.

I'm more then happy now with my decision.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

I have a smartphone for business but privately I use a stupid phone and am proud of it (YAY!).
As was said before, a telephon ought to be able to make phonecalls and store the numbers I frequently need. If it can send text messages that's fine, but for everything else there are cameras, radios, TVs and computers.
After all, we don't expect a bed to have an inbuilt fridge, shower and diesel-motor. So why should a phone have all that falderal nobody needs?

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I use a tablet for work and my phone is my backup. Are you kidding?? I've got room full of filing cabinets in my pocket. This combo helps me schedule, research, do my admin and accounting, and give presentations, for pete's sake! I use it as two backup cameras when I'm doing some run and gun street photography on my lunch hour, and I take it traveling instead of a bulky laptop. Are you kidding me??? The only other things I carry in my bag are a rechargeable hand-fan, my little tank of a camera Canon G10, and - a backup charger, lol. The only thing I use my computer for any more is photoshop or video productivity. Also, the screen is a little gentler on the eyes for long periods.

Watching the next generation play their phones like a piano - or a monkey in a Skinner box - I know they will not think twice about the people left behind by their technophilia. And it's not just phones; the bots are here too, if you haven't noticed yet, and only getting more prevalent.

In photography there is definitely an appeal of dead-simple mechanical button dials that give you instant access to your camera settings; rather than using screens and menus, especially when seconds count in getting a shot. With phones, there's a lot of people who only want the call or text function - and for them, you can definitely see where an old flip phone built like a tank just makes more sense than some fragile, skittish razzle dazzle device. Not to mention the Big Brother factor, where it's not just the government activating your camera and mic at will, but it's also commercial and private app developers, and hackers - and of course, future data-shadowers who will be able to profile your entire use history from databases for whatever purposes. But look, it's shiny!

Just for the record, there was a time when the human race survived just fine without cell phones, cheap 3rd world manufacture, or an ever-present, panoptic Observer Effect over their internetwork profile. And there was such a thing as privacy. I hesitate to think, sometimes, what the powers that be are grooming the human race to become. "Unquestioningly dependent upon their solutions," comes to mind. "Unquestioningly identified with the political and commercial appropriation of their cultural heritage." I hesitate to think how easily some can discard their own liberty. "Meh." Yes, meh indeed.

We worried about the implanting of microchips in individuals and what that totalitarianism signified; but you know, in a data-immersive world, the same results can likely be had non-invasively; voluntarily; unquestioningly. And as for security, it has now stretched to accommodate not only the lowest behavior in one's community, but capable of the entire human race worldwide.

"Meh."

You are worth less then the data you generate. All hail our corporate masters
Watch Dogs.

I have a smartphone for business but privately I use a stupid phone and am proud of it (YAY!).
As was said before, a telephon ought to be able to make phonecalls and store the numbers I frequently need. If it can send text messages that's fine, but for everything else there are cameras, radios, TVs and computers.
After all, we don't expect a bed to have an inbuilt fridge, shower and diesel-motor. So why should a phone have all that falderal nobody needs?

I have my windows phone which now is kept at home on wifi and I use my new 3G stupid phone when I go out. I mainly use my phone to talk to people not to play games or use failbook or such.

I feel a hell of a lot happier now that I have made the switch.

 

[ralfy]

They remind me of Star Trek.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I don't hate smartphones or tablets (I use them myself), but I am kind of disturbed by the impact they have on our society, especially young people. I was in a nice sit-down restaurant the other day, and it seemed like almost half the people there were looking at their phones instead of each other. It was even worse when I was in the auto shop yesterday for an oil change--no lie, I was the only one who didn't have their face buried in their phone.

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't have a problem with smartphones, but have we reached a point that we've become so dependent on them that we can't even put them down to have a meal? That we can't go thirty minutes without looking at them? I remember watching a TV news show about this very subject (smartphone dependency), and a reporter asked a group of kids could they go a day without their phones, and almost all said no.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

that's exactly what I feel! Wherever you look, there are these cell-zombies. Nobody talks to each other anymore. There have even been so many cases of phone-starers getting run over by cars that several German cities have now pedestrian lights in the ground at crossings (no kidding!), so that the zombies can see them without having to tear their eyes off their phones.
I can't understand why anyone would willingly isolate themselves completely from their immediate surroundings and only live online or on the phone. They deprive themselves from so many interesting things and intellectual stimulation.

 

[Avro Arrow]

I have a smartphone for business but privately I use a stupid phone

I also have a company smart phone, but for private use I just have a generic cell phone. Not for any ideological reasons, but just because cell phone data plans are expensive here, money is somewhat tight, and I can't really justify the expense. Work is generally good about letting us use our work phones for texting friends and family, but we can't just put whatever apps we want on them.

After all, we don't expect a bed to have an inbuilt fridge

Let's not be hasty... you may be on to something here!

It was even worse when I was in the auto shop yesterday for an oil change--no lie, I was the only one who didn't have their face buried in their phone.

If you don't mind me asking, what did you do to pass the time? I always take my phone and either my iPod or eReader to the garage to give me something to do while waiting.

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't have a problem with smartphones, but have we reached a point that we've become so dependent on them that we can't even put them down to have a meal? That we can't go thirty minutes without looking at them?

I asked my phone, and it said, "no, of course not."

There have even been so many cases of phone-starers getting run over by cars that several German cities have now pedestrian lights in the ground at crossings (no kidding!)

An Ontario government backbencher is trying to get a provincial law passed to ban phone use while crossing the street. (I had not previously heard of phone users being called "zombies" before, so when I first started hearing about a "proposed zombie law", I was understandably confused! )

They deprive themselves from so many interesting things and intellectual stimulation.

OTOH, I would think that having the entire sum knowledge of humanity at your literal fingertips, would also be able to provide some interesting things and intellectual stimulation.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

good point in theory. However, in praxis.... just have a look around the web. Can you detect many signs of intelligence? It seems to me that on the contrary people are getting more stupid nowadays. To name but one example, employers over here complain that the workers they get are not able to read well enough to understand written orders (mind, not foreigners but native speakers!).
It's one thing to have all the planet's knowledge at one's fingertips and completely another to make use of the fact.