Back To Brick (downgrading/cutting out tech)

[confettiinmyhair]

I've never owned an Apple product, a smart watch or one of those Alexa things. There are certain aspects of technology which I think serve little purpose. A smart watch would be the top of that list.

[Butchers Blind]

I don't have a Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok account and feel I'm not missing out on anything. I do have a Twitter profile but even thats limited to a small amount people I follow and the last time I posted anything was eight months ago.
I'm the same with tech as well, no 'Alexa' or smartwatch, I do have a smartphone but thats probably way past its sell by date. Think what puts me off is the constant updating and that I'll never be able to keep up.

[TrenterPercenter]

I've never owned an Apple product, a smart watch or one of those Alexa things. There are certain aspects of technology which I think serve little purpose. A smart watch would be the top of that list.

Completely disagree on the smartwatch (I don't have one) they are compasses, GPS devices, fitness trackers, heart rate and health monitors that are literally at the level now they can alert people/services if you have a heart attack and pre-asses you for other illness and diseases, you can use them as phones, email compilers MP3 players and you can control your electronics away from home on them so you can turn your heating off if you leave it on whilst out championship ski jumping - they are basically phones and more you can wear on your wrist.

Also Apple products are great (though up until recently overpriced); I bought a MacBook Air beginning of the year and for anyone that has to write a lot for work they are best keyboards, trackpads you can work on and the productivity aspect of the gesture system once mastered makes working on multiple documents a breeze. 

[Icehaven]

Try going on a holiday in a caravan. You'll enjoy the sound of rain. Your cup of tea will taste better and you'll learn a load of card games.

[shagatha crustie]

Would be good if you could get a phone that just did calls, texts and Spotify. Is possible?

[Lord Mandrake]

I was going to add a disclaimer (not that Dave Angel) but I thought why intervene in the inevitable? Also the image ties in nicely.

[ProvanFan]

Now That's What I Call Cheezy Peaz

[Kankurette]

In more detail, now that I've thought about Trenter's post again:
- I've quit Facebook. The only problem is that it was a good way to find out what people were doing, talk about meeting up etc. and because I work from home and I spend a lot of time online, I feel a bit cut off. I still have Messenger as I talk to various friends and my brother and auntie quite a lot on it, but not going back on Facebook any time soon. As I said, I got sick of random pages I didn't even follow popping up on my feed because a mate might have commented on it, especially when it was some local newspaper article full of angry Tories. I also kept getting Christian stuff marketed at me, as well as ads for shitty video games like Project Makeover, which I could write a whole nother thread on because it annoys me so much.
- I rarely post on Twitter and only go on there for football stuff nowadays. I follow a few players and sometimes it can be good for transfer/injury news, though there's an awful lot of bollocks floating around.
- I used to go on various football forums, but barely post there now. I got banned from GrandOldTeam and OwlsTalk is too right-wing, and really depressing right now.
- Tumblr is a lot easier to curate and unlike Facebook and Twitter, I don't have random pages popping up on my feed because we have mutual followers or the algorithm thinks I might like it. It is what you make of it and a lot of the obnoxious little twats on there have migrated to Twitter. It's also a good source of fanart.
- On Instagram, I only follow friends and footballers/teams. I mainly stick to posting food or cat pics. Can't be doing with influencers and I'm too old for them anyway.
- I still have Spotify - I like having music on while I work and I treat it as a sort of try-before-you-buy thing. If I like an album enough, I'll buy it. I tend to ignore the algorithms and just look for stuff I've heard about (like all the synthwave that people have been posting in the synthwave thread I made in Oscillations).
- I've cut down on Merge Magic because it's a money sink and I'm probably going to stop spending on it. It's not as bad as Candy Crush, but they're starting to take the piss with how they have an event every weekend. Word Villas is easier to pay without playing - the only money i spend is to get rid of the ads, because mobile games are riddled with the fucking things.
- I switched on that fucking News notification thing on my phone because I got sick of my phone pinging and thinking it was a text from someone, except no, it was some bullshit news about Wills and Kate or whatever. And it's a waste of time anyway because most of the articles are behind a paywall. I check the BBC from time to time but that's it. The rolling news at the gym does my head in.
- I don't have a TV. I watch things on my computer. I only really watch Inside No 9, anime, football and cat videos. I got rid of Netflix because there was nothing I was really into on there, although now they've got the new Sailor Moon OVA, annoyingly.

