I’ve been on Reddit for over a decade. But I’m done with that site and want to do something else. What do normal people look at on their phones? Is it all social media? Streaming?
I’ve been on Reddit for over a decade. But I’m done with that site and want to do something else. What do normal people look at on their phones? Is it all social media? Streaming?
Normal? Very much so.
Commonplace, absolutely.
A result of supernormal stimuli? Assuredly.
Unhealthy? Maybe, but you’d need some good science to indicate so. (More than anecdotal examples) We have a lot of people who will make a moral panic over anything they don’t like, and we’ve grown skeptical.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10662456/ (peer reviewed article)
A majority of the public is addicted to scrolling their phones or other “apps”. This is beyond all doubt an unhealthy addiction, both on an individual and society wide scale.
Our government is not interested in curbing the common need to cope. I submit that scrolling is safer than alcohol, tobacco and white supremacy activist meetings, or any frisbee park in Los Angeles.
Were going to cope somehow, and so it’s a matter of harm caused on contrast to other means that are accepted and expected by society.
Considering the same government asserted tabletop RPGs, rock and roll, and video games are dangerous, I question the veracity of the source.
I mean, the main place i observe this is people commuting on the metro. If they didn’t have phones they’d be reading tabloid newspapers.
I don’t really see anything wrong with using your phone on the metro. Some will look up art and crafts, some bird photography, others makeup tutorials or video game content. If they can explore their interests rather than just waste their time completely that’s fine by me.
Of course it’s also a dopamine trap, and Instagram use trends to get a bit out of hand. Still, it seems to me some Lemmy users are a bit too quick to write off “normal” people as broken down zombies.
My experience on public transit is seeing people texting or chatting with their loved ones. The frequency with which someone smiles over a text exchange (whether it’s from funny exchanges or affirming sentiments) showed me that we’re still social on the bus, only now with those we associate with rather than strangers on the same transit line.
I’d say it’s a win, though yes, the degree to which mobile games have microtransactions and revenue enhancers, and with which the end-user contract destabilizes with updates is problematic. My susceptability to motion sickness served in allowing me to dodge that bullet on public transit, only to discover it later in waiting rooms.