What do normal people look at on their phones?
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?
Graphy, Idk but wtf are people always doing on their phone in the car. Am I the weird one where I can’t even think of anything I’d like to do on my phone while driving? I can change media and text my wife all via voice control if I need to.
ALostInquirer, I used to try to use voice control for changing media when driving, but found it hilariously unreliable since it had to try to parse the voice command through the music. Is there a trick to that besides having a better mic I’m missing?
indepndnt, I dunno about everything, but my car has a talk button on the steering wheel, I think you press it to answer the phone or whatever, but when Android Auto is active, that button works the same as saying “OK Google”. I would imagine it does something similar with CarPlay. Maybe you have a similar button?
ObsidianZed, In my car (2016), Bluetooth supports phone calls and that’s it, so I have a separate Bluetooth receiver always plugged into my aux port. So I have to cycle music manually.
ALostInquirer, Similar to the other person that replied to ya, I’m in an older vehicle so I don’t have anything like that in mine, instead relying on either aux cable or bluetooth receiver to connect the phone to the audio system. It got to the point that I got a bluetooth media remote to get around the unreliability of voice commands.
Graphy, Idk what system you’re using but I use CarPlay and android auto. Both of them are able to mute when I press the chat button or if I yell “hey whatever”
ALostInquirer, Older vehicle, so it’s basically just the phone and either an aux cable or bluetooth receiver, so that probably explains some of it 😅
cabbage, I feel like any time anyone is using their phones in public they're scrolling Instagram.
If you want to give an appearance of normalcy while maintaining a living soul, just get a Pixelfed account, follow a bunch of photographers, and scroll endlessly.
laverabe, there’s nothing normal about mindlessly scrolling your phone in public…
uriel238, 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.
laverabe, Mobile applications are meticulously engineered to capture user attention and foster engagement [3]. Features like real-time notifications, endless scrolling, and gamification elements are quintessential in ensuring sustained user interaction [4]. Renowned platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and mobile games like Candy Crush have been discerned to instigate addictive behaviors [5, 6]. For instance, the incessant checking of social media apps or the relentless pursuit of advancing game levels transpires despite the apparent adverse repercussions on users’ sleep, productivity, or even mental health [7]. The propensity for these behaviors underpins the ubiquitous nature of mobile app addiction. Owing to the omnipresence of mobile devices, the line between moderate and excessive use has become increasingly blurred, thereby escalating the necessity to delve into the factors contributing to such addiction. The ubiquitous nature of mobile app addiction is underscored by emerging research, which delineates the cognitive and behavioral tendencies driving this phenomenon [8, 9]. As the ramifications of mobile app addiction seep into various facets of daily life, the exigency of investigating the underlying factors and promoting healthier digital consumption patterns is accentuated.
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.
uriel238, (edited ) 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.
cabbage, 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.
uriel238, 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.
jacktherippah, Probably social media like Facebook, Instagram, … Or video sharing sites like TikTok (yuck!) and YouTube.
totallynotarobot, You object to only one of those four?
jacktherippah, I couldn’t care less about the others. I have extremely strong opinions about TikTok though.
fin, +1 for YouTube and TikTok
Thcdenton, Porn. Lots and lots of porn.
meyotch, And a news app queued up in the app switcher that you can quickly adjust when someone walks in. Gotta stay up on current events!
Gargantuanthud, “oh this? this is just my news boner. I really love the news”
viking, I’m reading ebooks with ReadEra (adfree and unrestricted in the free version, bought it during some 50% sale to support the dev).
Else I’m reading news (news.google.com with a highly curated blocklist of >150 sites) and play a bunch of word games like Wordle, Dordle, Quordle, Octordle, crosswordle, fibble, symble, thirdle, warmle and whatever else.
JackGreenEarth, I don’t know about your ereader, but Librera has been working great for me, it’s very customisable, is FOSS, and is on F-Droid.
viking, Sounds great! Really not looking for a change since I’ve been happy with it for a solid decade, but it’s great to know there are alternatives.
csm10495, Lots of people are on TikTok and Instagram.
I on the other hand stare at the nearest wall.
soggy_kitty, I get the busy train to work every day and can confirm this statement. Everyone on Thier phones is either scrolling an app with pics/vids or messaging someone.
The few left look at a wall, no other category
sarchar, Pleased to meet you, fellow wallwatcher.
Vanth, I can’t claim to represent anyone other than myself. I use an RSS feeder for news, articles, and webcomics. I have some ebooks from the library downloaded. I have been playing an MMO phone game for the last ~year and check on that a couple times a day. Discord. Lemmy has replaced reddit for me but I don’t spend as much time on it as I used to on reddit.
200ok, What RSS reader do you use?
Vanth, Feedly. I’ve looked around for alts, especially when Feedly started embedding sponsored articles amongst my subscriptions, but haven’t found anything I like better.
200ok, Thank you!
turkalino, You know how you scroll through your Instagram feed and then stop when you get to the big checkmark?
Yeah, normal people keep scrolling. For literally an hour or two at a time.
SlothMama, What big checkmark???
PutangInaMo, I tried Instagram but it’s like scrolling through Facebook videos… all garbage.
HeavyRaptor, (edited ) Normal people? Probably mostly Facebook, Instagram and candy crush. You can just take a look at the top free apps in your app store but I’ll give you a spoiler: it’s 99% junk.
Okay so I actually checked. The top 3 are Temu (a ripoff shopping app), WhatsApp and Tiktok in my region
Mr_Blott, Just checked too
Temu (sHoP LikE a biLLiONaIRe lol)
Shein (Shiet)
Clearly the french like shit quality and chatting
Facebones, Temu, TikTok, WhatsApp from my anon Aurora Store (access Google store without login
gregorum, How the hell would any of us know?
uriel238, Some of us have millennial and zoomer kids.
gregorum, Mazel tov
toiletobserver, It’s a breath of fresh air in an otherwise chaotic Internet user interface.
200ok, 🏅
moistclump, Thank you!!!
clay_pidgin, Hey, nice. Thanks.
Lauchs, Oh that’s fantastic, thanks for sharing!
thorbot, (edited ) I have Feedly app and a bunch of RSS feeds about tech, world news, board games, video games, robotics, space, and pop culture. It’s great! Sure I get a few duplicate articles from multiple sites covering the same thing but it’s nice little digital newspaper. And if one site keeps publishing stupid shit I can unsubscribe from it and it’s gone from my feed.
Mir, Where does one explore new rss feeds
willya, (edited ) The majority are on TikTok, instagram, Facebook, YouTube and X. Probably Tinder and Hinge after those.
Nastybutler, Yup. The people I work with are mostly 20 to 30 years old and they are predominantly on TikTok, Insta and YouTube
Appoxo, Transitioned to Lemmy and manga reading during lunchbreak.
During commut it’s podcast.
slightperil, Dude, he asked about normal people. Not us!
Heliumfart, Hacker news
WeLoveCastingSpellz, (edited ) I can’t find a goood rss feed for it :(
Heliumfart, I just use harmonic app… I’m sure that’s not the coolest most hackery way to access it, but I’m too busy working on my sawmill to piss around…
habanhero,
WeLoveCastingSpellz, thanks
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