I still play Pokemon Go, but mainly use it as a walking app. I don't have a Smartwatch but they're handy if you run a lot.

The thing I hate about Facebook and Twitter is just the relentless opinions. I don't need to see everyone's hot takes on everything. I know my feed is going to be full of Israel/are footballers woke snowflakes for taking the knee/lockdown/Megz 'n' Harry discourse.

[Brundle-Fly]

Barely do Facebook. I treat it like a pub in my old hometown. I can wander in for a couple of pints, say hello to some old friends, quick chat by the bar with some newer acquaintances, and piss off again for a few weeks. Anything else and it becomes too involved.  Ugh, I've compared social media to being in a pub.  How early '00s of me.

As for Twitter, I enjoy it because I don't do politics on there and just talk bollocks with similar-minded bollocks talking people. Still full of tossers though, yes. If I see those same fucking gifs one more time when anything is trending, I might cut my throat.

From my cold dead hands, you're taking my smartphone away. It's all about moderation though. Real-world will always rule. And as for that advice about running (or walking) without music? I've been doing that for just over forty years so fuck that. Although I will concede if you're in the countryside with tweeting birdsong, baaing sheep or crashing sea, you're missing out if you've got ya phones on. Be more like John Craven.

Telly? Again, old habits die hard. There's always been a lot of crap on the box but I still love it dearly.

CaB? Now, there's a can of worms...

[Retinend]

Funny how scrolling and scrolling is deemed as inherently bad for you, but reading page after page of a book is considered inherently good for you.

It wasn't always this way, however - in the 18th century the invention of the romance novel ("novel" is "roman" in the majority of world languages) was said to be a menace to female society, as it made young women expect too much from their own romantic lives, and made them into hopeless dreamers. If, by contrast, they read philosophical and historical works, then they were considered to be at risk of repulsing good men with their "bluestocking'd" intellectual uppitiness. Either way, the technology was scapegoated as the cause of the "problem with women", which were - if ever real problems at all - problems that didn't begin with the invention of books.

In other words, I predict we will soon regard most current social concerns about the internet as a small-c conservative quirk of the age. 

What's better than limiting internet usage cold-turkey is to use the internet consciously. If you can honestly justify why you use Twitter for your own good, then you should be using it more, not less. What I'm getting to is that I spend a lot of time on CaB, reading or posting on it. It's been over a decade by now. But if someone knew this and asked me why, I would be able to look them in the eye as I listed the reasons why it was a good use of my time to do so. Sometimes I have to have this conversation with my significant other, and so this I know for sure.

[Kankurette]

At least with CaB it's easier to avoid the things you don't want to see. Hence why I mainly hang out here, the comedy forum, the football thread and Oscillations, but not the gaming bit or anything involving Photoshop.

If Facebook was a pub, it would be full of shouty bores.

[The Culture Bunker]

I was on Facebook for about six weeks years ago - a friend asked me to create an account to vote for them in some art contest. I didn't use my real name and got rid of it because there wasn't much point of it. Never had a Twitter account either - my social media output is limited to Instagram, though my account is private and I only follow friends/family.

I do have a nice TV, but it's 90% used for my Playstation. The only live broadcasts I can remember watching the last year were football matches - otherwise it's pretty much just films on the weekend, though the other half has been binge watching Downton Abbey on it whenever I'm not around.

I do have a (doubtless misplaced) pride that should anyone Google my name, they'll find zero out about me. There's a chap who makes dollhouse furniture down South - sadly, he's not also an ace detective Lester Freamon style, and somebody played a background character in a major Hollywood flick who also shares my name. Stuff like Youtube, I have a gmail account under a pseudonym that I use for the rare occasions I comment on a video. I have wondered if I applied for a job in another place whether my total lack of online footprint would be seen as suspicious. 

