Typically, after my husband orders the car, he texts me a screenshot with the license plate and wait time. This time, though, the picture didn’t come through. I sent a throwaway text to see if I could prod the message out. Still nothing. Sheepishly, I called my husband back. It was after 10 p.m. The man just wanted to go to bed.
I anticipated that not having a smartphone would make me more reliant on other people — perhaps without Google Maps on hand, I’d have to ask an actual human for directions.
I don’t think any of this means smartphone-free living is untenable. On the contrary, perhaps the only way for us to recreate a society in which we don’t have to be tethered to these brain-rotting devices is for someone to take up the mantle of being a pain in the butt.
Fuck, I hope my smartphone doesn’t go down. Otherwise I’d have to act like a human! 
You don’t need a dumbphone, just don’t install twitterbookgramtok.
Is Facebook even alive at this point
Facebook marketplace is alive and well unfortunately. A lot of Craigslist activity has migrated there and I’ve heard people like that it isn’t anonymous. I still prefer Craigslist but I’ve used Facebook marketplace to find specific things because more people list there.
My mom just found my bro an affordable flat on Facebook. That shit is impossible anywhere else. I’m sort of envious of the boomers for being able to endure Facebook.
Not having WhatsApp would be pretty rough. If some company expects me to scan a QR code that’s on them.
I told her I’d better call an Uber and pulled out my little black brick of a phone.
Just call a cab.
Who’s going to take the card payments at the school fund-raiser?
Just use your card lmao.
Who’s going to message the Airbnb owner to let her know we’re on our way from the airport?
Don’t they give you a phone number.
So many of these problems are just nothing.
These problems are surmountable, but they are absolutely not nothing. Smart phones took off so fast because it’s very useful to have access to the internet in your pocket. It’s one thing to say the costs of smartphones outweigh the benefits, it’s another to pretend there just aren’t any benefits.
Ok, you got me. I’m a painpig for making my life more difficult out of the believe that society should be centered around human needs not technology.
Fetishizing utility is already part of the problem.
White Americans just self-reporting that they can’t operate without a slave.
It’s beyond silly to equate a smart phone to slavery.
To me it seems clear they’re referring to the gig apps, in this case uber, not simply using a smartphone. Which sure, is not an uncontroversial comparison to make either, but not the strawman you make it out to be.
Also felt like a reference the classic BMF banger:
“I do self-criticism constantly because I’m trapped in a Maoist cult where comrades (white terrorists) criticize me mercilessly for having a fascist credit card (VISA Silver Signature Rewards). They won’t let me order vegan pizza anymore because the phone is fascist and “summoning my pizza slaves with a bourgeois app” is “bad vibes”
Say they were. Equating an Uber driver to chattel slavery is still a terminally-online take. A shitty job is still very different from forced labor where someone might cut off your foot if you leave.
This article is about the U.S. One of the biggest theoretical questions for U.S. leftists is how post-industrial workers relate to capital. How do you develop class consciousness in someone who (for instance) works a service job through an app, who works largely alone, who maybe does some Robinhood-type stock trading, and who goes home to a standard of living that is low for their area but still meets a lot of their material needs pretty comfortably? What if that person has bounced between that, more traditional service jobs, more lucrative PMC-type jobs, and maybe others? That’s a lot more complicated than reducing things to slavery.
The Moto-Slave from Bubblegum Crisis is actually short for Motorola Slave. Free the phone.
I would like to get rid of the anxiety rectangle in my pocket but my friends are on there, sadly
They are also on your computer which is harder to scroll mindlessly at a bus stop
Well they are but I already told them I’ve quit discord and there is no other realistic way to contact them on the computer.
WhatsApp has a web interface, so does Element (Matrix) if you use that. I think Signal too. Not disagreeing that it’s inconvenient, I don’t do this myself.
You need WhatsApp and Signal on your phone to use it on desktop.
None of my in person friends are on Matrix and I can’t say I blame them.
I guess I could go back to android tablet + dumb phone.
But what if the chat is blowing up? I gotta get in there quickly
Phones have crowded out many alternative communications infrastructures I think this article is fine.
Everything described in the article is either the most minor if inconveniences, or a pathetically easy problem to solve. Any time I read pmc slop like this, I am reminded that these people are pathetic
“Could you print that map off for me before I leave on my trip, son?”I miss physical maps so much
The elites don’t want you to know this, but you can just print physical maps.
Also, check used book stores, some sell the old road atlases, sometimes for just a few dollarsNice. That used to be my favorite part of road trips
hell yeah, copiloting with the big spiral bound map book
careful that’s how you end up trying to go to the 1982 world’s fair in 1996
RETVRN to the era of carrying a Compaq Portable and Motorola AMPS phones built into your Cadillac Allanté like how I was raised
