Cruises were one of the last places in the developed world where people could be completely disconnected from the internet. I used to go on yearly transatlantic cruise vacations. As someone who works online, I never feel "on vacation" unless I'm fully offline. That's becoming harder and harder these days. While I do think this is a cool technology, on a personal level, I'm mourning the loss of one of the last truly disconnected spaces in our world.
Lock your phone away in the hotel safe, put it on airplane mode, or just leave it in your bag. Connectivity is going to be available anywhere, but you still control your own utilization of it.
you are missing the point - its not about me throwing my phone away, its about other people knowing that contacting me is physically impossible, and not expecting me to even have a phobe
I feel like this is a "you" problem, not a "them" problem.
In the sense that you haven't laid out a clear boundary to the "other people". You don't have to go on a cruise ship to get away from email etc. You just say, "I'm offline from x to y".
I suspect you are not comfortable actually telling the other people this - I'm not sure if it's employer, customer, or family. In all cases though the right solution is to be clear, and give advance notice. There will likely be some push-back (especially given your past behaviour) but be firm.
Feel free to browse all you like. Feel free to post pics to Instagram. But resist the urge to answer emails or messages. Let that wait.
Ultimately people will treat your boundaries based on how _you_ treat your boundaries. It's a you problem first, not a them problem.
Seriously. Set boundaries. Using "no access" as an excuse implies that if you're reachable you're on the hook to serve other people's desires at all times. People need to know that there are times in your life that are reserved for you only, and some people have a problem with that, so you have to tell them yourself in no uncertain terms.
Setting boundaries is a healthy skill to exercise, but if you need an excuse you could try hiking or camping? There are still plenty of places on land without cell coverage.
Who in your life is demanding to be able to contact you at any random point in time, unless you explicitly tell them it's physically impossible for you to communicate with them?
There are a (very) few people who would expect to be able to reach me relatively quickly in an emergency unless I told them I was going to be off the grid or at least intermittently available for a few weeks. I don't think that's either unusual or unreasonable.
Not unusual, but it seems like you would want to be contacted in an emergency. So it's a good thing that cruise ships will be getting great internet service. You still have the choice to ignore non-emergency calls and only take emergency calls.
Maybe? If I'm in the middle of the Atlantic and can't do anything maybe not. In any case, I'd be reasonably confident that regular satellite communications today would get a regular emergency message through assuming someone knows what ship you're on.
I tell people that they can’t reach and do an OOF mail. Works like a charm. The only person who I say can reach me is my dad and all other numbers are blocked.
While partially true, that won't be the case for most people. And that can change your experience in a way you can't control (think of people at a concert filming the entire thing on their phone, or even everyone sitting around a dinner table on their phones).
Sure, but people should either decide to be ok with their friends using phones or get friends who also dont use phones. The middle ground of having friends who use phones but hating them for it is stupid.
Many mountain regions with beautiful hiking paths will remain disconnected from internet access for quite some time. So if you are fit enough, I strongly suggest to hike. You and everyone you are hiking with, will have no option to check mails or slack. It is also a great way to connect and spend time with family and friends.
> Many mountain regions with beautiful hiking paths will remain disconnected from internet access for quite some time.
SpaceX also just partnered with TMobile to bring direct-to-phone satellite internet. It'll probably take a while to happen, and the announced specs are pretty limited, but it's basically going to be everywhere.
Certainly there are places without Internet access. That said, as someone who leads group hikes, I'm not sure I could in good conscience advise people, in general, to just leave their phones at home when they go hiking if they want to get off the grid. And, if I was regularly in remote places with no cell phone reception these days, I'd probably think something like a Garmin InReach was probably a good idea.
Similar to how you can’t just stay off social media to avoid the influence of social media. The entire world has changed, and people behave differently because they are on social media. And their behavior affects you and the ambiance of places you go to.
Plus so many places just expect you to have a phone. For tickets and access to places, to view a menu and order in a restaurant, to access maps and information.
My last friend who still uses a "dumb" phone with no internet has started to struggle over the last few years as more places just require a smartphone. He's increasingly excluded from services.
I have a smartphone, but I use it for text messaging, calls, navigation, and not much else. Tickets I buy online and print. I've never been to a restaurant that required a phone to see the menu or order, and I'd likely walk out if they did.
The maps/navigation is convenient, but if push came to shove I'd print the directions like I used to do before phone navigation was a thing.
I do not own a printer (30 years old), and neither do any of my siblings. If I want to print something I'd have to do it at work but don't know how to make the work printers work (despite being a software engineer at a company with a "good" printer setup). I travel internationally and don't print anything for that anymore.
> I've never been to a restaurant that required a phone to see the menu
I've never been to a place with a web menu and tried to get a physical menu.
> if push came to shove I'd print the directions
That's true if you know where you're going ahead of time, but if you're out and decide you now need directions to a coffee shop, ATM, public toilet, pharmacy, etc, you often need to look them up. You can ask for directions, but only if you speak the language, can find someone who knows, etc.
I have a vague bad feeling about all of this change, but I can't really justify it. These are the ways things are going and I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing in general, although there are negatives to it.
To justify it, there’s the SPF issue. When everything is online, then any failure in the chain between you and the target URL breaks it. Phone doesn’t work for any multitude of reasons, no internet access, et cetera. Printed matter is very robust.
Yeah, if I'm traveling, especially internationally, I'm going to probably have a printed backup of my itinerary, any pre-purchased tickets, etc. I absolutely don't want to be in a situation where my phone goes out and I don't know where I'm staying that night.
I certainly don't obsessively print things but I don't work in an office and I probably want to print at least a few pages in a given week.
If I go sit down at a restaurant and they can't tell me what they can make in the kitchen without me scanning a QR code I'm getting up and walking out.
There are some cities now where this choice means you'll only be eating at home. I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to live like a monk just to avoid using my phone. That's why internet free cruises were so great.
Taipei city, I can confirm many restaurants now do this. I suspect many restaurants in China have gone this route for a while now as their service landscape is more phone-heavy.
This is very cruise dependent. Any near-shore cruises may have a constant cellphone connection.
I feel like you could though, if you wanted, have an offline vacation anywhere. I know people who go camping and turn their phones off the entire time until they return.
That's why I said transatlantic cruises. And yes, I could, if I want to isolate myself and treat my vacation like a punishment, but I still like to socialize and engage with the world around me on vacation, so it's nice to live in a world where there are a lot of people and events and no one is online nor expecting you to be.
Regarding travel, Eric Schmidt had an interesting story. I think he spoke on Tim Ferriss's podcast that once he was on a business trip to North Korea with a group of people. Before boarding the plane, he was instructed by homeland security people to not bring in any connected devices, including phones. So everyone in the group went in without smartphones. For the next 2 weeks "everyone in the group became best friends" and they "had so much fun and many interesting conversations." (I'm paraphrasing) But once they return to airport and got their phones back, "we all immediately sunk into our phones and stopped talking to each other."
Maybe your best bet is North Korea? