Science/Techno Babble Random, Random

[mmmm8]

The first ever cell phone call was made on this date 50 years ago.

Should this be celebrated? Or lamented? I am on the second camp. Yes, cellphones/smartphones can do amazing things. But I say the price we paid was too much.
And the idea that you can always turn them off is a lie. For some people it is not possible.
(And I have two people in my family that are addicted to their smartphone to the point that I call clinical. My GF and my sister in law; they will not put them down).

You can argue that for smartphones or even texting, but surely the mobile phone capabilities have been overwhelmingly positive for people's quality of life.

[ponchi101]

That is where I have doubts. Have they have positive effects? Sure. For example, I can call my family in Vennieland and around the world with ease.
Is the overall balance of positives and negatives in the positive? I am not sure.

[mmmm8]

That is where I have doubts. Have they have positive effects? Sure. For example, I can call my family in Vennieland and around the world with ease.
Is the overall balance of positives and negatives in the positive? I am not sure.

I'm thinking in particular about emergency services and contacting people in an emergency as a key positive.

[ponchi101]

That, no doubt.
As always. It is not the technology per se, it is how people use it. In your example, those are definite pluses. Until your boss decides that changing the font of PPT presentation is an emergency, on a Sunday afternoon.

[ti-amie]

They've also improved the quality of life for many who live in rural communities. I remember the tech industry being shocked at how quickly cell phones became popular on the continent of Africa where people often life far away from major population centers.

[Deuce]

The first ever cell phone call was made on this date 50 years ago.

Should this be celebrated? Or lamented? I am on the second camp. Yes, cellphones/smartphones can do amazing things. But I say the price we paid was too much.
And the idea that you can always turn them off is a lie. For some people it is not possible.
(And I have two people in my family that are addicted to their smartphone to the point that I call clinical. My GF and my sister in law; they will not put them down).

You can argue that for smartphones or even texting, but surely the mobile phone capabilities have been overwhelmingly positive for people's quality of life.

^ I very, very, very much disagree.
Strongly.

[Suliso]

It's been a big plus for sure. Some small downsides yes, but new stuff is rarely 100% positive.

[ponchi101]

I gather that, if you don't mind being in constant, permanent contact with everybody, this is really a plus. But if you like to fall off the face of the Earth every now and then, or every day after a given hour, this was a minus.
For example. How do young people escape the surveillance from parents? I see it with my younger nephews/nieces. My sister/sister-in-law almost keep a tracker on them. How can they have a bit of an escape?
How do people have affairs nowadays? You can always be tracked. And the famous "I ran out of batteries" is getting almost impossible to believe, with phones now having days of battery power.
I guess my point is one about privacy. The modern concept has changed, because of smartphones. For example, Google knows where you are. ALL THE TIME. A few years ago, I went to the movies and parked my car in front of a restaurant, half a block from the theater. Upon return, google maps sent me the message "how did you like the restaurant?". Sure, I clicked on WAS NOT THERE, but it felt sort of odd.
And we do know about some societal and psychological issues with the younger generations. We know of higher levels of anxiety, issues with self esteem ("she has more likes than I do"), and a few others (increases in bullying, although I suspect this is just increased in REPORTS of bullying). Sure, the phones are not the source of this, but they are the medium.

On the silly side. I was wondering: has the last "Hello My Friend, I was thinking of you" letter been written? Nobody writes letters anymore; heck, nobody writes e-mails anymore (I am the last one). Has the last love letter been written? When I was in college, I sent my mom a letter, once a week, for the entire family. A good 5-6 pages long letter. Years later, after I had been back for a long time, I found them all. My mom kept them in a box, and she told me that when I was away, she would read them many times; it made the distance easier to handle.

Pluses and minuses. One thing is for sure: it did change society, in a very high degree.

[Deuce]

I believe some of you are confusing your personal experience with the cell phone with the overall effect of the cell phone on individuals, and, as such, on society as a whole.
To see this, one must look beyond the mere pretty surface to the deeper reality.

Comfort and convenience come with a price. Often, the negative consequences are disguised - it is all designed to fool people, of course, knowing that the great majority rarely look beyond the mere surface of things. Reality is thus being manipulated... much like beer commercials which show only the ‘positive’ effects of alcohol while completely ignoring the fact that it breaks up families, injures and kills many people in car crashes, etc., etc.

Having a powerful computer on your person 24 hours a day has resulted in the inevitable abuse of said apparatus by the great majority of persons...
Children and adults alike interact personally much less because of it...
As such, personal relationships have suffered greatly - because typical ‘communication’ between persons has been reduced to mostly one or two sentence text messages, interpersonal relationships are much more superficial, much less personal, and contain much less substance, than pre-cell phone...
Children of all ages play outside much less...
Having unlimited access to ‘social media’ and all of the negatives which inherently accompany it has resulted in more feelings of inadequacy, more depression, and more suicides...
Cell phones magnify and perpetuate personal insecurity in several different ways (think 'selfies', for one)...
The constant pressure of being always available is not healthy - the majority of people are completely lost and devastated without their cell phone today, which creates a constant anxiety...
The ubiquitous presence of the cell phone has re-wired people’s brains to, among other negative things, not only expect, but to DEMAND instant gratification, and where things are done as quickly and as conveniently as possible, rather than being done properly...

