
Quiet - kuroshit
https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/24/quiet/
======
vitro
Meditate as much as you can. Being in the present moment lets you notice your
thought patterns and impulses that you act on and puts you back in control.
Art of letting go. You don't loose anything if you are not on a Facebook for a
week. You don't loose anything by leaving your phone home for a day. Water
still flows and birds still sing. When was the last time you saw the sun
setting or felt the wind in your face, mind empty, being the sun and wind?
When was the last time you really tasted your food? I am speaking to you! Just
relax for a while, world will continue spinning without you thinking about it.
We all are just a drops of water falling from the heron's beak.

~~~
Lordarminius
The main problem with, and reason why I don't leave my phone at home, is fear
of missing an emergency call.

~~~
LastZactionHero
A few months ago I bought a Nokia 105. It was $25 on Amazon.

It makes phone calls and text messages. The battery lasts almost a month. My
wife can call me in an emergency. I wired up a few work outage alerts with
IFTTT. That's about it.

The best part about it is that it leaves me alone. When I turn my smartphone
back on, it's incredible to see the barrage of worthless notifications that
would have distracted me throughout the day. I no longer check my phone
aimlessly because there's nothing to do.

I wrote about it here: [https://medium.com/@LastZactionHero/quitting-the-
smartphone-...](https://medium.com/@LastZactionHero/quitting-the-smartphone-
or-a-review-of-the-nokia-105-292d9f1aba1b)

~~~
elijahlofgren
I agree with this suggestion. I have not regretted having both a smart phone a
dumb phone I can use when I want to untether but also still be contactable in
emergencies.

------
nostrademons
Interesting to compare this to the wave of nostalgia for our agrarian past
that hit during the 1930s and 40s, leading to novels like Lord of the Rings,
the Chronicles of Narnia, and The Grapes of Wrath. The past that the author
yearns for was the future of those writers.

That nostalgia didn't stop the clock from moving forward or life from getting
ever more hectic and complicated. But there seems to be something deep inside
our psyches that yearns for "the village": a place where the rules are known,
the people can be trusted, and time can be spent rather than hoarded.

~~~
shubhamjain
I think we have a tendency to see our past, and our childhood, in more
positive light than it actually was. We tend to remember the good moments
while easily forget the troubles. That explains why we find these nostalgic
write-ups so relatable. What is bombardment of content is also assortment of
people's experiences to learn from. The service that make you lazy also help
you avoid chores to focus on other things.

Thinking retrospectively, I think I more happy today than I was in the past.
The Internet noise that we deplore has helped me immensely to discover what I
like doing. Sure, it's stressful at times, but given a choice between then and
now, I think my choice would always be the latter.

------
thestepafter
This article brought on more sadness than I thought it would. As I have grown
older and remember times like the one the author described I miss the quiet
and peace of an unconnected world. It is a pity that younger generations will
never know the this feeling unless it is forced. The freedom of being quiet is
sadly lost to the past.

~~~
torpfactory
I think that in the future there may be a distinct division between people who
have control of their own attention and connectedness and those who don’t. I
already see a division between some people I work with - noses buried in their
phones all day, and those who tune it out and get real, deep thinking work
done.

~~~
kristineberth
I have a sneaking suspicion that in the not-too-distant future there will be a
very significant cultural backlash against all of this noise, all of this
hyper-connectedness.

~~~
fiatpandas
Could you elaborate on your thinking here?

My prediction would be gradually the hyper connectedness becomes the norm
while the last generations who remember “quiet” die. Of course there would
likely always be small fractions of the population who look to the past and
practice mindfulness, almost like how people re-enact the civil war battles.
But I would guess largely highly saturated connectedness becomes who we are,
in spite of a vocal minority who long for a different way of living.

~~~
groby_b
Can't speak for the OP, but on my part, it's less thinking, and more a
feeling. The unthinking and uncritical wonder is gone. We're looking at all
things technological with a more and more critical eye. More and more people
are publicly speaking out about the idea that social media and
hyperconnectivity are actively harming us.

It feels different than most old ideas that I've seen die before. Yes, of
course there's always an inevitable "good old times" moment, but this one...
There's something lurking behind it. It's not just nostalgia, it has the roots
of a fight seeded in it.

We'll see. Maybe I'm now just old enough that this time, it feels different.
But it does not feel like what happened to VHS, or the CD, or land lines, or
any number of things that we've declared outdated in the last few decades.

------
DogestFogey
A truly masterfully written article that makes us yearn for the days now past
when everything, both inside and outside of ourselves, was much quieter.

The amount of noise today is unprecedented. I am reminded of the movie _Her_
in which one sees a world where technology can move into the background and
augment human relationships. Granted, there are moments in that film when the
tech hurts instead of hinders, but compare that to today's world where
everything has the "in your face" mentality.

~~~
mooreds
If you want to read a really scary prescient fiction book in this vein, check
out Feed by M.T. Anderson.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_(Anderson_novel)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_\(Anderson_novel\))

Just chilling.

