No. Smartphones convicted the murderer of George Floyd. Smartphones have shown to the world the police brutality that happens at peaceful protests. Technology isn't inherently evil, it's how its used.
this post was submitted on 14 Jun 2025
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How about no. I've been wanting a pocketable "do everything" device since I got a Tiger Electronics Pokedex as a kid.
How about better regulations on the obscene amount of data collection going on behind our backs? I can't count how many times I've come across even just websites that have a giant "accept all cookies" button, but in order to reject any, you have to dig through layers and layers of "settings". The most I've seen was 80+. And that's just websites.
I'm about to wipe my phone and go all-in on Calyx OS.
Me who has a disability which prevents me from speaking and hearing people and renders me bedridden.
“Okay, guess I’ll die then”
Hey David, can you guess how many people are reading your article from a smartphone? Convenient, isn't it.
Want to complain about smartphones? Write a book... or something that can be published on fucking paper.
Ban social media and advertising/marketing. Smart phones are just a small computer.
The problem is with planned obsolescence and capitalist drive to always make more. The device itself is not inherently bad, it's a glorified calculator.
I'm pretty far down the luddite/makhaevist wormhole... But this is just a garbage idea.
Ban smartphones makes about as much sense as ban drugs or ban guns. It does nothing to address root causes and will do little to change anything for the better. Societal issues take more than “make X illegal”.
Battling anything is built of two parts, making it immoral, and making it illegal. Making it illegal makes it easier to argue that it's immoral, because many people take cues for their morality from legality, but if you want to keep it illegal you have to maintain the cultural belief in its immorality. Each reinforces the other.
Author admits smartphones are ubiquitous, and doesn't at all consider, in a hypothetical situation where everyone unanimously agreed to stop using them, where all this e-waste will go?
Also, how do you disillusion the millions of people that use them religiously?
I get the sentiment, but only a significant technologically literate society would really appreciate the need for greater control over their devices and actually possess the skills needed to modify and configure them.
Current smart phones will become e-waste either way. On that front, the benefit would be forcing all manufacturers to stop creating more e-waste for the future.
Author admits smartphones are ubiquitous, and doesn’t at all consider, in a hypothetical situation where everyone unanimously agreed to stop using them, where all this e-waste will go?
Pretty much every single smartphone in use right now will be ewaste 20 years from now, and most of them will be within 10. So we have that disposal problem already regardless. Hypothetically, if everyone were to get rid of their phones, we'd at least stop creating even more future ewaste.
This is literally not a problem with smartphones, the problem is about the software you decide to run on it. A smartphone is simply a very powerful pocket computer.
I agree, except that we are legally not allowed to control the software on our phones in lots of cases. Notifications, ads, upgrades, etc. are all controlled by the manufacturer and it's illegal to override their software on the device you own.
Add to that that specific pieces of software are becoming increasingly necessary to function in society, and you start to see that it's not really a matter of individual choice, anymore than people shopping at walmart can be blamed for buying processed, sugary foods when that's 90% of what walmart stocks (And all they promote), and walmart is the only affordable option in their community.
Illegal? What jurisdiction? There are tons of Lineage OS users and I haven't heard of anyone getting arrested for using them.
I've been able to turn off notifications for anything on my phone. Only the few apps I choose to allow still give me notifications.
I am fortunate to have a job that does not require a cell phone, I can leave it behind for hours at a time without affecting my work. I know this is not the case for everyone, but it should be an option.
At the very least, a phone required for work should have a separate phone number and email account, and should turn off automatically after the employee clocks out for the day. Some countries already have laws about this stuff, we should do that more.
Do it anyway. I use adb to modify my phone and make it suck less. I also look forward to the day (if it ever comes) where Linux phones are a viable replacement option.
Smartphones are fine, it's just a small computer that can make calls and is connected to the internet. You're using it wrong.
If people can't control themselves or their kids, it's not my problem.
The rise of fascists isn't your problem? Believe it or not, they'd never be this strong if it weren't for brainwashing the masses via smartphones.
Not your problem yet
That being said: just banning smartphones isn’t gonna cut it.
It's a lot of problems that I would never solve on my own, and both politicians and citizens don't want to change: social media and AI are destroying humans, shitty parents dont want to take care of their kids, and climate change is destroying the world. It's inevitable but the smartphone that I use is not responsible.
Many of us want to disconnect, but we can’t do so alone — not without losing touch with the world around us. Disconnection, today, carries real social and economic costs. Until such time as smartphones and social media can be democratically governed or nationalized — liberated from the imperative to profit off our attention indefinitely — a ban may be the most realistic path to reclaiming our lives.
If the author can't stop using whatever website he's upset about without requiring everyone else to have their smartphones banned, that sounds like a him problem.
It's not a problem that can meaningfully be dealt with on an individual level.
I recommend Johann Hari's book Stolen Focus. It goes deep into influencing factors of why we are having such a hard time of putting our devices down. The first he lists: giant tech companies are employing the smartest people on earth (i.e., smarter than you or me) to maximize engagement. The cards are heavily stacked against any single one of us trying to break free from these skinner boxes. The threat of social isolation you mock the blog's author for is of course another ace up Meta's sleeve. The book among other things tries to relieve the feeling of individual failure at this insurmountable task of constantly fending off the targeted attacks on our attention- I paraphrase: "You didn't fail, it was a losing battle to begin with."
If you yourself don't have this problem, I'm glad for you and I hope it lasts. Many, many people do, and there are ever more tragic news headlines to show for it. We as a society (or is that societies?) need to regulate the tech-oligarchs, and fast. I have some hope left at least for the EU coming around on it.
For every issue there is someone absolving individuals of responsibility. Either people have brains and can be responsible or they are brainless and can’t have responsibility. If it’s the latter then I think we should structure society in such a way that people can’t have free will because they clearly cannot be responsible for their choices.
Edit: every time I’m spending more time than I should on social media I just turn on an app like JOMO and in a week the problem is solved. Techbros do it, they call it screen fasting or some shit like that.
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smartphones are one of rhe hundreds o things that would probably be just fine and good if it weren't for capitalism
Idk, Smartphones under Feudalism can be just as bad, if not worse.
classic lemmy
Greed isn't limited to any one economic system, I fear.
There is no other economic system.
And "greed" isn't really the problem with capitalism. It's more about the violent deprivation of human needs in order to exploit people for the extreme privilege of a tiny minority. Etc.
There is no other economic system.
If lemmy.ml could read this, they'd be very upset.
All claims and no reasoning.
Smartphones make us more social, allowing us to reach each other ad hoc, not just by planning the meeting for a week. They makes us more free by providing helping tools like GPS and similar. They make us happier by helping to kill time while standing in the line or riding on the bus.
You're doing something wrong.
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No. If you wanna ditch the Internet, go right ahead.
And then what? Go back to the stone age?
Kids waiting to get picked at school and their parents have emergency, how are they gonna inform the others to get picked up? Are they gonna just let that kid suck it up and wait for hours, just like the good old times?
1-800-collect
What? Corded phones exist, and most schools and offices have at least one in each room. Dumb phones exist. Pagers exist.
Smart phones are not the only singular solution for easy, quick contact.
The stone age = any time before 2005 apparently 🙄
can we just ban people in general instead?
Ban life.
Now we're getting closer to the root. 👍
I'm perfectly fine switching back to a "feature phone" aka dump phone that takes phone calls and sends texts. If it also could be used as a music/podcast playiner, that'd be great too.
If you ban smartphones you better make a better replacement portable pc in the palm of my hand then.
Pocket PCs were a thing. I loved them.
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