Dumb phones

Why do people do so much on smartphones?

I have one. I fucking hate it. If I didnโ€™t need it Iโ€™d never use it.

And itโ€™s not a low-end, either โ€” itโ€™s an iPhone 6. I have it because having one is required for work, but if I could Iโ€™d throw the damn thing in the trash in a skinny minute.

Reading on a smart phone is miserable (though better since the screens have become high-res). Actually achieving anything on one like booking an arline ticket or sending an email is a nightmare. Itโ€™s hilarious watching people struggle to do things on a smartphone that I can do literally 100 times faster on a desktop PC.

But that is one thing I like about smartphones โ€” as long as desktop PCs exist and people continue to forget how to use a real computer and associated keyboard, my comparative advantage in the workplace goes way up.

Smartphones arenโ€™t inherently bad. People who use them arenโ€™t wrong for doing so, either. But they are a bit inexplicable to me because they tend to make all experiences worse.

I donโ€™t get bored easily so thatโ€™s part of it. I can deal with 10 minutes of doing nothing because Iโ€™m always consolidating or attempting to generate ideas.

Other people? Iโ€™ve seen little evidence of this. Perhaps in that sense the smartphone is needed.