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Deciding to downgrade from a smartphone life.

A commentary by James Ormiston (@MacJim)

For some time now, I have noticed that I spend far too much time looking at my iPhone and not enough time looking outside of that small patch of glass that is the iPhone display… The real world was passing me by as I browsed a website, read an email or answer a text message on the ‘smartphone’ whether on a bus or train, or walking down the high street… the exception being when using it as a camera… you too are the same. Other things have brought me to this decision too, as far too many people have been hurt while reading that display in front of them, resulting in injury or death… yes, death, because they were too busy reading a social media app rather than looking out for that bus bearing down upon them. Fortunately the worst that happened to me was stupidly walking into a lamppost; I kid you not.

So that got me thinking about whether I could do without a smartphone and go down the route to simplify my lifestyle by getting a ‘dumb’ mobile phone like I had when these devices became affordable too all. So, after much searching, either through article found on the web, and video searches on YouTube, I decided upon the idea of getting a mobile from the manufacturer, Punkt, a Swiss company.

Continue reading → Deciding to downgrade from a smartphone life.

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Dumbing down… A possibility?

 

An opinion piece by James Ormiston

This is an idea of what could be… I’ve still to decide.

Dumbing down, or more to the point, moving away from the smartphone and all its distractions.

  • Have you found yourself at some point, lost when you looked up from your mobile phone due to having your head buried in what’s on the screen?
  • Have you walked into a lamppost while walking, reading something on the screen?
  • Have you almost ended up under a bus or lorry due to the above?

If you answered yes to any of those questions then you’re not alone and, fortunately, you have lived to be here today, some have not.

Everywhere you go, most folk have their heads in a world that’s in front of them on a 6” screen and do not see what’s around them, which can, in certain circumstances, be very unsafe as they are not truly aware; but that’s taking it to the extreme in most cases.
But we do spend too much time looking at a screen rather looking up and out at the world around us.
Moments in time pass us bye that will never repeat ever again, things like the beautiful sunrise that we saw last week ( I write this in a cafe on the 20th October), yes similar sunrises will happen again and again: but not that one.

Continue reading → Dumbing down… A possibility?