[Syonyk]

I would go further. At this point, the "sneaky snacky smartphone" approach to data collection (in which everything that can be collected is being collected, and probably used for things you can't imagine it would be useful for) starts to press heavily on the "And I therefore shouldn't carry a smartphone" side of the scales.

I've seen some fun papers of "Well, you could do this awful thing..." (comparison of accelerometer data to deconflict which nearby phones are in the same vehicle vs separate ones to better refine social graphs), in addition to all the stuff we know is being done (ultrasonic signals in various ads, tracking shoppers by their wifi/bt beacon MACs, etc). I assume the state of what's actually being done is far worse than what's in the papers, because someone, somewhere, though they could get a signal out of something.

Trying to "de-evil" this sort of system is, first and foremost, fiddling around the edges of what's possible (I expect various people are reading and thinking, "Oh, you think spoofing GPS will matter, cute!), but it's also remaining in the ecosystem that has, repeatedly, demonstrated that they're going to get their paws on everything they think they can justify, and then expand that over time.

There's no reason that a TV needs to be doing automatic content recognition on various inputs, but they're all doing it these days.

I've given up and I no longer carry a smartphone. I'd encourage those who can get away with it to do the same thing. You can't go hoovering up all my data from a dumber KaiOS device because it doesn't run all the apps, and if a company makes their desktop/laptop interface so painful to use to drive people to the phone interface, well, they're probably doing things I don't want to support anymore.

Trying to "reduce the harm" of smartphones, more and more, feels like trying to figure out how to mitigate the impact of a world class meth addiction by focusing on the symptoms - "Oh, you need to hydrate better!" "Here's some skin moisturizer and a toothbrush!" and so on - without ever stating that the problem is the meth and that you need to stop using that, not try to figure out how to avoid losing your teeth while doing it.

[bombcar]

I wonder if our smartphone addiction is going to look to people in the future the same way we look at smoking now.

He says whilst posting from his phone …

[Syonyk]

I sure hope so. And I hope that future is an awful lot closer. The past decade or so of teenagers can speak to just how nasty smartphone addictions can be, in terms of mental health, suicides, etc. I grew up with the internet, but we didn't have profit-driven advertising empires pretending to "connect people together" back then, either.

Part of my reason for not carrying a smartphone anymore is to be a better example to my kids, and I certainly point out couples staring at his-n-hers smartphones at a restaurant instead of actually enjoying each other's company.

Odds are good that instead of a smartphone, my daughter will just end up with her HAM license and a VHF handset instead. It'll cover the common cases direct simplex if I put a base station on the house, and my wife isn't opposed to getting her license either. :)

[ZekeSulastin]

Someone wake me up when I don't have to pay for a PO box to avoid having to announce my address to everyone within listening range - maybe my own license will still be active by then.

[bombcar]

HAM is nice also because it helps you remember that someone could be listening at any time, a lesson we often forget.

[mtlmtlmtlmtl]

Probably worse. After all, smoking mainly just gives people more health issues. Smartphones have far more insidious sociological effects on the very fabric of society.

I think a comparison that does it more justice is to the use of leaded gasoline and its downstream effects on crime rates.