Do you carry your cell phone with you at home?

[wolfpup]

@Babale

@wolfpup

@iiandyiiii

A smartphone is just a tablet or laptop you can put in your pocket, plus it makes phone calls.

No, it isn’t. First of all the difference in form factor makes a fundamental difference in practical functionality, with just some overlap. And a laptop is a real computer with an actual keyboard and pointing device.

A computer is the humble box that sits under your desk, not the monitor or the mouse or keyboard. That’s some serious gatekeeping. A smartphone is 100% a computer.

I know what a computer is. For the record, my career was in IT. I used to work for a major computer manufacturer and software developer. I’ve done IT consulting for major organizations, I’ve designed the architectures of major multi-million-dollar business systems and project-managed the development of many of them. I was also part of the enterprise architecture group at a major financial institution. I’ve worked with computers my whole life, before most people had even a rudimentary understanding of what a computer was. I know what a computer is.

@What_Exit

Take it from a retired programmer. A smartphone is indeed yet another type of computer. For a while I was answering system messages from my phone also and that was over 10 year ago.

As noted above, I, too, was in the biz. I’m not disputing that a smartphone is indeed a computer, and by legacy standards, most of them are pretty powerful multiprocessors, too. I’m just responding to the question in the OP. I mostly hate the damn things, and use them only for making and receiving phone calls and, OK, for texting when I’m forced to. Otherwise the stupid thing stays down in the kitchen beeping to itself.

As an Old Fart with a lifetime of experience with computers, I’m something of an anomaly – a paradoxical mix of technologist and Luddite. In some instances I embrace technology – I have numerous desktop and laptop computers all over the house. In other instances, I’m just annoyed by the idea that computer and communications technology should be deployed for no other reason than “because we can”. I love and appreciate the utility of cell phones, but I put the ubiquity of smartphones in the same category as internet-connected fridges and stoves. And I acknowledge that most of the world disagrees with me.

@Babale

@wolfpup

The curse of the smartphone, as a perversion of the genuinely useful cell phone, is that it’s immersed an entire generation in a virtual reality instead of the real world.

The world people access through cell phones is just as real as anything else humans create, like nations and societies and currencies. These are all fictions that we all pretend are real, which makes them so.

What I’m referring to here is the generation of people who miss out on life by constantly having their attention glued to their stupid phones. People who attend spectacular events and miss a lot of it because they’re taking pictures and texting back and forth with their friends about how great it all is. I was at a very fine sushi bar some time ago – the kind where the sushi chef’s expertise is part of the experience, along with the beauty of the finished product – and some idiot nearby was constantly taking pictures of the sushi and, judging from the relentless tapping on the phone, exchanging texts about it with her friends. It was annoying, yes, but also rather sad.