Why It's Bad That Smartphones Have Banished Boredom

Games by Dupple · 2012-09-27 00:11 · Score: 5, Funny

I think they may have a point. Every time I go for a dump, I take my phone with me and have a quick dash around with Temple Run

Sometimes though, it's just a quick dash with the runs

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Watch those corners

Re:Games by Dupple · 2012-09-27 00:19 · Score: 4, Funny

Sometimes I wish the dash to the bathroom was...

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Watch those corners
Re:Games by camperdave · 2012-09-27 00:48 · Score: 5, Funny

Every time I go for a dump, I take my phone with me...
Cell phones may encourage people to do a more thorough job of expelling their wastes. People will sit there until they clear the level, or get to the next save point, or finish the round before... um... getting started on the paperwork. To justify the time spent clearing the level on the cell phone, they will attempt to, shall we say, clear the level internally. Thus they wind up with a cleaner colon. This could lead to reduced instances of colon cancer and other diseases.

Of course, it leads to longer line-ups on the other side of the stall door.

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When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Re:Games by John+Hasler · 2012-09-27 00:51 · Score: 4, Insightful

> This could lead to reduced instances of colon cancer and
> other diseases.
Or just more hemorrhoids.

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Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Re:Games by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-27 01:06 · Score: 3, Funny

Well, at least we can now snap a photo and see what's going on down there. Word of advice, though: ziplock bag.
Re:Games by ZorinLynx · 2012-09-27 02:32 · Score: 2

Simply pocket your phone before you engage in "paperwork" so to speak, and don't touch it again until you've washed your hands. Not difficult. :)
Re:Games by X0563511 · 2012-09-27 02:57 · Score: 2

they will attempt to, shall we say, clear the level internally. Thus they wind up with a cleaner colon. This could lead to reduced instances of colon cancer and other diseases.
Now granted, I'm not a doctor... but I don't think it works that way.

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For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Re:Games by X0563511 · 2012-09-27 02:59 · Score: 3, Insightful

If a little bit of stray bacteria gives you food poisoning, go back into your sterilized hamster ball and leave the rest of us with functional immune systems alone.

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For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...

Compared to what? by AmeerCB · 2012-09-27 00:17 · Score: 5, Interesting

Why is reading a crappy magazine in the doctor's office more productive than using your smartphone? I hate when people spew opinions like this without showing at least ONE piece of data/evidence that using a smartphone is more harmful than the alternative (the other things we do when we're bored).

And didn't people make the same arguments about television? And then, later, about videogames?

Re:Compared to what? by O('_')O_Bush · 2012-09-27 00:22 · Score: 4, Insightful

I don't recall a time when talking to other people in line was the thing to do. Most people either daydreamed or tuned out everyone else.

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while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Re:Compared to what? by heathen_01 · 2012-09-27 00:29 · Score: 5, Funny

Looking at a magazine is outside your little closed world that you carry in your pocket.
I use an android phone.
Re:Compared to what? by Joce640k · 2012-09-27 00:31 · Score: 4, Informative

I rarely see a magazine on those racks that I want to browse. But sometimes I do and read something new to me.
Try accessing this site from your "closed" device: http://www.gutenberg.org/

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No sig today...
Re:Compared to what? by ciderbrew · 2012-09-27 00:41 · Score: 3, Insightful

Agreed.
Reading a 3 year old copy of Cosmopolitan or some other women's magazine in a doctor's waiting rooms only fills me with contempt. Mostly with myself for reading it I guess. Lists of "50 ways to please your man" or "Know if your man is cheating" should be covered by some mental health warning. Please tell me women don't believe that shite. Inane twitter and facebook posts have more worth.
Re:Compared to what? by somersault · 2012-09-27 00:48 · Score: 4, Insightful

While waiting in the doctor's office?

But they also fear that by filling almost every second of down time by peering at our phones we are missing out on the creative and potentially rewarding ways we've dealt with boredom in days past.
I didn't know masturbation was a creative pursuit!
Actually, there is a valid point to the article, but I don't think it's anything to do with smartphones. It applies just as well to any device with a web browser and an internet connection.

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which is totally what she said
Re:Compared to what? by AmeerCB · 2012-09-27 01:22 · Score: 2

Looking at a magazine is outside your little closed world that you carry in your pocket. That said, I rarely see a magazine on those racks that I want to browse. But sometimes I do and read something new to me.
The internet is a "little closed world?"
Re:Compared to what? by tehcyder · 2012-09-27 01:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

Why is reading a crappy magazine in the doctor's office more productive than using your smartphone? I hate when people spew opinions like this without showing at least ONE piece of data/evidence that using a smartphone is more harmful than the alternative (the other things we do when we're bored). And didn't people make the same arguments about television? And then, later, about videogames?
The point is that occasionally being "bored" (in the sense of lacking external stimuli) is a good thing as it encourages introspection and, you know, thinking.

And BTW reading shitty magazines, watching shitty TV or playing shitty vidogames are all just as bad as wasting time playing Angry Birds, or posting facebook photos of your dog, on your phone. if you do them all the time and never give yourself time to think.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Compared to what? by tehcyder · 2012-09-27 01:40 · Score: 3, Interesting

I don't recall a time when talking to other people in line was the thing to do. Most people either daydreamed or tuned out everyone else.
I talk to people in queues and I am (a) English and (b) anti-social, so I'm sure if I can relax my stiff upper life then you can too.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Compared to what? by tehcyder · 2012-09-27 01:46 · Score: 2

The internet is a "little closed world?"
For most people, yes. They log onto facebook (or 4chan) and exchange tenth hand jokes and pictures of kittens with a selction of people who they have probably never talked to in real life, and who think about everything in exactly the same way that they do themselves.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Compared to what? by pod · 2012-09-27 03:04 · Score: 2

While waiting in the doctor's office?
Yes, like talking to other people.

