I am waiting for smartphone to cook for me.
Not “instead of” at all, but in addition to. No one ever said the phone replaced the gazing experience, but enhances it. However, there is a great amount of convenience and a kind of power involved when you can find all that information at your fingertips even if you happen to just be out for a walk and you see something beautiful or that you are just curious about, even if you didn’t go on the walk intending to “stargaze”.
But even when stargazing is the main activity from the get go, you can look through the scope and stare all you want, but it will never tell you the name of what you are looking at. Well who knows, maybe some telescopes now have the same software built into them and can speak the name or display it in the field of vision. The point is you can lug a book along the allows you to look up that star name (a pain to do in the dark) or let the phone do it for you. Presumably the app also has any and all info about that star any book may have. I completely fail to see the downside here. Apparently neither did the professor of astronomy that was teaching the course and assigned the app to them.
ha! Fallenchemist–love the convo, definitely do not see it as you present it, but fun to discuss. No, I wasn’t advocating blind memorization; I’m speaking up for unmediated observation --identifying through context, relationships, details, etc, prior to looking up in a book, app, or other further informational source.
Just a different approach to the natural world, I guess.
Agreed, @garland. I am not dismissing the “stop and smell the roses” part of being in this world. All for it in fact. There is certainly room for both. One thing that is constantly forgotten by most is that just because we have the technology doesn’t mean we have to use it all the time. One certainly can leave one’s phone in one’s pocket, but no question the temptation to use it all the time once you have it is very great. A somewhat trivial example but one we see all the time: people paying hundreds of dollars to attend a sporting event and then spending the entire time playing with their phone.
I’m waiting for my smartphone to make my shopping list, go,to the grocery store, and put the food away when I get it home!
(Okay…going off topic here…) While it won’t MAKE your shopping list (or shop for you, darn it), it is a great place to put your list. Try the app “Our Groceries”. You can share the list with everyone in the family so anyone can add to the list and you always have your list with you if you should make a last minute stop at the grocery store.
thumper1, we’re close to that now. Not too far from now your smartphone automatically will help with food inventory and ordering the things you need from Amazon groceries who will send food to you on a drone and deliver to your doorstep where your home robot can put away in refrigerator and pantry. It’s coming.
@ClaremontMom nope…I don’t want to enter the data. I want my phone to be smart enough to do everything related to grocery shopping FOR me.
I like using smartphone, I’m a little concerned that future phones will be smarter than me and telling me what to do. Today’s smartphones will seem pretty stupid down the road. Think about it, in a few years our clothes will use smart fibers and when seat in our pants gets thin or our socks are about shot the smart fiber will automatically order new stuff on our smartphone and it will be delivered by a company like Amazon to our home. I kinda like to order new stuff on my own.
Just want to add that I’m an adult and I don’t have a cell phone. Well… I have a old flip phone that I charge once in a while (e.g I charged it on a recent road trip. Before that the last time it was charged was January… before that, sometime last summer). On a day to day basis, though, I don’t use one.
I get by just fine. Frankly, I think I’m happier than most folks who are addicted to their phones.
I love how the topic is whether smartphones are necessary and no one has even questioned the premise that some kind of cell phone is necessary.
In my mind, some kind of phone is a necessity—to me it’s security that I can reach someone in an emergency. And if I want that for myself, I would definitely want that security for my children!
I guess that if there is an emergency, I just rely on myself to deal with it. Does no one remember that in the not so distant past that no one had cell phones and that we were all ok?
for money saving, a pre-paid non-smartphone and an i pod can serve as a smartphone in campus. cuz campus has wifi, ipod can do online research.
Somehow, I knew that was coming and yes we were “ok” but that doesn’t mean we dismiss using something new just because we were “ok” before. I,personally, feel better knowing that I (and my kids) can call for help quickly without searching for a pay phone (which hardly exist anymore) or depending on someone else to have a phone. I am sure there are plenty of people who have used a cell phone to call the police and fire department in an emergency (where time spent finding a pay phone could mean the difference between life and death) and are extremely grateful they had one.
Heck, I’ve been happy I have one for all of life’s little emergencies.
For safety alone I find a cell to be indispensable. We finally made our mom get one some years back because she does a lot of road trips on her own as well as boating. It took the kids to convince her that it didn’t use minutes to leave it turned on. She said that she would just turn it on if she had an emergency and needed to contact someone. We responded, how about if WE have an emergency and need to get in touch with you? She now has it always. It is an ancient flip phone. My kid is currently on a 2 week road trip and I am very glad that he can text me when he gets places, where he’s staying for the night, and look up camp ground vacancies on his phone.
And I know . . . we got along just fine with a paper guide book and no reservation but times have changed in that regard as well. More people, same number of camp grounds makes a web search and reservation system a must in my book.
We would be OK without cell phones, but then again, my smartphone has replaced so many other devices I used to have: my home telephone, the alarm clock, my flashlight, a compass, a map, a navigation device, my camera, the mail, my calendar, sticky notes, my record player, etc. I am OK with getting rid of all those things and replacing them with one smartphone.
I concede today’s smart phones do come with lots of bells and whistles. I swear that the camera on my husband’s cell phone takes better pictures than his fancy camera. That said, a real compass and map don’t depend on a charged battery or having service.
“guess that if there is an emergency, I just rely on myself to deal with it. Does no one remember that in the not so distant past that no one had cell phones and that we were all ok”
Things were also a lot less convenient. We used not to have electricity, either, or cars, or this thing called the internet you’re using.
^logical fallacy. But a popular one.