[jcynix]

Gym? Just the gym, no music. Walking? The same, enjoying my surrounding. I quit music streaming (tried Amazon, Google) after some trials and concentrate on a selection of music, which I can listen to again and again. I do use a tablet with a 256GB SD card, so have space to store a variety of things.

While my musical taste is eclectic (i.e. from classic over techno to glitch) I mostly prefer to either listen to music or do other things, instead of mixing those activities. I do listen to music on commutes, and sometimes while doing certain chores in the kitchen though. But otherwise either or, not both.

[ckosidows]

I've started leaving my phone out of my gym time as well. It feels like the right thing to do, but it definitely feels odd or like I'm different somehow. At the gym I go to everyone listens to music while lifting and it's almost surreal to look around while resting between sets to see everyone is dialed into their own little world.

I wonder what gyms looked like in earlier generations (I'm only 27). Did people talk more?

[reaperducer]

Did people talk more?

Yes. Especially before the televisions arrived.

Gyms were well-known social hubs. You'd meet people, sometimes even work out business deals, at the gym.

The isolation that technology has brought us has reduced the number of serendipitous human connections we used to make as a species. It has also turned us into an us-verus-them society because we no longer have large circles of friends with varying opinions.

[foxdev]

Latter seasons of Highlander tell me they were mostly for people to test their rivals out before a final confrontation in another part of the city in the final act.

[efreak]

According to pokemon, gyms exist only as a place for making your pet fight someone else's pet

[gregrata]

shrug before I used my phone for music, I used my iPod. Before that, my Walkman.

Personal music at the gym is not new or anything specific to phones

[christophergs]

This. Music while working out is cheating anyway. Bite down on your mouthpiece and listen to your own inner anguish instead. Or hum.

[fuzzfactor]

>The biggest switch for me would be losing music streaming. What do you use for music on-the-go (at the gym, commuting, walking around, etc.)?

I gave that up too, replaced with live music venues where I could interact with the musicians.

Although depending on the venue musicians and even patrons will occasionally be wearing hearing protection earbuds for isolation.

Without earbuds it can only be better for personal interaction at the gym, etc. too.

When the Sony Walkman came out, those who took it to the gym were more keenly aware they were signaling that they didn't want any interaction there.

Solo commuting I'm just fine with news & talk now. Driving passengers or being one I can better appreciate anybody's channel selction. Nonmusic is too boring for most people anyway.

I get plenty of live music and that's all I really need.

If you already have to be on a computer a bit to begin with, might as well make the most of it.

When you do close the laptop and revert to normal in-person interaction, you can always walk away from the PC with mere cellular voice, if you really need that, for the duration.

Twenty years ago smartphones didn't have touchscreens. But they would take messages.

When that was the only thing you were carrying around, all you could really do was talk & text like anyone else.

But when you had your laptop, the built-in IR or USB interface to a top smart phone was what made it smart to begin with.

As a virtual COM port device, the analog modem in your phone was then accessible to Windows no differently than the analog hardware modem the laptop used when hardwired to a phone jack having a dial tone.

Even laptops without built in modems back then still had hardware COM port connectors just like desktops, which could be used with external hardwired phone modems (or used for local hardwired RS-232/TTY within the generous cable length limitation without need for modulation/demodulation).

But the cellphone was about twice the speeds the office was getting with 56K hardware modems.

From anywhere you could get a cellular signal.

This was years before each cellular company began to slowly roll out data plans as the phones got _smarter_.

Which were geographically limited ridiculously by comparison for many more years before data coverage got to where it is today.

Anyway you could get to your office network directly by dialing in to (one of) your target server's phone number(s) (and tying up that landline as long as you are connected).

Without having to go on the internet, so security could be through the roof by comparison.

Alternatively you could dial in to any ISP's phone bank when you needed to get on the web.

This could even be simply done routinely from a different Windows partition, physically separating personal from business for instance.

Would that make it a sandcastle compared to a sandbox?

Even with only a common single bootvolume you could connect to two networks at the same time using two modems, using the built-in Dial-Up Networking in Windows 98. You could become a bridge this way and security could be not so good.

You just pointed & clicked your selection(s) and they negotiated or autodialed if necessary.

So many offices had internet that you would almost always be fine to just dial in to that one place, and with more than one modem using more than one phone line W98 could be configured to communicate much faster than 56K using modem sharing.

And with a laptop you had all the power and software for business & internet connection you needed without having to wait for phones to get more powerful on their own.

With progress phones are much more popular & stylish now.

Posing with a touchphone, one-handed at a characteristic near-45 degree angle as an interested observer, recognizable in silhouette, whether standing (walking) or sitting, is not something that was ever seen in the 20th century.

Likewise the accompanying silhouette with the other hand on the touchscreen as an active operator.

Under laboratory conditions over a period of years, redirecting time otherwise spent in either pose toward actual scientific progress can have much more ideal outcomes when it comes to milestone accomplishments.

Anectdotal data, YMMV.

I do get the idea that more traditional poses such as yoga-style might be more preferable to a great many.

Rumour has it your cognitive capacity can be increased.