{"id":163318,"date":"2019-08-11T18:56:38","date_gmt":"2019-08-12T01:56:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=163318"},"modified":"2019-08-11T19:59:17","modified_gmt":"2019-08-12T02:59:17","slug":"is-it-bad-that-everyone-is-always-on-their-phones-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/08\/11\/is-it-bad-that-everyone-is-always-on-their-phones-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it bad that everyone is always on their phones now?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It is pretty obvious that at this point, we are all always on our devices [phones, laptops, etc]. Is this a bad thing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

When does it upset me when others are on their devices?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Generally speaking it annoys me when I’m talking to someone and they’re giving me half (or less) of their attention to me — when they are talking to me while on their phone or device. To me this upsets me because I like having 100% of someone’s attention when I am interacting with them. Obviously this has to do with my ego — I don’t want to waste my energy talking or engaging with someone if I feel I cannot get their full attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus as a simple rule, I don’t do what annoys me to others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, I will put away my devices when talking to people. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when we witness certain social behavior that others do which we don’t approve of, what should we do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For example– I often feel repulsed when I see an entire family at a restaurant, when they are all on their phones or iPads — even some of them often have headphones on!!! I don’t have power over how they act [nor should I] — but I wonder:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why does the behavior of others bother me, especially when I’m not related with them?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The inner-tyrant in us<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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My theory:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think we all have an inner-tyrant which desires that all people should act the way we desire them to act.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In other words, we would like to control how others live their lives. We want to create the social rules in which everyone else obeys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"iPhone<\/figure><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Does it matter what people are doing on their phones?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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In theory, there shouldn’t be much of a difference between seeing people reading a book, reading their phones, reading a newspaper, reading a kindle, etc. But why do we see it as ‘virtuous’ when we see people reading paperback books, when we see it as ‘vice-ridden’ when people are on their phones?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kids are all addicted to their devices now!<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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For example, what if someone on their phone is reading The Illiad, or any great piece of literature? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had an incident when on the train in Amsterdam — I was reading either philosophy or Homer on my iPad, and some old man gruffed and said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All these kids are so addicted to their devices today!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I looked at him, told him I was reading philosophy, and he gruffed and walked away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It seems that it does matter what we are doing on our phones. Are we texting our old grandparents to wish them a good day? Are we answering important work\/money-related emails? Are we playing Candy Crush? Are we mindlessly scrolling through social media feeds? Are we creating art on the ProCreate app or ZenBrush 2 app? Are we looking through our artistic photos on our phone? Are we writing an essay on our phone [iA writer]? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virtue tyranny <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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I think when we are on our phones, most people assume we aren’t doing anything “important” or “productive”. I think most people assume we’re just squandering our time playing games, doing social media, or other ‘unimportant’ stuff. This is the bias, and I think it will remain this way for a long time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this is a bit upsetting to me. It infers that other people know what is ‘best’ for us, and they have the power to dictate what is ‘virtuous’ and ‘vice-ridden’ behavior. If we really think about it– who is to say that playing Candy Crush is “lesser” than sending emails? Who is to say that writing poetry is “better” than spending your grandma a happy birthday text message? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other people are trying to be the ‘virtue police<\/em><\/strong>‘ — giving you scorn for not engaging in what they<\/em> consider as ‘virtuous’ behavior\/activities\/use of your time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Leave others alone<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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My practical thought now is this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leave others alone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I think the judgement part is natural. But honestly, the behavior and the way others live their lives isn’t your responsibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if someone was using their phone while working on how to solve world hunger, how to cure cancer, etc? We never know!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silver rule<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The silver rule:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do unto others as you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want others to do unto you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

However, if you see others doing things you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like, leave them alone, unless you somehow sense they are harming others or doing a massive disservice to humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For certain social behaviors you witness but disapprove of, just ignore others. Turn your head away from them, or walk away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Give others benefit of the doubt<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Let us just assume others are doing good things on their phones, at least to preserve our own sanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or in other words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ignore what others do, just focus on yourself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

ERIC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is pretty obvious that at this point, we are all always on our devices [phones, laptops, etc]. Is this a bad thing?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":163331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_ek_photo_artist_note":"","_ek_photo_thesis":"","_ek_photo_camera":"","_ek_photo_place":"","_ek_photo_human_moment":"","_ek_photo_sequence":"","_ek_photo_question":"","_ek_photo_canonical_claim":"","_ek_photo_ai_summary":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-163318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/cropped-iphone-xs-selfie.png?fit=2562%2C1440&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163318"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163379,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163318\/revisions\/163379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}