~~~
Hextinium
I highly recommend this book to anyone because it creates a framework for
understanding the world from someone who is addicted to social media. It takes
the current state of affairs to their conclusions in a rather well made way.

------
stevewillows
I loved this piece. It took me back to a day when I was about eight or so and
my friends were all playing 'bases' in this local wooded area with a ravine.
Some of us would hide for what felt like ages in hopes of catching a clean
route to 'free our prisoners' from the other team's base.

About twelve years ago or so I was living in this condo that had really noisy
neighbors. One screaming baby on the left, and an enthusiastic Pantera fan on
the right. The folks on the right, when not listening to Pantera, were
constantly yelling right near the wall... or so it felt.

This was the first time I really discovered the joy of earplugs. A year or so
later I got my first pair of industrial ear protection. They cut out about 20
- 30db (or something like that), and it was just enough to allow myself to be
alone in an otherwise busy space.

Years later I still value regular periods of silence. These days I still have
a pair of industrial ear protection, but I mostly use decent earplugs [1].

Another aspect of seeking silence is to completely (or almost completely)
eliminate notifications.

For those of us with ADHD, meditation is fantastic, but it does take time. The
love for silence didn't happen right away. It took me quite a while to be able
to shut my mind up.

In the early 00s I went through these psychoneurophysiology sessions to help
learn to focus, in hopes of eliminating the negative aspects of ADHD. One part
of the 'training' was to have sensors on my ears and one on my head. While I
tried to focus, the machine would measure my brainwaves... anyway, once I hit
'the zone', the cute hot air balloon would float up and over the silo. Tapping
into this 'zone' really helped me break away from the constant chatter of my
surroundings and my brain.

Like some, I do love the romance that comes with a lo-fi world. Silence,
space, and peace are special. In the same, I really appreciate some aspects of
the technology we've been blessed with. it all comes down to finding your off
switch so these things can become special again.

[1] the earplugs I'm using -
[https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00RM6Q9XW](https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00RM6Q9XW)

------
Ari_Ugwu
This is fine, but I tire of the obscure titles and needlessly leading writing
styles. I often spend the first few paragraphs desperate for an abstract or
any hint as to what I'm reading. Only in the end for it to be more exposition
than idea. Click bait by another name.

My kingdom for an abstract.

~~~
Wohlf
I often see this from writers trying to mimic much better ones. If they had
the skill to pull off this writing style, you probably wouldn't be
complaining.

------
jmadsen
A very nice read.

I found it ironic that the corner of the last paragraph was obscured by an "Up
Next" pop-open, ready to push me on to the next thing before I'd even had a
moment to digest it.

------
ahartman00
Ah, nostalgia. Its amazing how one can simultaneously forget the downsides,
while amplifying the upsides. (Not to take away from the authors fond memories
of course)

I was just thinking recently about how great it was to be in high school. Few
responsibilities, spent lots of time with friends, homework and work were
easy. Of course, then I remember I couldnt live alone, had little money,
homework and work seemed hard because I had nothing to compare it to, drama at
school, etc. And try meeting up with flaky teenagers without a cell phone :P

Of course, if you find yourself feeling stressed out by the connectedness, by
all means take a break. You don't need to check email or be on slack all day.
But at the same time, don't get too stressed out thinking we've lost something
without gaining anything. You have the option to turn your phone off, you
haven't lost anything. But it is now easier than ever to keep in touch,
geography is even less relevant.

Obligatory xkcd: "It is, unfortunately, one of the chief characteristics of
modern business to always be in a hurry. In olden times it was different. -
The Medical Record, 1884"

[https://xkcd.com/1227/](https://xkcd.com/1227/)

~~~
rdiddly
That xkcd affirms that our sense of time and attention, and of quality and
quantity, has been messed up like this since the Industrial Revolution. I
can't safely presume what Randall's point is, but if it's to show that this is
a foolish thing men have been saying without cause since time immemorial, he
needs to go back further. Show me someone from 1600 complaining about the fast
pace of life and I might buy it. But showing quotes about industrialization,
that were written after industrialization, doesn't exactly blow my mind.

~~~
Someone
[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/opinion/sunday/social-
netw...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/opinion/sunday/social-networking-
in-the-1600s.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0) (about quantity over quality, but not
about speed, I think, but too good a quote to skip; from 1677):

 _“Why doth solid and serious learning decline, and few or none follow it now
in the University?” he asked. “Answer: Because of Coffea Houses, where they
spend all their time.”_

There’s also
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4306016/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4306016/),
which doesn’t go further back then 1860. It doesn’t mention complaints about
the printing press (too much too read; won’t learn from copying books) or from
the ancient Greeks, so it corroborates the theory that this started with
automation (although I can imagine seeing the first complaints when artificial
lighting of almost any form was introduced. Maybe even, people did complain
when the bow and arrow sped up hunting)

~~~
rdiddly
"Yea even this now where those who use the Bowe compleat the Hunt with undue
Haiste..."

