Do you own a smartphone?

[SpaceGuitarist]

Moby is certainly an artist of vision, who's been in the scene for a few decades already, and if he had the idea for this videoclip and song (which btw has been very well received by the general audience), obviously it is you who is being 14-ish by not grasping the concept.

[ChaosFish]

Love that clip. It feels like the music to go along with it just got in the way. But the animation/concept is awesome.

[Polaris]

Personally I must side with Reek on this one, while the execution is awesome and the music cool, I can't say I'm convinced by the message

[Mia]

I'm so bored with the "smartphones have ruined everything" attitude. Almost as grating as anything anyone claims "Millennials" are doing.

[SpaceGuitarist]

Originally Posted by Polaris

Personally I must side with Reek on this one, while the execution is awesome and the music cool, I can't say I'm convinced by the message

I think it's just exagerated on purpose to make points clearer.
It doesn't mean to say everyone is like that all the time.

Neither is the message to make you feel special and think everyone else are dopes.

It's just a friendly reminder of way things are going, the behaviours shown are real and can be witnessed anywhere, and that can happen to anyone, more times to some than to others. It keeps you more alert of the bad things one can do with a smartphone. Yeah, I have a smartphone and think they're awesome bits of technology. Like any technology can be.

Many of the symbolic messages shown in the clip are relatable. Like that scene where everyone is giving likes and smiley faces when they are in fact sad and bored, it's plain accurate. Smartphones themselves are not the problem (have never been), rather they are just the medium by which people can do the other things which are bad and the pocket mobility of smartphones simply makes it so convenient and easy to fall in this trap-like behaviour at any given time, during many times a day, without even noticing, it's just automatic. It just entices traits in human nature which always existed but now are ever easier to show it's face in broad daylight.

A nice read:

(...) Most if not all the things we describe as addictive are. And the scary thing is, the process that created them is accelerating.

We wouldn't want to stop it. It's the same process that cures diseases: technological progress. Technological progress means making things do more of what we want. When the thing we want is something we want to want, we consider technological progress good. If some new technique makes solar cells x% more efficient, that seems strictly better. When progress concentrates something we don't want to want—when it transforms opium into heroin—it seems bad. But it's the same process at work.

No one doubts this process is accelerating, which means increasing numbers of things we like will be transformed into things we like too much.

( sauce )

[ChaosFish]

Gee people, it's not as if that clip is running for president and you should decide whether you support its political agenda. It's just satire. Like Kiddo said, that behavior can be witnessed anywhere and everyone is at some degree guilty of it. That kid who's "normal" is just there as a point of reference.

[Reek]

like mia said, the whole "smartphones are ruining society" shit is so widespread, by now it's obvious that people are just jumping on this bandwagon for internet points. these people are basically guilty of the exact behaviour of the people parodied in these videos.


also, chaosfish: i don't feel like i'm "guilty" of anything. i like having a smartphone, i think smartphones are awesome and i don't find it that hard to use them moderately and without it having an averse effect on the frequency/quality of my social interactions. and yeah, sometimes i prefer using my smartphone than making pointless small talk or just staring into space. believe it or not, we're not committing a sin each and every time we look at a screen ffs.

and if you're wondering why the negative reactions - you can't possibly tell me that you don't see how condescending and pretentious these videos are? a video where everyone other than the main character is drawn as braindead morons?

[ChaosFish]

Okidoki.

[Polaris]

Originally Posted by SpaceGuitarist

It just entices traits in human nature which always existed but now are ever easier to show it's face in broad daylight.

I can totally roll with that, but I'm afraid that's not the point of the video. If what you said is the case, smartphones are extremely useful tools to diagnose psychic illnesses, and the world is definetely a better place with them.
...
But I don't think that's the point of the video

[SpaceGuitarist]

[Polaris]

[ChaosFish]

I'm trying really hard not to lol while riding the bus right now.

[SpaceGuitarist]

I 'LOL' in public spaces. I don't care. Better look happy than grumpy.

[ChaosFish]

Maybe I wouldn't care if I lived at a chiller city populated by chiller people. Unfortunately at the moment I live at Jerusalem.

[SpaceGuitarist]

Why... would someone beat you up for laughing?

[ChaosFish]

Probably not...

[Polaris]

But then... Why shouldn't you laugh on the bus ?

[SpaceGuitarist]

We will go to the end with this haha

[SpaceGuitarist]

I have a friendly reminder since our cash 'could spread disease' and there is precedent for changing it because of the pandemic, to ask the question, will covid-19 end the use of paper money?

Since we all own smartphones by now (sometimes even two or more), smartphones will soon dominate digital payments. Cards started to dislodge cash from its throne and now smartphones and online payments are set to finish the job. Visa publishes new research in a report that explores the offline exchange of digital cash and how "it could benefit consumers and economies, everywhere". The way is paved for the birth of the cashless society.

So how would you feel about a world where every single transaction in the economy can be tracked real time? instead of paper in your wallet, it’s bits and bytes via your phone?

Many of you are already aware of the social credit score. The cashless society is about so much more than just how we pay for things at the store. Tied into a system of persistent technological surveillance, it represents the ultimate control over our lives.

Originally Posted by Lupin

I cannot allow myself to let fear drive my decisions.

Word!

[Polaris]

My phone is rooted, so I cannot use it to pay, as such, I hope credit cards will still be viable

But this isn't new, there were countries following this trend even before the pandemic, Sweden being the most prominent of them, having almost erased cash several years ago (feel free to correct me on this one, I just remember reading an article about this sixish years ago).

On the other end of the spectrum, you have Japan, where credit cards are so rarely used, that you can't use them almost anywhere. You need to regularly drop by an atm in a convenience store.
Actually, they do have some form of card payment in the form of... rechargeable public transport cards... Some vending machines and convenience stores close to bigger stations accept them as a form of payment (this, on the other hand, is first-hand experience).

[SamuelRichards]

For a long time, no matter how strange it may sound, I was satisfied with my push-button phone, this is the most reliable thing, but recently I had to buy an android to a greater extent because of the applications needed for work and I have never regretted, now I can not only work using it, but also play online games on the gaming site https://kevin.games/ where a large assortment of games of various genres and on various topics is presented.