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"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
Re:Compared to what? by drinkypoo · 2012-09-27 03:07 · Score: 2

The point is that occasionally being "bored" (in the sense of lacking external stimuli) is a good thing as it encourages introspection and, you know, thinking.

That's what load times are for.

reading shitty magazines, watching shitty TV or playing shitty vidogames are all just as bad as wasting time playing Angry Birds, or posting facebook photos of your dog, on your phone. if you do them all the time and never give yourself time to think.
Well, the average person probably has a lot of time in traffic, if they're not on public transportation. Here's the thing I don't get, if I give myself time to think, questions occur to me, and I want answers. Should I avoid looking them up in a timely fashion so that I can "give myself time to think", or should I look them up and get an answer and then have the next question occur to me? It seems like this may well be the next step in human evolution, where the quality of our thought improves because we are able to feed our minds with the information needed to answer our questions, and that trying to encourage more down time is just another example of luddism.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Compared to what? by X0563511 · 2012-09-27 03:33 · Score: 2

Then perhaps what might be helpful to society at large then, would be posters or such in waiting rooms about things like Project Gutenberg?
You can't expect them to put the phone/device down. But perhaps you can help widen their "closed" world a little bit.

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For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Re:Compared to what? by X0563511 · 2012-09-27 03:35 · Score: 5, Interesting

Angry Birds isn't empty, like stupid TV or magazines.
You're exercising several parts of your brain and are interacting.
Specifically: trajectory analysis, cause and effect, planning.

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For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Re:Compared to what? by jeffmeden · 2012-09-27 03:53 · Score: 2

The point is that occasionally being "bored" (in the sense of lacking external stimuli) is a good thing as it encourages introspection and, you know, thinking.
That's what load times are for.

reading shitty magazines, watching shitty TV or playing shitty vidogames are all just as bad as wasting time playing Angry Birds, or posting facebook photos of your dog, on your phone. if you do them all the time and never give yourself time to think.
Well, the average person probably has a lot of time in traffic, if they're not on public transportation. Here's the thing I don't get, if I give myself time to think, questions occur to me, and I want answers. Should I avoid looking them up in a timely fashion so that I can "give myself time to think", or should I look them up and get an answer and then have the next question occur to me? It seems like this may well be the next step in human evolution, where the quality of our thought improves because we are able to feed our minds with the information needed to answer our questions, and that trying to encourage more down time is just another example of luddism.
You're spending all your time finding answers that are already out there. You are probably more likely (although i am not a behavioral psychologist) to prefer asking easy questions since you know the answers will be on hand, and you will avoid asking hard questions since you don't get the same instant gratification from finding the answer after three clicks.
When was the last time some groundbreaking discovery was made by reading a wikipedia article, other than finding out how awesome Chuck Norris is, or how fast the african elephant population is growing? Einstein sure as hell didn't need the internet to come up with his ideas, and until there is a "great mind" that does something useful with all the shit we keep piling into cyberspace, you will be hard pressed to convince me that it's anything more than a pastime.
Re:Compared to what? by Austerity+Empowers · 2012-09-27 03:57 · Score: 3, Interesting

I could learn something exciting about what Paris Hilton is doing today, or what some dumb jock has accomplished in football. yay. It's like high school again. Or I could listen to fringe politics from strangers. I have learned a few things: apparently obama has signed a doctrine for complete control, they want to warehouse children with disabilities and the UN is going to force it, and apparently there's a war on christianity that nobody invited me to.
Now, having established all of the above as false, or at least no more true now than they have been for my entire life by reading primary sources, I think I'm happy to ignore the output of the unwashed masses and return to angry birds. I wish to prescribe a few hours of angry birds to the people who come up with this shit.
Re:Compared to what? by cayenne8 · 2012-09-27 04:46 · Score: 5, Insightful

I extremely skeptical of the productive value of talking to completely random people who just happen to be at the same office as you. Talking to people can certainly be extremely productive, but it's the right people, not just anyone.
Actually....I've found talking to random people while out and about VERY helpful.
I've met some great women I've dated while in waiting rooms...last one was in an auto dealership service waiting room, dated for a year or so...
I've made business contacts...money from just chatting and joking around with people. Hell, even in bars down here (NOLA)...you often make some of your best and strongest business contacts at times, I know I have.
I've heard maybe up north...people don't talk much to strangers...but it is common down here, and I've made friends, gotten laid and made money, all from light chatting or joking while in a waiting room.
And really...is there EVER a bad time to try to hone your people skills?

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Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Re:Compared to what? by UnanimousCoward · 2012-09-27 05:45 · Score: 2

From your ID and comments, it's obvious you're new to Slashdot. Talking to random people? Bars? DATING?!? Getting...what was the term you used? :P

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Twelve-and-three-quarter inches. Unyielding. This wand belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange.
Re:Compared to what? by Hatta · 2012-09-27 05:53 · Score: 3, Insightful

And really...is there EVER a bad time to try to hone your people skills?
Any time I want to relax is a bad time for that. You're an extrovert, good for you. Not everyone appreciates having their quiet time interrupted by a chatty stranger.

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Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Re:Compared to what? by firewrought · 2012-09-27 06:18 · Score: 2

I extremely skeptical of the productive value of talking to completely random people who just happen to be at the same office as you. Talking to people can certainly be extremely productive, but it's the right people, not just anyone.
I have to completely and utterly disagree with you: random conversations with random people provide unexpected benefits and add flavor to your life. Such encounters can be the source of new things: a fresh perspective, a bold idea, a useful tip, a gripping story, an anecdote to tell later, an unusual hobby, a business opportunity, even a friendship. You will savor the memory of a successful conversation years later, long after you've forgotten whatever specific urgencies you were pursuing that day. Those moments will shine thru with beauty, amazement, hope, serendipity, and shared humanity.
Yes, it's hard to make the effort. I should know: I'm not a big people person. I love excuses to avoid social interactions. I'm usually annoyed when strangers talk to for no good reason, and I am suspicious of their intentions. Sometimes the conversation flops or ends badly. And I'm always skeptical in advance: what's the value? Why should I do this? But see the key word above: unexpected. If you knew what the benefit was in advance, there would be no discovery. So it's worth swinging the bat everytime you step up to the plate, no matter how much you feel at the onset that you don't want to. (Though if you're like me, it may help to get some general advice on human interaction.)

