“looking out through the windshield” doesn’t tell me that a collision has all but one lane blocked two miles ahead. All it does is let me know the last opportunity to exit before encountering the jam is behind me.
well, yes, I rather like the idea of getting to work in 20 minutes like normal instead of 90. if I can pick up my phone, glance at a map, and see “oh hey, I-94 is a parking lot, I’ll take a different route” why shouldn’t I? what’s this mindset that “the way we did things back then should never change?”
I didn’t say it should never change. I said the changes might not necessarily add anything of value to your lifestyle, and it is a mistake to assume that every change in technology is a necessity in every person’s life, that cannot be gotten along without once you become accustomed, or rather addicted, to it.
Therefore, it might be useful for you and anyone else to, from time to time, evaluate how important modern developments in your personal life. My place, as a part of an open forum, is to bring that to the attention of other users, since it doesn’t seem that anyone else has.
So, if you think there is “something wrong” with reflecting on the imperative lock-step introduction of technology into one’s everyday activities, I’d like to hear the rationale. Like, what do you think would really happen to you, if you went to the supermarket without your phone?
Well for me, I wouldn’t be able to look up the shared online shopping list that my wife and I use. We enter our items during the week whenever we think of them, and it often gets updated while I’m out shopping.
But you could still write your shopping list on a slip of paper and take it to the store with you, right? It’s not like your cupboard would be bare, if not for the miracle of an online grocery list facility.
Yes, I could but I won’t. My wife couldn’t update things while I’m out shopping. And I couldn’t update the shared list whenever I think of things. The online shopping list (and realtime traffic updates via Google Maps) are improvements in my life. They are good things, with no significant downsides.
I mean, heck, I could memorize the list and not use the newfangled pencil and paper. Why not use that?
How often do you suddenly think of something that needs to be added to the grocery list, when you’re not in the kitchen, looking at your current inventory of groceries?
It sounds to me like you evaluate technology on the basis of how well it excuses you from exercising any responsibility for making any discretionary decisions or analyzing any challenges. I don’t see how that dependency can be a valuable life asset.
The significant downside? How about cost? I’ve flown around the world twice in the past two years, and I bet it cost me less than your cost of maintaining your mobile connectedness. And that option is open to me, because I travel mainly to third world countries, where one can’t just fall back on connected devices to do ordinary day to day things, like remember what to buy at the store, and find your way to the store in the first place.
Quite often, actually. We’ll see a dish that we enjoy or think of meal we’d like to make. Or just realize that we need to bring a pot luck dish to a party tomorrow night. Why the heck should I only think about food when I’m in the kitchen?
Whatever. Feel free to keep your Luddite ways. I’m using my phone to benefit my life and plan to continue to do so. I can live without it; I choose not to do so.
The local ABC radio station does the traffic every 15-20 minutes or so at peak hours here, as do most of the other local radio stations.
I’ve got a GPS unit mounted on my windscreen that has a traffic receiver built into it and will tell you about delays, accidents, roadworks etc as well as offering to divert you to another route if things get pretty bad.
The traffic info isn’t quite as up to date as I’d like but it’s proven helpful on occasion.
And as to the curmudgeons complaining about “Kids these days with their technology” and “I managed just fine with a paper map” - seriously guys, the OP isn’t trying to force you to change your ways. They’re looking for advice to help them with a very real problem facing a lot of people in major cities.
Telemark said “there are no significant downsides”, but for most mortals, there are… If he doesn’t regard a bloated cost of living as a downside, that’s his business, but in a public forum, I call bloated cost of living a “significant downside”. The opulently wealthy excepted, and they can ignore my characterization.
I don’t what universe you’re living in, but mobile phone and internet access is pretty cheap in the one I live in, to the point where I seriously doubt you could actually fly around the world for less than it costs for someone to stay connected to the internet for a year.
You’re contorting and conflating the concepts of utility and necessity. If you go to the third world at all, you know that people are taking advantage of mobile devices to an ever increasing degree there, for obvious reasons. It has nothing to do with “falling back on connected devices to do ordinary, day-to-day things.”
I myself ALWAYS forget something when I use a pen and paper to make a shopping list in the kitchen, so I’ve saved myself much frustration by using a spread sheet on my phone. If it weren’t a better way, I wouldn’t do it. It’s just arrogant condescension to assume otherwise.
If Big Brother gives a shit, he will find that, on the days he has to go into the office, leftfield6 leaves an Atlanta suburb around 6AM to head towards work, and hopefully leaves work around 4PM to head home.
If I’m ever lucky enough to have some kind of clandestine or nefarious place to be, I’ll not use Waze. Until that unlikely event, I really don’t give a hoot that, somewhere in cyberland, a faceless computer server knows I went to work that day.
I keep a shopping list on my phone. I can input the price for each item and keep a running total so I know how much I will spend. I can update on the fly without the need for a pencil.
I also have an app on my phone that connects with the store’s POS system. I don’t have to bust out my debit card to pay for my groceries. I just aim my camera at the checkout display and it debits my account. I don’t even get a paper receipt. I get an e-receipt transferred onto my phone.
I don’t see a cost to this at all. I see it as a great convenience. I love living in the 21st century. I think it’s cool, and I’m glad to be living in this digital age. And I’m not a young’un. I’m nearly 60.
I live in a very rural county and for the most part, the only traffic one encounters is on the main drag that leads to the Naval Air Station. And unless there’s an accident, that’s heavy but it moves well.
Road conditions? Well, if my driveway is icy, I’m not going anywhere. If I can get out of my neighborhood, I’m good - our county is really good about dealing with the roads in inclement weather.
Since I listen to satellite radio or the NPR station from DC, I have no idea what any local radio stations are, so I can’t get traffic reports. And I don’t have a smart phone, so that’s not an option. In the grand scheme of things, neither traffic nor road conditions are a big part of my commuting life.