[purlieu]

I have a lot of issues around loneliness - I think it's a major factor in my numerous mental health problems, which started to crop up around the time I left a city full of friends and a busy social life to live in various places where I knew nobody, but that's another thread entirely - so for me, social media is a link to the few friends I've managed to keep in touch with. I was looking into moving to a city where I knew people just as we entered lockdown last year, and having a vulnerable partner and elderly parents, I've basically put that off until we're all fully vaccinated, which has been really bloody difficult. My plan has always been to cut Facebook and Instagram right down when I move out, because for the last few years I've only been using them as that social lifeline, and I'm really hoping I can do that later this year. I genuinely detest Facebook, my timeline being full of crap I'm not following that the site has pushed at me, the over opinioning, the utterly fucking awful right-wing bias the running of the site has. Instagram I used to enjoy a lot, but find less and less fun these days. After a while, pictures of the place someone's been that day and stories of what song they're listening to on Spotify lose their allure, I suppose. Twitter I'm mostly fine with, only I deactivated my account a while back, and since reactivating it's constantly throwing recommended 'Topics' onto my timeline, which are a) kind of intrusive and b) always things I have absolutely no interest in. But I only really use it for my own music, so I'm largely just following artists and labels I know, plus Dirty Feed's John Hoare, whose detailed insight into TV production is always a delight to read.

For me, the worst thing about social media is that it's killed off a lot of its forerunners - forums, blogs and such - to the extent that trying to engage with fans of certain things almost relies on it now. A lot of smaller forums are dead these days, as when members gradually stop visiting, there's nobody to replace them as Facebook has become the default location for this stuff for a lot of people, especially those who've come to the internet in the last ten or so years. I'm a mod on a FSOL forum, and up until six or seven years ago, it was really active. A new album release would result in a 20-30 page thread - which is pretty good going for a band who've shed most of their major label years fans - but lately, a new release will result in a page, maybe two. I'm one of only four people who's even mentioned an EP that came out last month. Over on Facebook, the busiest fan group is buzzing, but it's 99% people posting a random song with no discussion at all, or a photo of a release they've bought, or asking a question about a new release that's been answered two posts below. I often encourage people to join the forum by stating there's more in-depth discussion there, but there are no takers. Apparently nobody cares about anything that goes deeper than "I like this song". Social media seems to really discourage in-depth discussion, and thus the group doesn't even feel like a good replacement for the board. Some bands are doing even worse - the official Wire board has had one reply in the last three months; Therapy?'s forum had a spambot attack last week and there's not even been an admin on since to delete it all.

I don't have a 'virtual assistant' of the Alexa variety, and have no plans to ever get one. It always surprises me when I see friends online who've actually got one, because in my head I can't fathom any sensible person choosing to use one. I suppose I can be a little bit of a luddite at times, but the idea of having a company like Amazon or Google selling a device which gives you all your entertainment and monitors your usage, and you talking to it to get it to work feels genuinely creepy to me. I suppose the corporate element is a big part of it, but it feels so totally different to, say, Picard saying "computer, play a Mozart string quartet" and getting the same result.

I suppose I've always liked the idea of the home being a bit of a retreat from unwanted stuff, too. Yeah, some people have always had the telly blaring away, but on the whole a home was somewhere you made entirely your own, and you'd have whatever technology and media you had as part of the furniture, as well as doing lots of things that don't seem part of it. With everything connected to the internet, and constantly checking smartphones and such, it feels like the home is more just a terminal of a wider web now, and although that sounds more ominous than it is, it still makes me uncomfortable. I suppose feeding into the whole mindfulness idea, I like the idea of a place having its own feel and not needing to be connected to everything else. So often now I see my parents sat in their living room with a TV programme on, only dad's on his laptop and mum's on her tablet, and I just think it's sad that they're not even acknowledging each other, nor the show that they've sat down to watch because they were genuinely interested in it.

I'm always envious of people who don't use the internet at all. Nurse With Wound's Steven Stapleton has never had an internet connection. For a while I used to wonder how the hell he managed, before realising that people always managed, and if you've never had the internet then you haven't got anything to miss. I remember the first time we got a connection at home, one of those pay-as-you-go evenings & weekends packages, I think some money went to the RSPB from using it, and I was immediately hooked, looking up information for hours at a time every night. Then I got hacked and we had to get a new computer. Took a couple of months before my parents decided to go back on the internet again, and even then I remember having a slight sense of apprehension, because since not having the internet I'd gone back to doing more things at home and being more creative, and the idea of being hooked back up to the rest of the world and just sitting doing that in the evening actually felt quite unpleasant and even oppressive then. I actually told my dad I didn't want to get it back, but by that time he'd already ordered a new package. I wonder just how different my life would have been if I'd asked a week before: in my teens I used the internet more than any of my school friends (if someone logged in to MSN messenger and I wasn't online it would actually get commented on at school the next day) and it changed my life massively. That said, the happiest times in my life have almost all been those when I didn't have an internet connection, so maybe I would have been better off.