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-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
Re:Compared to what? by i.r.id10t · 2012-09-27 06:23 · Score: 2

And much like fly fishing or learning to use a bait casting reel, you can increase your vocabulary at the same time too!

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Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Re:Compared to what? by starfishsystems · 2012-09-27 07:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

This is a fascinating topic for any student of the human condition.

Most people are conditioned to experience boredom as a deeply unpleasant experience. I recall a program that Bill Moyers did a few years ago on the mind/body duality, in which he joined in a sitting meditation. It might have been zazen or something like it. He couldn't stand it. He found that he just couldn't remain in stillness, not even for a few minutes. Instead he became agitated and had to stand up and leave the room. The way he described it made me think it was a kind of panic attack. Of course he was deeply curious about this powerful reaction to nothing at all. I'm sure he's been thinking about it ever since. And so he should.

If you reflexively avoid boredom, you are not able to access the enormous richness of experience in just being. In my view, that's a terrible loss. Read any of Arthur Ransome's "Swallows and Amazons" books for children and you will get a taste of that experience of just being, as it was even a generation or two ago: people not always rushing about, multitasking and never really experiencing their real environment, but instead sitting and watching all the minute and lovely activities of the world. It's a child's way of looking at the world, and Ransome perfectly captures the wealth and innocence of it.

Or consider Hermann Hesse's "Siddhartha", in which the main character, when asked what makes it possible for him to succeed where others have so often failed, answers, "I can think. I can fast. I can wait."

The thing is, boredom is not real. It's an illusion, a passing symptom of addicive withdrawl, Beyond it lies a world of real experience, exquisite in its quiet subtlety. "Pay attention" says the Zen master, who is roundly ignored because the advice he gives isn't mysterious enough, doesn't require any shiny technology.

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Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
Re:Compared to what? by citylivin · 2012-09-27 08:28 · Score: 2

Ah LOL!
You are following scripts and pre programed algorithms with fake sandboxed physics. I think its hilarious when people try and justify playing angry birds as having any real world uses at all. What do you think you can now throw a shot put ball with a more proper trajectory? Give me a break!! It may be technically more interactive than tv, but that is made up for by having the smartphone turned on and receiving 24x7. Like having a tv strapped to your face, which auto detects where your drool lands on the controls to derive intent. Its interactive!
I have met very few people who can actually use a smartphone "properly". Most people are checking their work and home emails and doing something on facebook. The article is right. People don't just stare at walls any more because all their time needs to be "productive". However no one really knows what productive even means anymore. Is it working all the time and burning yourself out? Is it firing off comments to your friends so they know how quick and snarky you can be? Why are these things "productive" while staring at a wall and letting your mind wander is considered not?
I would argue that the more breaks you take from your routine, the more likely you are to think outside your environment and comfort zone. Smartphones have created, in a few short years, a culture of people who are so disconnected and alone that they need a small glowing screen to babysit them all the damn time. I mean its common now for people to think its perfectly acceptable to be on their phone on the toilette. This smartphone wave is so fucked up. And don't get me wrong, I love the internet. But does it really have to be everywhere, all the time?

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As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy

Things we do to avoid being bored by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · 2012-09-27 00:25 · Score: 5, Insightful

Slashdot leaps to mind...

Stop telling people what to do. by Threni · 2012-09-27 00:25 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'll do what I want. I don't care what you used to do in the olden days. If you want to be bored, go for it.

It's like people whining about magazines closing. Apparently one is closing now, in the UK. Some people are signing a petition. Who are they going to present it to? I bet hardly any of them actually bought it.

Re:Stop telling people what to do. by wonkey_monkey · 2012-09-27 00:38 · Score: 4, Insightful

Stop telling people what to do.
Who's telling you what to do?

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systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Re:Stop telling people what to do. by bluefoxlucid · 2012-09-27 00:47 · Score: 2

The thing is, with so much less boredom, people dive to their iPhones all the time. There's no sitting around college in the dorm, staring at the ceiling with an 18 year old freshman, "Wanna go somewhere?" "Maybe... where?" "I dunno, it's boring here." "Yeah, but there's nothing to do on a Thursday night." "Bah..." ".... wanna have sex?"
No, it's more like, "Bah..." "...*starts playing Angry Birds*"

--
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Re:Stop telling people what to do. by jeffmeden · 2012-09-27 01:19 · Score: 3, Interesting

I'll do what I want. I don't care what you used to do in the olden days. If you want to be bored, go for it.
It's like people whining about magazines closing. Apparently one is closing now, in the UK. Some people are signing a petition. Who are they going to present it to? I bet hardly any of them actually bought it.
Agreed. I bet there was the same argument about 50 years ago about broadcast TV. "Kids these days, instead of staring out the window (a pastime that served us well for centuries!) all they do is flip on the TV and bang, they aren't bored any more! Windows will go un-stared-out! The humanity!"
Look, there are always things to do and adults can always make decisions on what they want to do and when. If it's so horrible that people aren't bored, the ones who figure out that boredom is some sort of innate marketable skill will rise to the top and become our new overlords. Until then, it's business as usual.
Re:Stop telling people what to do. by fafaforza · 2012-09-27 01:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

Well, by many accounts, we *do* have an obesity epidemic. Are you going to say that tv and in-house entertainment has nothing to do with that?
Re:Stop telling people what to do. by fafaforza · 2012-09-27 01:43 · Score: 5, Insightful

