I'm tired of being on the network

bix6

This is the overwhelming feeling of our time and yet we continue on this abysmal path. What will it take?

parasti

> The people who love being connected never let the thing leave them be it pocket, palm, face-down next to the fork I'm tired of convincingly presented falsehoods. I hate being on my phone. I also can't stop being on my phone.

jpm_sd

missing link to MiSTer https://retrorgb.com/mister.html

sublinear

> the offline option exists the way the wheelchair ramp exists at certain train stations: installed after the fact, satisfying a regulation, pitched at an angle no wheelchair on earth can climb. We are all expected to pretend grandma can make it up, and to act only mildly surprised when we find her at the bottom again. It's hyperbole like this that breaks the illusion for the post. I'm not an editor, but if you're trying to make a valid point you need one man. Stinkeroo.

mark_l_watson

I have lived in a tech-rich life since I bought my first single board home system in around 1975. I think it is as easy as setting boundaries: practice meditation. Learn to enjoy sitting and doing nothing, both in the living room and sitting outside. Then when the time is right, work hard for several hours to get important stuff done. Food tastes best when we are very hungry, so we must go long periods of time doing mini-fasting a few times a day in order to enjoy food. Similarly, earning a living or experimenting with tech should be something that you sit down and do for a while, then do something else.

damnesian

This is why we sail the salty seas. right here. if someone needs an explanation.

dzink

It goes from complaining about endless pitches of tech to pitching a gaming console. The tech pitching is a problem, but the need to be constantly entertained and fed some content or game is the real problem. Those are pacifiers. You stuff them in an adults mouth to keep them from actually thinking about what would improve their own life. Take the pacifier out and use your brain for your needs - what you should want to do, to make of the world, to make exist. See what happens next…

MarkWayneNewton

Tech/phone addiction is real. But it will be years before anyone admits it.

duskdozer

If my phone demanded my attention as much as it seems the author's does with notifications, I'd probably not keep it with me either. I also feel tired of it, but it's difficult to remove access to the number of beneficial things I get from it. I try to limit non-FOSS apps and modify most of those to suit my purposes better, though that often feels like a lot of work done with the intent of saving work...

wbobeirne

I recently switched to a used Minimal Phone (no longer being made sadly) and its been great for this. The best thing for me is to just make the phone completely unappealing to use, but still capable of essentials. A slow refresh rate eink screen helps a lot with that. For the authors complaints about ads, I recommend paying for ad free versions of things you truly enjoy. Budgeting will mean you consume less and have fewer choices, but enjoy it more. And if something doesn't offer an ad free experience you can pay for, that's a great reason not to use it.

cainxinth

I’ve read so many posts like these on hn, but I just don’t relate to them. I have loved internet access since my first dial in to a BBS in the 90s. I’ve been cruising the information superhighway at top speed every day since. There is always something new to discover.

protonbob

My solution to this is carrying two devices. One turned off iphone and a TCL flip 2. The flip phone runs android 11 so I can use signal to stay connected with international family, but for anything else it is useless other than calling, texting, and basic email > I long for the days of driving through the night with AM radio, where at least the ads were interesting. AM radio sucked.

bm3719

The author loved technology when it worked for him, now he toils in its service. Previously, it was additive, only giving and not taking; now it narrows options to only one: the app. Obviously, we shouldn't let this happen. Keep paper tickets, physical menus, cash, etc. These things are human, made by and for humans. They make sense across the intelligence spectrum as they connect to us in the physicality of the real (which everyone understands). Of course, the individual doesn't get to decide if all his government and city services app-ify themselves. What to do in that case? I guess this guy's chosen the path of minimal leashing: wearing the digital yoke as little as possible. That's just harm minimization though. Perhaps it'll help someone to say this: It is possible to live without a smartphone. I do it. There's times when you can't use a service. QR codes are meaningless. You might occasionally be bored. I've always found an alternative or workaround to these issues. Yes, that's inconvenient sometimes (usually not though, surprisingly), but is that worse than being a slave to glass slab?

_usefulcat

> I’m Tired of Being on the Network But I'll post about it on the network

stingraycharles

Total tangent, but I really like the way this article is written; you can effectively read the first sentence of each paragraph, and it still conveys the same story in a coherent, summarized way.

nancyminusone

Absolutely audacious to complain about being "forced" to install apps and in the next sentence complain about the Aliexpress app. Nobody forced you to install the aliexpress app. Nobody needs the aliexpress app. Also people need to hate ads more. A single unwarranted notification will get me to disable all notifications or uninstall your app. If you don't hate ads enough, you'll find yourself being shown ads.

cjpearson

The emotions are relatable, but the examples are strange and don't back up his argument. It is true that there are many situations in modern life where a smartphone has become effectively mandatory. But Ali Express is not one of those. It's very feasible to delete the app, or at least turn off the notifications. The quality of TV writing may have taken a nosedive but nobody is forcing you to watch TikTok Empire. If you long for the golden age of television, you can find disc versions of The Wire, Mad Men, The Sopranos etc. Often they're free to borrow at your local library. The App Store is indeed garbage, but I open it a handful of times per year and probably spend less than a minute to search for the app I want and install it. The argument about losing control to devices would be much more effective if the examples weren't mainly cases where the user clearly has control.

dwedge

> When we first got computers, this is simply what they were. By default they did nothing. They sat there and waited for you to have an idea. It's ironic that we've come full circle here. This is generally what AI does - nothing that isn't prompted, and yet still part of the end and nothing like the beginning of the internet

techblueberry

I think part of the problem is the frictionless and feeling like I can’t control the nature of the device. I think my killer feature would be a phone that is only configurable at a laptop. You can install whatever you want, but it has to be at the laptop. Website allow lists on the laptop. You can uninstall and block things on the phone but you can’t reinstall or unblock them until you’re back at your computer. I feel like all the screen time features are intentionally under designed. Their incentives are obviously to keep you in your phone as long as possible, while making you feel like they care.

zazuke

I've noticed a similar phenomenon: getting tired of networks and algorithms. I wrote a short essay with my thoughts on "Well Being in Times of Algorithms" [1]. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46352747