Hmm, this is all turning into a bit of a blog post. In summary: from personal experience, I am looking forward to having some real-life friends again and being able to use the internet far, far less as a result.

[ASFTSN]

Nurse With Wound's Steven Stapleton has never had an internet connection. For a while I used to wonder how the hell he managed, before realising that people always managed, and if you've never had the internet then you haven't got anything to miss.

Very good post! But I would say that Stapleton is an exception because he's a living legend of underground music and he's clearly got other people to take care of the "brand" for him like running his bandcamp and stuff.

I've recently removed FB from my phone and try not to use it for business purposes - it's pretty depressing how underground music in general is so dependent on it, I'm still working out how I'll learn when gigs are (when they are back) because they literally aren't listed anywhere else for most bands.

[purlieu]

What amazes me is that there are some contemporary musicians who have no online presence. I keep wanting to follow E-Saggila on social media because I've missed a couple of albums of hers when they've come out on labels I don't already follow, but she has no public social media at all. Really impressed with that, to be honest.

Facebook Pages are an absolute joke unless you've already got a big following and money to pump into promotion. Pretty much every artist I know has just deleted their Facebook page because it wasn't actually help promote them in the slightest. Twitter is my music space, but I suppose it depends on the type of music and the scene you're in. It always seems to be fairly busy with electronic musicians, with a lot of interesting discussion about the shape of the industry at the minute.

[Endicott]

Would be good if you could get a phone that just did calls, texts and Spotify. Is possible?

You could do this with any smart phone, but it would of course require some self discipline.

Just turn off, and / or delete apps you don't want. If you can't remove them, disable notifications.

Turn off mobile data, and only turn it on if you want to use Spotify.

[ASFTSN]

You could do this with any smart phone, but it would of course require some self discipline.

Just turn off, and / or delete apps you don't want. If you can't remove them, disable notifications.

Turn off mobile data, and only turn it on if you want to use Spotify.

This might have been the point at which I realised things were quite as fucked up as they are actually, when I literally was unable to delete Facebook from my phone.

[Paul Calf]

I don't even have a pencil.

[imitationleather]

Except for yer pencil dick, aye?

[Endicott]

Hmm. My phone is 6 years old and has never had fb installed on it. However in the circumstance where it was and couldn't be removed, my guess here is that you don't actually have to enter your fb account credentials, and you can disable notifications to stop it nagging you about it. That's coming form an android perspective, of course. If apple don't allow that flexibility, that's another very good reason to bin apple stuff.

[Paul Calf]

Except for yer pencil dick, aye?

I'd have thought that was obvious. It's made of wood and graphite too.

[Icehaven]

I was on Facebook for about six weeks years ago - a friend asked me to create an account to vote for them in some art contest. I didn't use my real name and got rid of it because there wasn't much point of it.

Doesn't matter too much for you if you didn't use your real details but you actually can't completely get rid of a facebook page, or at least you couldn't a few years ago as I discovered when I had some crappy personal gubbins going on and I couldn't trust myself not to drunkenly post about it so I tried to delete my fb page, and found not only could I only disable but not delete it, but that all you have to do to reactivate it is sign in. Made it virtually pointless for my intentions but it's hardly surprising Facebook don't want to lose stats and keep it as easy as possible to come back. I don't know if GDPR has changed this or anything, probably not seeing as disabling your page means it won't (or shouldn't anyway) show up in searches.

[The Culture Bunker]

Doesn't matter too much for you if you didn't use your real details but you actually can't completely get rid of a facebook page, or at least you couldn't a few years ago as I discovered when I had some crappy personal gubbins going on and I couldn't trust myself not to drunkenly post about it so I tried to delete my fb page, and found not only could I only disable but not delete it, but that all you have to do to reactivate it is sign in. Made it virtually pointless for my intentions but it's hardly surprising Facebook don't want to lose stats and keep it as easy as possible to come back. I don't know if GDPR has changed this or anything, probably not seeing as disabling your page means it won't (or shouldn't anyway) show up in searches.

Don't remember what I did when I closed my account on there (it would have been maybe two and a bit years ago), but I did just try to log back in and it didn't recognise my details. 