No one is telling you what to do. They're just positing the idea that it's hurtful to you. But I guess you'd prefer that they do not study and contemplate things like this, and get back to playing games on their iPads.
Re:Stop telling people what to do. by tehcyder · 2012-09-27 01:54 · Score: 2

The thing is, with so much less boredom, people dive to their iPhones all the time. There's no sitting around college in the dorm, staring at the ceiling with an 18 year old freshman, "Wanna go somewhere?" "Maybe... where?" "I dunno, it's boring here." "Yeah, but there's nothing to do on a Thursday night." "Bah..." ".... wanna have sex?"
No, it's more like, "Bah..." "...*starts playing Angry Birds*"
I think you need to expand your social circle a little. Any 18 year old who would rather play Angry Birds than have sex is not someone you should be hanging around with, as they are almost certainly deeply psychotic.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:Stop telling people what to do. by dywolf · 2012-09-27 02:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

its not about tellng you what to do. its about suggesting that the phone gives a false sense of productivity. Equivalent to "empty calories". Being bored leads to wanting to do things. The phone satisfies that, without actually being productive, since the chief way of occupying time with a phone is with a game of some kind. The suggestion is that without the phone you would do something else more worthwhile with that small bit of time. That the game on your phone is a more compelling boredom relief than many other activities, yet in the end less rewarding than those other activities.
Remember we arent talking about life goals or long stretches of time, but small chunks that used to be filled by introspection or conversation. Staring out the window on a bus (the "greatest philosphy school known to mankind"). Waiting for an order at a diner. Waiting for the dentist. Etc. The trend now, I know you've seen it, a group of friends at a restruant out to eat, no one saying a word, everyone just staring at their phone. They're there together, yet each alone.

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The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Re:Stop telling people what to do. by bluefoxlucid · 2012-09-27 02:02 · Score: 4, Interesting

It's not so much that as pool size and opportunity. The whole "nice guys finish last" thing has a subversion: those guys hanging out with extremely bored, cute girls might not have the easiest time getting laid, but when there's fuck-all to do they just start snuggling up on anyone they're fairly comfortable with. You don't need to push the right buttons anymore; you just need to not push the wrong ones.
In other words, bored girls are a heck of a lot looser than occupied girls. Girls generally don't have sex every chance they get; courtship is hard.

--
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Re:Stop telling people what to do. by Austerity+Empowers · 2012-09-27 04:14 · Score: 2

I'm going to say that sedentary jobs have far more to do with that for adults than angry birds.
Re:Stop telling people what to do. by tendrousbeastie · 2012-09-27 06:26 · Score: 2

I'm not sure I understand who or what is being criticised here?

I hated boredom... by malakai · 2012-09-27 00:25 · Score: 5, Insightful

I can remember waiting awkwardly in line with other people with nothing more to do then stare at some advertisement or products around me. I, and certainly no one around me, wanted to start up a random stranger dialogue and shoot the shit. This alone caused me to be anxious. I hated waiting because I didn't know what to do, shuffle shuffle shuffle, hands in pockets, out of pockets, sigh, yawn... shuffle.

I welcome the soft glow of my phone. It makes DMV, Passport agency, and anything in a municipal building _just a bit better_. Likely a few years from now an anthropologist will do a study about how fewer people are going 'postal' while waiting in line for some bureaucracy. How after waiting in line a few hours, the ability to play angry birds kept them from thinking about how much money they were going to be docked when they got back to work. It just may save someone's life.

Also, lets not drone on about this 'habitual stimulation' always being entertainment. I see people on the subway who somehow manage to play games and watch videos, but I see just as many reading. Not to say reading can't be entertainment ( or that games and video can't be learning tools ). Just grouping everything people do with their smartphones into 'entertainment' is wrong.

tl;dr: anthropologist overreacts.

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-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage

Re:I hated boredom... by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-27 00:56 · Score: 4, Insightful

tl;dr: anthropologist overreacts.
Not quite. Doug Gross is a writer for CNN.
It took me a bit of time to read through this. Basically it's a CNN article with a link to a somewhat interesting (but mostly unrelated) piece about social groups and smoking, and another to the front page of some web site (which I don't care to explore to find why it was linked). I'm still not entirely sure what point he's trying to make, but it seems to boil down to this:
"If you release a long-winded article with lots of vague terms and a scary-sounding headline, it generates page hits and I keep getting paid to write more just like it."
Re:I hated boredom... by malakai · 2012-09-27 01:05 · Score: 5, Insightful

> ...I didn't know what to do...
Did you ever try thinking?
It's my default gear. Some would argue I do it too much. But standing in line, waiting, the problem with 'thinking', unless it was just for entertainment in which case I'd call it 'day dreaming' was that thinking lead to questions, and the questions necessitated answers. Not having reference material around me, or other sources to query, I could never get an answer to whatever I was pondering.
Now, standing in line, when I think of something and I'm curious about it, I get to look at my phone and find ( most of the time ) an answer. I do this quite a lot. I wonder why the manhole covers I walked over on the way to the doctors office all said 'made in India'. I'd think about the cost of shipping them from India, about the conditions where they were made, about where the raw materials came from and how much of it does India have... and whether or not India meant The India or if it was some play on words...
Cue my smartphone, and the answer, and some article about it ( I wasn't the first to wonder ). This is better than just thinking. This is being able to run little experiments in your head and validate a result in seconds.
Just 'thinking' is so 80s....

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-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
Re:I hated boredom... by dcherryholmes · 2012-09-27 01:33 · Score: 3, Insightful

"was that thinking lead to questions, and the questions necessitated answers. Not having reference material around me, or other sources to query, I could never get an answer to whatever I was pondering."
I do not mean this in a snarky way, because I certainly while away time standing in lines with my own smartphone. This is just the thought your comment elicited in me... maybe you'd think of an answer yourself? It depends on the subject matter you're pondering of course. "Who's the Prime Minister of England?" isn't really what I'm talking about. But if it's a novel problem, maybe *not* having reference materials at hand would actually prod your brain in a direction nobody's thought of yet?
Re:I hated boredom... by dywolf · 2012-09-27 02:03 · Score: 2

People used to talk all the time. To random strangers.
People didn't used to fear everything and everyone around them.
Now, everyone you meet is a potential rapist, terrorist, or something else.
Thank the news media and the politicians.

