https://www.axios.com/2024/01/05/pre-internet-pay-phones-digital-online-cellphones-vintage-nostalgia

  • oregoncom [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    11 months ago

    I've met many zoomers who just stopped using a smartphone for several months or years. Myself being one. It's not that hard. Boomers need to put their ipad down for once.

    • SuperZutsuki [they/them]
      ·
      11 months ago

      If you're not addicted to ordering food delivery and social media there's really no need for one outside of maybe job requirements.

      • WithoutFurtherBelay
        ·
        11 months ago

        the ability to search for any information humanity has acquired at a moment’s notice

        • oregoncom [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          11 months ago

          I had an e-ink tablet I put all of Wikipedia and wiktionary in 3 languages on. It was like ~64G. No internet or smartphone needed. I distinctly remember carrying around pocket dictionaries as a kid too.

          • WithoutFurtherBelay
            ·
            edit-2
            11 months ago

            Can’t look up recipes or manuals on Wikipedia

            Dictionaries can’t give you instructions on how to maintenance a device you lost the manual for

            You can’t find the optimal choices for product buying at a moment’s notice with an encyclopedia (and don’t tell me the internet is too useless for that now, yeah, it’s harder, but it’s still possible)

            • PaX [comrade/them, they/them]
              ·
              edit-2
              11 months ago

              I generally agree with you but WikiBooks (adjacent project to Wikipedia) actually has a pretty great cookbook these days. Also a lot of other cool books

              https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Table_of_Contents

            • oregoncom [he/him]
              ·
              edit-2
              11 months ago

              Those are all things you generally do at home and therefore would look up with a computer. On my computer I've been hoarding textbooks, datasheets and manuals for quite some time. I've been hoarding scientific databases like protein db too but it's a pain. Everything on the internet is ephemeral. If you value this information you shouldn't rely on someone else to host it for you.

              optimal choices for product buying at a moment’s notice with an encyclopedia

              If I'm out and about then I don't need to find the "optimal product". Either it's a big purchase I already researched or it's a small purchase where the primary consideration is quantity of product divided by cost.

              In fact when datahoarding I find that reference books published before the internet are generally more convenient because it's all self contained and meant to be navigated without search. For example a book with tables of stress-strain curves is more convenient to store because it's just a pdf you can easily search through manually, versus a modern database you probably have to scrape off some website, usually in some annoying format you need specialized software to deal with and have to spend an afternoon installing packages and writing scripts just to look at it. And when an update breaks the delicate python environment you need to run some janky library for this specific format which could've just been a CSV you're fucked.

              • WithoutFurtherBelay
                ·
                11 months ago

                If I'm out and about then I don't need to find the "optimal product". Either it's a big purchase I already researched or it's a small purchase where the primary consideration is quantity of product divided by cost.

                Hahahahah, look at Mr Executive Function over here remembering to look things up before leaving the house.

                I would never.

      • Gorillatactics [none/use name]
        ·
        11 months ago

        Went to a store once that didn't have prices just item ids which I had to enter on their website to get the information.