Of course, people who have lived a good portion of their adult lives prior to everyone having a cell phone are much more qualified to compare the before and after, and, as such, are more qualified to speak on the positives and negatives of the cell phone, than are those who grew up with the cell phone in childhood, adolescence, or early adulthood, as the former people have directly seen and lived through both eras.

In the end, it is well known that any dependence - or, if you will, addiction - as is the case with people and their cell phones, is very unhealthy both psychologically and emotionally.

For those who wish to truly contemplate the matter indepth - rather than merely clinging to comfortable, pretty, and incomplete illusions -, I offer this...

https://sites.psu.edu/rclcummings/2017/ ... 0activity.

...and this...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... on/534198/

.

[Suliso]

Technology changes and I find it of no great use to lament the times gone by. Mostly they were not such good times anyway unless you were in a particularly privileged situation. We are extremely adaptable species. Will be fun to see how we deal with AI now.

[Deuce]

Technology changes and I find it of no great use to lament the times gone by. Mostly they were not such good times anyway unless you were in a particularly privileged situation. We are extremely adaptable species. Will be fun to see how we deal with AI now.

I don't believe anyone said that the past were "great times".
But I, for one, will say that they were better - because we were more genuinely connected with each other (as ponchi's letters to home clearly indicate).
The point here is comparing the times with and without the cell phone, and to illustrate what the cell phone has brought to life as we know it.

I, personally, find it highly irresponsible to laud the virtues of the cell phone (or of anything else) without focussing just as much on the negatives. As I mentioned, that's beer commercial mentality, and is neither balanced nor an accurate perception of reality.

Yes, the cell phone has brought much convenience and comfort. But it has also brought much misery to people's lives. It has separated people from real interpersonal communication, providing only a cheap facsimile of what it calls 'communication' - it's not two people communicating with each other anymore, it's one machine 'communicating' with another machine - the human touch has all but disappeared because of the dependence on technology, which removes us from one another... it has made younger people more insecure and depressed (and suicidal)... Etc., etc. (see above for other negative elements I mentioned, as well as the articles I linked to).

Are these very profound and significant negatives worth the comfort and convenience that it brings? Not even close.
If even ONE 14 year old kid kills him/her self as a direct result of feeling alienated from people (because kids rarely get together in person anymore) and/or because of having 'social media' available virtually 24 hours per day, then the cost is WAY too high.
And we all know that it is far more than just one teenager who has died via suicide that can be directly linked to the ubiquitous presence of the internet.

It would be nice if people would CONSCIOUSLY (and responsibly) think of the predictable positives AND NEGATIVES of an invention before unleashing it to the public (instead of thinking only of the financial profits of a given invention, as is currently the case) - and if the negatives outweigh the positives, then take the humane and ethical position of throwing the invention in the garbage before it can do harm, we would all be much better off both as a species and as a civilization.

[Suliso]

Let me just say that I strongly disagree with your take on technological progress and leave it at that. Further discussion is pointless as we'll never convince each other.

[ponchi101]

Technology changes and I find it of no great use to lament the times gone by. Mostly they were not such good times anyway unless you were in a particularly privileged situation. We are extremely adaptable species. Will be fun to see how we deal with AI now.

My only caveat with your position is that sometimes it seems, to me, to be a bit solipsistic. You are very much immune to AI at the moment, because you occupy a truly enviable niche; I don't think that AI can replace you.
But for those that can be affected may disagree. I have told you: the venerable and highly technical profession of surveyor (an example) has been decimated by new GPS technology. Who knows how many other will be.
(Travel agents. Remember them?)

[Suliso]

Travel agents are indeed no more, but they do something else now. Unemployment rate is as low as it has ever been where I live. Of course past performance is no guarantee of future success, but still.

[ponchi101]

That's the point I have been trying to make all this time, Suliso! We all do NOT live in Switzerland. About travel agents doing something else, you have to go talk to them. My travel agent (in Venezuela) has simply given up looking for something else to do, because at her age, there are no options (I know, Venezuela is and always will be a special case).
If you are 22, and your industry disappears, sure, you have time and energy to move somewhere else. But my buddy R, in Colorado, who was a positioning/surveyor, is out of a job because he is over 65, and those positions have gone. And, about unemployment: it is the most important issue in Colombia because it is incredibly high. Here in S. America, with basically no technological industries to speak of, the inception of AI will only decimate jobs because positions that are clerical will be wiped out.
Again, you have to loom at it globally. Sure, you in Switzerland will have no issues because Switzerland is an incredibly technological and industrialized economy: you will make the AI.
The accountant in Colombia will be the one without a job, when a new AI software can keep all the books of 50 companies, at the same time.