--
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Re:I hated boredom... by tehcyder · 2012-09-27 02:03 · Score: 3, Insightful

The whole point of avoiding external stimuli and just thinking is to stop concerning yourself with mundane objects and trivia and concentrate on other things for a while. These things may include, but are not limited to, poetry, music, religion, philosphy, politics, psychology, relationships, nature, history, archaeology, painting, chess, cooking, sex and literature.

Having no internal life is not something to be proud of.

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To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Re:I hated boredom... by Indras · 2012-09-27 04:49 · Score: 2

I do not mean this in a snarky way, because I certainly while away time standing in lines with my own smartphone. This is just the thought your comment elicited in me... maybe you'd think of an answer yourself? It depends on the subject matter you're pondering of course. "Who's the Prime Minister of England?" isn't really what I'm talking about. But if it's a novel problem, maybe *not* having reference materials at hand would actually prod your brain in a direction nobody's thought of yet?
Yeah, I've met people like this. They think up a question, then come up with an answer that seems logical, then go spewing to all their friends at work as though it were fact. In the case of the parent post, I could come up with a reasonable explanation about why manhole covers are made in India. I pretty much guarantee it would be wrong. If I never took the time to find out the correct answer, I could eventually just assume that I was right. I would say that coming up with a wrong answer and believing it to be correct is a far worse tragedy than simply whipping out the smartphone and doing a quick google search for the correct one.

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The speed of time is one second per second.
Re:I hated boredom... by Belial6 · 2012-09-27 08:12 · Score: 2

It starts with the kids. We have multiple generations now that spent their entire childhood being told, "Don't talk to strangers". Those kids grow up, and it is a lesson that sticks with them. That is something that I have gone out of my way to avoid teaching my child. The problem is that if you don't just tell your child that all strangers are out to kidnap and kill them, you do have to start talking to them about how to evaluate who they should be talking to, and who they shouldn't. That means actually being a parent, and most people have abdicated that roll to the public school system where everyone on site has been cleared as "safe to talk to" whether they actually are or are not.

I have the solution. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-27 00:26 · Score: 3, Interesting

It's called a Portable PC -- AKA Laptop / Notebook. Instead of fucking around with those damn consumtion centric smart phones and tablet devices I use a fully functional portable computer instead. I can make phone calls with it too (even better: Hands Free Video Chat), but typically I just use a cheap dumb "feature" phone for voice. If I can't compile my C programs on it, it's a worthless toy that I don't need. I've tried installing Debian on an Android Tablet, got a stand and portable bluetooth keyboard working... Then I realized how assinine it was to NOT be using a Laptop instead. Yeah it weighs a little bit more than a phone, and is slightly more cumbersome to cary than a purse, but I've got a messenger bag anyway and I'm not a fucking wimp.

Not that I don't have the constant urge to be doing something -- I do, that sense of urgency is due to my limited 70-100yr lifespan. What I do to "kill time" is actually creative. When the urge strikes I make something, or jot notes on how to realize the idea later. I'm just as habitually a creator as most smartphone "addicts" are media consumers. The difference between me and smart phone users is that I don't whip out my laptop while I'm supposed to be socializing at a restaurant -- Oh, that would be rude... Protip: I think it's just as rude when you smartphone users do that.

Shower by gr8_phk · 2012-09-27 00:28 · Score: 5, Informative

I get a lot of my most useful ideas in the shower. So lets hope they don't make a waterproof phone or I will stop innovating all together.

Re:Shower by Hardhead_7 · 2012-09-27 00:38 · Score: 5, Insightful

I don't even really see that as a joke. It's in those quiet moments that my brain will often present me with an idea seemingly out of thin air. Who hasn't been dealing with some particularly tricky problem, mulled it over, banged their head against the wall on it, and then while they're eating lunch or taking a shower - BOOM - your brain suddenly puts the right connections together and you have some new insight.

Smartphones seem to be stealing away all the quiet moments of our lives, and I've come to realize that those quiet moments are important. Not just for our peace of mind, but for our ability to really let our brains work well. Lunch has disappeared as a quiet time. The toilet has disappeared as a quiet time. I honestly think it's a problem.

I experimented with not doing any "compulsive consumption" on my phone a few months ago, and while this is purely anecdotal, I felt like it really did improve my concentration overall.
Re:Shower by Hatta · 2012-09-27 02:33 · Score: 5, Interesting

Thoreau covered this 150 years ago:

Just so hollow and ineffectual, for the most part, is our ordinary conversation. Surface meets surface. When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference between us and our fellow is that he has seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not. In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post-office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard from himself this long while.
I do not know but it is too much to read one newspaper a week. I have tried it recently, and for so long it seems to me that I have not dwelt in my native region. The sun, the clouds, the snow, the trees say not so much to me. You cannot serve two masters. It requires more than a day's devotion to know and to possess the wealth of a day.
Life Without Principle, 1863

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Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!

Go out for a walk by rasmusbr · 2012-09-27 00:29 · Score: 3, Insightful

Just go out for a walk whenever you need to gather your thoughts and zone out for a bit. Touchscreens and walking don't mix...

This tip works great until you get to the point where you subscribe to a large enough number of podcasts that there's always a queue lined up for you in your podcast player. If you're like me you can still zone out or let your mind drift a bit during the boring parts of the podcasts. Also, obviously, if you go out for a walk without your headset you commit to not listening to podcasts or music.

