Seventy-seven percent of middle-age Americans (35-54 years old) say they want to return to a time before society was “plugged in,” meaning a time before there was widespread internet and cell phone usage. As told by a new Harris Poll (via Fast Company), 63% of younger folks (18-34 years old) were also keen on returning to a pre-plugged-in world, despite that being a world they largely never had a chance to occupy.
If you are longing for a world that you never lived in, there’s probably some “grass is greener on the other side” in play. The world before smart phones was considerably worse. I bet that most of the people who are asking for this don’t know how to read a paper map and have never seen a phone book. They aren’t considering getting lost or into a car accident and needing to find the nearest house to ask a stranger to call emergency services on their land line.
The good news is that, if you don’t want to use a smart phone, you can just… not. Nobody is forcing you. If you really wanted a world without smart phones you would already not be using one!
That’s not entirely true. I have twice in the last year had no other option than to install an app to use tickets I purchased. An many medical services refuse to do anything that isn’t online or via an app. It’s getting to be harder and harder to not need a mobile device. It’s getting pretty stupid. Theine has been crossed already. I lived half my life without internet, I’d survive without it. But the world isn’t headed in a direction that makes it feesible anymore unless you just completely check out.
A lot of banks here around me are closing cause they want people to use the online banking only, customer service barely existed in a long time now already anyway, but specifically for the TAN you need an app and thus smartphone. Not an issue for me personally as I‘m tied to all this through my job anyway, but for old people and technologically illiterate people it must feel pretty dystopian.
That is not really true, I mean depending on your definition of “forcing”. Okay, it’s true, nobody is holding a gun to your head.
But depending on where you live, it may be impossible to use a taxi. It would be impossible to work at a lot of workplaces. I work at a university where thankfully faculty are not required to own a smartphone, but students are (if you do not check in for attendance with the university’s app, you automatically fail the course). Soon here it might be impossible to have a bank account without a smartphone app. Any event that requires tickets, forget about it. We’re also getting closer to it being a requirement to see a doctor (some doctor’s offices here already do not allow any patients that haven’t installed their app, and the number is growing).
There’s a lot of soft pressure, too. The supermarket by us doesn’t require you to install their app. You can pay cash without a smartphone…if you’re willing to pay 2x the usual amount for groceries (which are already quite expensive).
You could always not work/attend that school
undefined> if you do not check in for attendance with the university’s app, you automatically fail the course
That is completely fucked. I would refuse out of principle and demand an alternative based on my creed/religion. Linux is a religion, right?
I found your comment posting at the same time as mine with the same thesis (complete with “can just …”) pretty funny.
Middle aged Americans definitely remember a time before everyone was online all the time. It’s not dreaming of some hypothetical unknown Camelot, it’s remembering a time when people actually showed up for their dinner plans with you because they couldn’t simply text to flake out when you were already seated.