Anon hates smartphones

The problem isn't smartphones, it's capitalism.

All of those things would have happened anyway in a different form factor because capitalism is just a race to the bottom.

Except maybe UI design. That has been special in its enshittification.

Ruined photography?

Professionals or hobbyists can still use a proper camera but the old maxim "sometimes the best camera is the one you have with you" often applies and cellphones do fairly well in that regard

The smartphone didn't ruin those things. Capitalism did.

Proved the underpaid math teacher wrong when they said we wouldn't always have a calculator in our pocket.

Yeah definitely the smartphone is why I still don’t have a girlfriend yup yup

I like having maps and gps with me

GPS, music, and I disagree about the camera. I’d love a dumb phone that could do GPS music and a camera and nothing else besides text and calls.

You don't hate smartphones; you hate capitalism.

smartphone manufacturers have almost no common standards, they are made to be bought and then disposed of instead of upgrading the specs

it's impossible to do stuff like upgrading ram which would be very easy on a computer, and every smartphone has a different cpu

companies are doing their best to keep the open source guys out of the game, which in my opinion would solve a lot of the issues if this weren't the case

I want a smartphone without ios or android but just plain linux, which should be upgradable and durable, possibly with open source firmware and that kind of stuff

Maps/gps navigation and being able to talk to someone across the world for free (provided you have an internet connection). Genz and younger millennials don’t know how expensive long-distance calls were back then.

Calling out cops on their bullshit, troublshooting your pc when you bork the ethernet, sending photos of your feces to your friends to name a few

Ruined pointless but enjoyable arguments with mates in the pub. In the old days you could get a good 15 minutes of entertainment out of 'Was it Matt Damon or Mark Wahlberg in that Three Kings movie?'

Now some asshat with a phone will kill that argument in 5 seconds.

Yeah, none of that is the phone's fault. That is like blaming fast food for being a fat ass.

I have a smart phone with a custom ROM, and a dumb phone (Sunbeam Mobile). No, I am not a drug dealer. Sometimes I change out my SIM card and will use the smart phone (especially if traveling to another state or country), and because it can make my life easier.

Here are some rambling thoughts I have on the topic:

-If you don't want to have a smart phone, and opt for a dumb phone, you need to be careful not to let your PC "replace" your bad smart phone habits in terms of scrolling, etc.

-For the peeps worried about privacy, I'm not sure if dumb phones would be an ideal choice. I'm not so sure how secure SMS and phone calls are. I am not an expert, so I have no idea about this, though. I usually use Matrix to have at length text conversations on a PC when I am not using a smart phone, because texting is annoying on a dumb phone and who knows if cell phone companies or other people are intercepting data to market more crap. I'm not so schizo about this, but it is annoying and creepy.

-People are isolated and need a way to build and maintain communities. These days, it is difficult to walk places and build community in the physical world. So that is why you have people getting together on Discord, Instagram, etc. I have definitely been isolated or lived in rural areas and having these outlets has been more helpful than harmful for me.

-If you want a dumb phone, I do recommend a Sunbeam Mobile phone. It supports group texting, navigation (with HERE Maps). I have an SD card full of music I put in the phone and it supports Bluetooth. I recommend the models of phones that are completely de-Googled.

-I don't think people should feel bad if they need a smart phone, especially if they are living in circumstances beyond their control which puts them in an isolating position.

-I think that ultimately people need to want to wake up to all of this. I want to be more involved in making my life more community oriented. I do live in a city, but it is very car dependent. I think that we need to push for development and policies that support community building over the long term, because most people are not happy having smart phones a fixture of everything. For example, is creepy to me that in any moment of time, I can guess what most people are doing (and that is that they are sitting on the Internet in some capacity or a smart phone).

-I hate Google and Amazon. Any way that I do not support them and boycott them is a win for me and society.

