When did you last eat without using digital devices at all*? Me: last night picnic, Dolores Park. *Except showing each other photos/videos related to our topics of conversation, read-only, no taking photos either. Makes me think mobile “smart phones” and other similar devices should have a mode similar to “airplane mode”, let’s call it “dumb camera mode”, where all they can do is review your album of existing photos/videos, and maybe take photos/videos. No notifications, no switching apps. Maybe allow taking text notes too (not txts nor emails!), on a photo or by themselves, to capture things mentioned in conversation (auto-location-tagged and datetime-stamped like EXIF of course — when did I take this note, and where was I). There was something quite nice about the post-digital-camera pre-camera-phone era. It was much easier to have a focused and continuously present experience, for hours at a time. Most of my time on the Alaska cruise^ was like that. ^ tantek.com/2015/214/b1/alaska-cruise-log-day-1

When did you last eat without using digital devices at all*?

Me: last night picnic, Dolores Park. *Except showing each other photos/videos related to our topics of conversation, read-only, no taking photos either.

Makes me think mobile “smart phones” and other similar devices should have a mode similar to “airplane mode”, let’s call it “dumb camera mode”, where all they can do is review your album of existing photos/videos, and maybe take photos/videos. No notifications, no switching apps.

Maybe allow taking text notes too (not txts nor emails!), on a photo or by themselves, to capture things mentioned in conversation (auto-location-tagged and datetime-stamped like EXIF of course — when did I take this note, and where was I).

There was something quite nice about the post-digital-camera pre-camera-phone era. It was much easier to have a focused and continuously present experience, for hours at a time.

Most of my time on the Alaska cruise^ was like that.

^ tantek.com/2015/214/b1/alaska-cruise-log-day-1