No social media or no smart phones?

[handoferis]

I feel like they're completely symbiotic and you'd have trouble knowing how either would have evolved without the other. That being said, I think social media in particular has done the most mental violence and behavioral modification to the population and would be the part to eliminate if I was doing it now.

Case in point, took my housemate who's a bit younger than me (she's 26, I'm 30) out with us on Monday to go shooting with my friends who're a bit older than me and also social media avoiders. No phones came out, no pictures taken. When we got back, housemate was like "oh, it's a shame we didn't take any pictures". I said something along the lines of "not everything has to be documented, experiences for experience sake are good" and she had an "oh shit you're right" moment.

The way these services get into people's brains is insidious and actually fucks them up to the point they act without thinking. I don't think a smartphone alone could do that.

 

[Miku Simpson]

Social media came long before smartphones, i think smartphones are probably what have made it become far easily accessible, seals_breakfast said it far better:

People say it's great to have all this information at your fingertips, but is it really necessary? Sorry to sound like a boomer, but smartphones have made society brainwashed narcissists who only think about using their pocket-supercomputer to post a photo of themselves or tweet every little thing that comes to their minds, as long as its non-controversial. Smartphones have eliminated phsychological diversity from our society by giving virtually anyone a platform to become connected and brainwashed along with everyone else.

I feel like my age group (21-17 year olds) had the last bit of growing up without excessive technology around us. Now don't get me wrong, we still had Ipods, Ipads and that sort of stuff. But not everyone's parents back then were willing to fork out a couple hundred for something that doesn't really do a lot in terms of functionality; so I think the vast majority of us was mostly limited to computers. I didn't get my first smartphone until 2016 for highschool. Crazy to think that was 6 years ago, my boyfriends niece is 11 and already has a phone, primarily just for the sake of having one
The weirdest thing to me is knowing that it isn't an uncommon sight, still kinda weirds me out though