-I find it interesting that whenever I am using my Sunbeam phone, that younger people will come up to me and start asking about it. People are desperate to escape smart phones, but there are so many macro political and macro economical problems that create the situation we are in now. We see ourselves as so atomized that there is no examples of any organization or collective rejection of this crap.

Here is a great blog post, which I highly recommend reading: https://wrongthink.link/posts/re-life-in-dysfunctional-world/

I can watch porn on the go?

“There’s something so human about taking something great and ruining it a little so that you can have more of it”

Amateur photography has gotten pretty darned good.

I honestly hate smartphones as well, not because of any of what OP posted. On my PC, I can install whatever I want, including swapping out the OS. Most smartphones are locked down, and the few that allow alternative ROMs have huge incompatibilities w/ FOSS OSes (i.e. getting SMS to work is a bit spotty).

My phone runs GrapheneOS. I would much rather use something else (e.g. PostmarketOS), but it's the least bad option that supports all the features I need. I am still limited to Android-compatible apps, and developing for my phone is a lot more painful than any other ARM-based device because I'm stuck w/ the Android ecosystem.

The end result is that I don't feel like I truly own my phone, whereas I definitely feel that way about my PC. Yeah, my phone is convenient, and I don't use most of the nonsense Anon is complaining about (I mostly use websites on my phone instead of apps), but I still generally dislike having a thing in my pocket that I don't actually control.

Ruines photogrpahy ?

Rhien II sold for $4.5 Million in 2011

I'd suggest that ruined photography.

https://expertphotography.com/most-expensive-photographs/

Good for porn?

Before modern smartphones existed, I dreamed that they would one day exist and we could use computers and the Internet whereever we are, not just from home/work/school.

There are bad things about them too, but overall I would not want to do without them.

Ruined cell phone keyboards

Ruined cell phone batteries

The person who wrote this wasn't alive before smartphones and are doing the whole "I was born in the wrong decade" thing.

Add in ruined music to that. Shitty speakers, super lossy codecs to preserve cellular bandwidth, even shittier Bluetooth compression, listening to music on a phone is convenient but it sounds like shit. And we've got generations of people who think that's what music is supposed to sound like.

People either have forgotten or didn't live in the time before smart phones, but the world was fucking boring as, you HAD to talk to someone because you were so fucking bored, that's why we discovered shit, we were bored and had to do something, then turtle neck man gave us smartphones.

What do you mean "is there anything good about smartphones at all"? It made a ton of money for Apple and its shareholders, that's the only thing that matters. Who cares that it caused anxiety in a whole generation and ruined social life?

Unironically this. I wish I had just paid in dollars instead of my data. Looking back, it was too good to be true. It's hard to deny we never should've let it get this engrained in our lives.

Take away anon's phone for a day and see how he likes it.

Ruined these things for you maybe. I still enjoy them. And don't use my phone for most. One of the things I live about the phone is being able to communicate with my friends and family I want. I also enjoy having the majority of the worlds information available to me. Ooooo and music. Soooo much music at my fingertips.

Damn good summary. Even more BS than I complain about on a weekly basis.

(written from my smartphone when I should be sleeping)

Yes, the option to just throw it in the corner and not charge it anymore.

Or to uninstall all your shitty apps.

ITT awful fucking reasons for "smartphone good". Fuck smartphones.

Well this is the cold hotdog water of hot takes. Ill guess anon wasn't alive before smart phones.

Anonymous does have valid points. The devices and internet all released with the governments blessing, for tracking and spying.

How does everyone everywhere having a really decent camera ruin photography? One of the things we had to do in photography class was use a disposable to take well composed shots (but also we developed the film ourselves). A phone camera would make those look way better.

Navigation

I guess Flappy bird?

There’s (mostly) nothing wrong with the technology. It’s the enshittification and profit motive behind nearly everything that’s the real problem.

I'm prepared for the downvotes knowing where I'm posting.

If you hate it that much, why are you using it? It's a tool. It's useful. It also allows you to overindulge, but that says more about you than the tool.