Re:Go out for a walk by tehcyder · 2012-09-27 02:18 · Score: 5, Funny

Touchscreens and walking don't mix..
I disagree. I often use my iPhone for posting to slashdot on the move even in heavy traff

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it

Meditation by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-27 00:29 · Score: 5, Insightful

When I started my meditation practice I was a full blown smart-phone addict. One of the hardest earliest barriers to get over was the idea of sitting idle for 30 minutes. Somehow mindlessly browsing reddit was okay but just sitting and watching my breath was not. I'd get flooded with all kinds of thoughts about how I should be doing something productive and typically that was accompanied by anxiety.

At some point I had to stop and ask myself, who exactly do I think is judging my behavior? Why do I even feel like I need to justify what I'm doing with my personal time? Of course the realization came that it was all me, all my mind, and I let go of the habit.

Now I meditate regularly and still use my smart phone. I look forward to sitting and knowing I get time to just be. I'm comfortable with that and reap the benefits. I'm significantly less stressed during the day and my mind is calmer. I understand myself and my actions better. I still use the phone, but sometimes I don't. Sometimes it's nice to just be with your own mind.

I wouldn't say smartphones have only banished boredom though. They, like many of our modern baubles, have also lowered the bar for when boredom sets in.

An aside I feel is related I can't remember the last time I had a good meaningful conversation with a group of friends or even one on one. Hell, even meaningless conversation with depth seems to have left. It seems like on average things are being reduced to one or two sentences on a topic and topics which require multiple layers of thinking just don't come up.

I find it paradoxical as someone who was a loner in school I can look at my life now and see more friends, supportive family, great co-workers, technology like facebook, SMS, and smart phones to be always connected and yet I feel more alone than I ever have. I feel lacking in community.

Re:Meditation by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-27 03:02 · Score: 2, Insightful

There definitely is a stigma against multiple layers of thinking and I think it's getting worse. I believe this stigma is bred out of a fear of being seen as or associated with eccentrics. This is not a good thing,
"That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time" - John Stuart Mill.
Re:Meditation by mcgrew · 2012-09-27 04:09 · Score: 3, Funny

One of the hardest earliest barriers to get over was the idea of sitting idle for 30 minutes... An aside I feel is related I can't remember the last time I had a good meaningful conversation with a group of friends or even one on one. Hell, even meaningless conversation with depth seems to have left.
I love it when someone gives me a reason to like being old enough to remember when phones were tied to walls and had no user ID. I'll crank up the stereo and sit on the porch with a beer and watch traffic go by for hours. Go to the bar and have meaningless conversations with the drunks (Crazy John is often amusing). Go to McDonald's with my daughter... I pity you kids.

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Free Martian Whores!

Example - Kalman by gr8_phk · 2012-09-27 00:30 · Score: 4, Interesting

A classic example is the Kalman Filter. Devised by Kalman while he was waiting in a train station. We may not have that innovation today if he'd had an iPhone.

Re:Example - Kalman by dido · 2012-09-27 00:41 · Score: 2

We would not have the iPhone or any cellular telephony at all for that matter if the Kalman filter were not invented. The phase locked loop is a simple Kalman filter and it sees ubiquitous use in all sorts of radio circuitry.

--
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
Re:Example - Kalman by rasmusbr · 2012-09-27 00:59 · Score: 4, Interesting

And Harold Stephen Black invented the feedback amplifier on a short ferry ride in New York.
The thing about inventions is that most inventions are made by multiple people around the same time and this happens because the ambient culture, knowledge and technology is available to them around the same time. The Kalman filter is based on a simple enough idea that it would almost certainly have been invented by someone else within years of Kalman's invention, if he hadn't made it then. The feedback amplifier is an even simpler idea.
There are people who don't play angry birds or produce triple digits numbers of tweets every day and there will always be people like them.

Remember Bilbo Baggins! by fluor2 · 2012-09-27 00:32 · Score: 5, Funny

Sometimes he felt the need to take it out and hide from the real world.
Always in his pocket, the temptation grew stronger and stronger.

Re:Remember Bilbo Baggins! by TeknoHog · 2012-09-27 07:01 · Score: 2

Sometimes he felt the need to take it out and hide from the real world. Always in his pocket, the temptation grew stronger and stronger.
I admit, I have one of those too, and it's spelled almost like "bilbo".

--
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.

Oh Is That What It Is by Greyfox · 2012-09-27 00:37 · Score: 4, Interesting

I know a number of people who must have a TV going, no matter how mindless whatever show is that's on. I'm sure they probably have infomercials going at 2 in the morning. I always assumed that if they didn't have constant inane chatter going, they might actually start thinking and realize their own mortality or the meaninglessness of their lives or something. If you get one of these people someplace that doesn't have a TV, they will just natter on. If you want to make them really uncomfortable, just grin and don't say anything when they wind down, and watch them start to fidget! Just about the time they open their mouth to say something else, ask them what they're so afraid of. That freaks them out!

--

I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

Not just phones by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-27 00:40 · Score: 2, Interesting

Phones are just the most immediate example. Computers, tablets, TV, video-game consoles... there are thousands of ways I can keep occupied. I never have an opportunity to be bored because I have so many alternatives.

I'm trying to write a novel. I find it EXCEEDINGLY difficult because when I'm staring at that blank screen trying to coalesce my thoughts into words, I am constantly reminded of all my other options. Maybe just a quick jump to Wiki for some "research" or, maybe I'll take a break on the XBox. Oooh, call of nature? Grab the iPad! And I never leave the house without my e-reader (actually, an iPod touch, but that's its primary purpose) in my pocket.

Smartphones just add to that chaos.

I finally concluded the only way I was going to get any work done was to leave it behind. So every day I walk two miles down the road to a nice park... and I write with a pen and pencil. It's worked so far.

Websurfing by Hillgiant · 2012-09-27 00:47 · Score: 2

Or sometimes you provide TMI to /.