[Icehaven]

Don't remember what I did when I closed my account on there (it would have been maybe two and a bit years ago), but I did just try to log back in and it didn't recognise my details.

Maybe it's changed now then, I did it about 5 years ago. Or maybe there's a time limit, if you don't sign back in after x amount of time it's deleted.

[Kankurette]

Purlieu, I'm the same. Being disabled AND having a job which means I have to work from home and be available for work pretty much 7 days a week means I don't get out much and a lot of my social life IS online. I am aware of how sad this is, but I've met some of my best friends online. It's why it took me so long to get rid of Facebook and even now, I do feel a bit isolated.

And I agree that forums are easier to navigate than Facebook - I spent a lot of time on forums as a teen so I'm used to them. I certainly preferred the old Space forum to the Facebook pages where everyone's trying to one-up each other about whose vinyl collection is bigger, who's got the most photos with Tommy and Franny, etc. I met some lovely people through it and although a lot of them have moved on from Space, I've still kept in touch.

Alexa creeps me out. One of my uncles has it and he's obsessed with the damn thing. I don't want it.

[Dex Sawash]

Hmm. My phone is 6 years old and has never had fb installed on it. However in the circumstance where it was and couldn't be removed, my guess here is that you don't actually have to enter your fb account credentials, and you can disable notifications to stop it nagging you about it. That's coming form an android perspective, of course. If apple don't allow that flexibility, that's another very good reason to bin apple stuff.

You can disable non-removable android apps, path is something like

Settings > Apps > pick your naughty app> there should be a "disable" tick box if there is no "remove" option

[Noodle Lizard]

Someone very close to me was virtually transformed for the better once they got off Instagram - it did nothing but exacerbate pre-existing complexes of self-doubt and a (quite honestly) fragile ego. Unfortunately, they convinced themselves they needed to return to it for professional reasons, and slipped back into the full-on habit - I don't think it's a coincidence that a return of their depressive and anxious tendencies soon followed.

When looked at from the outside, it's plain as day that social media networks in their current form are an utterly malignant machine. They, arguably by design, do little but make you feel either angry or inadequate, or hate people you'd otherwise get on with fine - who needs extra help doing any of those things?

[Noodle Lizard]

Doesn't matter too much for you if you didn't use your real details but you actually can't completely get rid of a facebook page, or at least you couldn't a few years ago as I discovered when I had some crappy personal gubbins going on and I couldn't trust myself not to drunkenly post about it so I tried to delete my fb page, and found not only could I only disable but not delete it, but that all you have to do to reactivate it is sign in. Made it virtually pointless for my intentions but it's hardly surprising Facebook don't want to lose stats and keep it as easy as possible to come back. I don't know if GDPR has changed this or anything, probably not seeing as disabling your page means it won't (or shouldn't anyway) show up in searches.

You can delete it, but I think they give it a 30 day grace period or something. If you want them to delete the data they've collected or the so-called "shadow profile" they have of you, that's a far trickier process and honestly I doubt it really accomplishes much in the long-run anyway.

[Retinend]

When looked at from the outside, it's plain as day that social media networks in their current form are an utterly malignant machine. They, arguably by design, do little but make you feel either angry or inadequate, or hate people you'd otherwise get on with fine - who needs extra help doing any of those things?

I'm in the On Cinema At The Cinema group on Facebook and it's a lovely place. No one hates anyone. People just laugh at the idea of internet drama, and make fun of crappy old films. I'm also in another FB group called "The Renaissance Experience" where people post beautiful works of art all day.

I don't believe that the "machine" requires people to act petty and feel inadequate. I think those people would find ways to act petty or feel inadequate regardless.  Sure, people do have different levels of notoriety in the aforementioned groups, and yes some people seek out recognition and in-group fame - but crucially, no one is a cunt about it.

I never saw a thread on that Netflix documentary "The Social Network", but for the record I thought it was overblown chicken licken crap.

[touchingcloth]

When looked at from the outside, it's plain as day that social media networks in their current form are an utterly malignant machine. They, arguably by design, do little but make you feel either angry or inadequate, or hate people you'd otherwise get on with fine - who needs extra help doing any of those things?

It's not just social media - even the traditional news media pretty much does the same. Twitter, Facebook, Tucker Carlson - same thing.