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Your fate is in your own hands by SirGarlon · 2012-09-27 00:48 · Score: 2

I don't get it when people lament about what technology has made them "lose." All one needs to do is change one's behavior, and instantly go back to the way things used to be. Or back to how they are now. Look! Options! More options than we had before!

I fail to see how anyone has lost anything of value. If, instead, the whiny writer is complaining that he can't put down the smart phone and smell the flowers, then his real problem is a lack of willpower.

--
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.

Re:Your fate is in your own hands by tehcyder · 2012-09-27 02:45 · Score: 2

No, your fate is not entirely in your own hands. Although the pressure of social conformity is not as strong as (for instance) the need to find food or water, nevertheless in civilised affluent countries it becomes important. And the social norm nowadays in the West is to sit there with your fucking phone, texting, chatting, facebooking or whatever. I bet if you went and sat in most coffee shops for an hour staring out the window they'd call the cops.

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it

Re:Bored people have more Sex... therefore..... by darkstar019 · 2012-09-27 00:54 · Score: 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqtB-IaeEo8

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Fuck Beta

You're using is wrong by Overzeetop · 2012-09-27 01:04 · Score: 3, Insightful

If your cell phone is a "distraction" all the time, you're using it wrong. Not that having a distraction from time to time is a bad thing. Still, my phone is a tool to get things done, which allows me to do more of what I want to do. Between work and my hobby/social activities, I probably have the equivalent of three pre-smart-phone full time jobs, and almost nothing gets lost or dropped or forgotten.

I still have "down time," it just gets interrupted less by all those nagging items I used to have to keep track of manually. My down time is of a higher quality now.

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Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?

I will show this to my granddaughter by cvtan · 2012-09-27 01:14 · Score: 5, Interesting

Unfortunately, the 18-year-old is so preoccupied with responding to text messages on her phone and posting to Facebook on her iPad that she can't read this article, answer a simple question or have a normal conversation. I am not exaggerating. She comes to see me because I have internet service and Wi-Fi. She drives, but I'm not sure how. Every time I try to engage her to discuss something important, the phone beeps and she has to leave to see someone. She has a minimum wage job and the other day she announced she was getting an iPhone. Cell phone companies have done a great job convincing poor people that they need $100/mo cell phones when they can barely afford a place to live or pay for medical expenses. I fear her mind is gone.

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Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.

Re:I will show this to my granddaughter by lexman098 · 2012-09-27 02:59 · Score: 4, Informative

Cell phone companies have done a great job convincing poor people that they need $100/mo cell phones when they can barely afford a place to live or pay for medical expenses.
You're already at +5 so I'll just quote this for posterity.

The fear of ceasing to exist if not on the phone by PolygamousRanchKid+ · 2012-09-27 01:15 · Score: 3

I ride a lot on commuter trains, and I notice that most folks who are talking on the phone really aren't saying anything. But many seem to have a fear of not talking on the phone. As soon as they end one call, they call someone else, to talk about what they talked about on the last call. When they lose their connection, they break out in a sweaty panic.

It reminds me of little kids, who get afraid and cry when their parents leave to room. The kids have a feeling of being abandoned: that their parents will be gone forever. It's almost the same way with folks with phones now. If they are not talking on the phone, they lose their lifeline to this universe, and will cease to exist.

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Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!

Re:The fear of ceasing to exist if not on the phon by beaverdownunder · 2012-09-27 01:23 · Score: 2

It's not that they're afraid they'll 'cease to exist' but separation anxiety is a bit closer to the truth -- anxiety disorders have become epidemic in recent years for a number of reasons I won't get into here, and talking to someone familiar is a typical way of preventing panic attacks due to agoraphobia, or claustrophobia, both of which become a factor when you're locked on a train with strange people. The part of your brain prone to panic doesn't understand that the familiar person you're talking to isn't actually there with you, and so becomes relaxed. Once they're 'gone', and you're 'alone' again, all of the anxiety comes back.

Sounds familiar by smooth+wombat · 2012-09-27 02:04 · Score: 2

There was an article on CNN's web site the other day from a supposed comedian about how he was challenged to go an entire day without his phone.

He wrote about how he was able to look around as he walked around New York, observing other people, looking in shop windows, etc, all for about 15 minutes when he started to get anxious that maybe someone, somewhere was trying to contact him. Maybe by voice, maybe by email.

So he made a big production of trying to finding a Net cafe wherein he was able to check his email and found, contrary to his narcissism, only some generic emails but nothing of importance.

He also regaled us with his commentary on finding a pay phone in New York, and how it smelled and looked like a latrine, and when he called his voice mail, miracles of miracles, there were no messages.

So yes, smarthphones may have "banished" boredom, but it has created a whole host of other problems with people having separation anxiety if they're not hooked in for five minutes.

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We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Doing it in your head. by RonTheHurler · 2012-09-27 02:04 · Score: 4, Interesting

I like to ask my kids- what would have happened to the United States if Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin were hooked on watching The Amazing Race or playing Angry Birds instead of reading history and writing the constitution? That couldn't happen to such smart guys, you say? What if they had been trained from early childhood to just sit and watch whatever was on the TV or to play twitch games instead of doing something constructive?

When I was a kid I built a lot of models, rewired telephones and I watched Star Trek. One scene that helped define my life was when Spock was apparently staring off into space, and Kirk asked: "Shouldn't you be working on that warp implosion equation?" (or something like that) To which Spock replied with utmost confidence, "I am."

I was so impressed with that, that I started looking for problems to solve and solving them in my head -- things like calculating the length of a train based on my speed in the car, the train's speed and how long it took our car to overtake it (this required having my dad match the speed of the train and then drop back far enough to accelerate to a steady speed to overtake it. Good thing I had accommodating parents!) I got so good at this kind of thing that I failed a math test (multiplying matrices) in High School. "But I got all the answers right." I confidently told the teacher. "Yes, but you didn't show any work, at all. There are only answers here. You obviously copied someone else's paper." I reminded her that I was the first to tun mine in, by a long shot. She begrudgingly gave me the 100%.

You can imagine that this skill helped out tremendously in software development.

All I have to say is, if you ever get bored, ever, then you're not doing it right, even if you don't have anything to play with but your wits. Temple run? I tried it once. Once. Boooooooring!

Re:Doing it in your head. by NikeHerc · 2012-09-27 09:52 · Score: 2

I'm so glad you found the time in your busy schedule as a mental giant to post on Slashdot to remind us all of your moral superiority.

I don't know why RonTheHurler's posting brought out such a harsh comment. I thought his posting was the most informative I've read on /. in months.

--
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.

Alone Time by Bigbutt · 2012-09-27 02:07 · Score: 2

It's one of the things I like about taking a motorcycle out on a trip or even a day ride. Since you can't browse the internet[0] or make phone calls[1], I tend to enjoy the ride free of distractions. After a bit of time, I've flushed all thoughts of work out of my mind and start thinking of other things. It frees my mind to come up with interesting ideas.

It's a problem my wife and I have had. She wants to go out for a hike and spends the time just being in the woods, one with nature. I'm constantly thinking of other things while walking or even things about the hike itself. Especially since I'm a gamer, I'm thinking tactics or even historical information (more like, "I wonder who found this trail, think about what it would have been like to be trailing a mule up into the mountains looking for gold").

The bad part is even when I write them down, when I get home I'm distracted by all the other stuff again so I have several partially started or projects that aren't started at all sitting around the house. I find I have to really force myself to shut out reading Slashdot or any of the other forums I follow in order to get other computer type stuff done.

[John]

[0] There are folks who'll try anything. I've seen pictures of guys on cruisers talking on their cell phones.
[1] Technically you can use a bluetooth headset or wired connection to make calls. I've used them and they're fine for accepting them but making a call is a bit more difficult unless you stop first.

--
Shit better not happen!

Re:My personal favorite by tehcyder · 2012-09-27 02:29 · Score: 5, Funny

Is while car pooling, the driver pulling out his smartphone and dicking around with it, eyes not on the road, barrelling along at 80 mph, in moose country, in the dark. Makes one appreciate not car pooling and just driving myself to work alone.

You do know that killing someone in self defence is not a crime? Get the fucker to pull over and remove his head with your weapon of choice. You are just stopping him from killing you.

--
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it

Science? by Zalbik · 2012-09-27 02:39 · Score: 3, Insightful

Why is this story tagged science? I RTFA, and I didn't see any science there. I see an opinion piece from an anthropologist, without a shred of actual science attached to it. No studies, no control group, no data, nothing.

With their games, music, videos, social media and texting, smartphones 'superstimulate,' a desire humans have to play when things get dull,

Really? And where are the psychological studies to back this up? Neurological data? I thought not. Typical ivory tower "publish or perish" piece crapped out by the soft "sciences".

Point is moot: most people want to watch TV by mveloso · 2012-09-27 03:16 · Score: 2

Most people don't have an iota of creativity in them. None. Zero. Nada. The smartphone won't change that.

Are there creative geniuses being suppressed because of non-stop access to entertainment? Probably not. Being creative isn't just coming up with ideas, it's executing those ideas. Execution requires focus. If you're distracted by your phone, you'd be distracted by pretty much everything else as well.

I think that process discipline counts for more than creativity. If you read "how I write" books, a common theme is to dedicate X hours a day for writing, period. You can write or not write, but you have to sit there and do nothing else.

That sort of discipline is probably something they should teach in school, but they don't. Of course the phones don't help, but if you can't ignore your phone you won't be able to ignore anything else either (like windows solitaire, the bane of authors and writers everywhere).

Casual queue conversations on abstract algebra by Latent+Heat · 2012-09-27 04:06 · Score: 2

Yes, us anti-social Americans.

I am standing in the queue for free organic-grown vegetables on a college campus. The students doing this are very professional and capable and not like the hippie farmers in Easy Rider, but still, standing in a queue for free organic vegetables is a kind of hippie "share the love" kind of thing not for "uptight" people and squares. Still . . .

The dude standing in front of me is making minor doodles on his spiral-notebook work journal. The notebook entries have some familiarity to me, which I suspect are "adjoint forms" or some mathematician boojum for stuff than engineers notate differently.

"Hi. Couldn't help from noticing what you are working on. Group theory?

(curtly and in a Francophone accent) "No, abstract algebra . . ." (yeah, as if there was some difference between the two)

"What is your affiliation on campus?"

"Grad student in mathematics."

"My work is in engineering. You know, there is a lot of interest in the community studying robotics and machine mechanisms in applications of abstract algebra."

(silence)

I have a paper out on using algebraic formal power series expansions to solve for linkage mobility. You do any work with series expansions?

(silence)

(we get closer to the head of the line) Those green tomatoes over there -- you can eat those, they are just a special kind that stays green when they are ripe.

(silence)

Not everyone is playing Angry Birds by misanthrope101 · 2012-09-27 06:29 · Score: 2

You can also *read books* on your phone. Right now I'm reading Proust. So there is quite a bit of angsty introspection going on in my life right now. So just because someone is looking at their phone non-stop doesn't mean they're playing a game, or tweeting, or whatever. And if you're shallow, don't blame it on the phone, or the internet, or connectivity. Just spend less time with Angry Birds and more time with Thoreau.

There are times to leave electronics home by hillbluffer · 2012-09-27 07:13 · Score: 2

Get outside once in a while and leave anything battery powered inside. Your business doesn't _deserve_ having you on-call 24/7. Go out and study trees, or clouds, and see how the world's made. Go to the beach and take a dead tree book. Your stress levels will be a LOT better in the long run.

Slashdot Mirror

Why It's Bad That Smartphones Have Banished Boredom

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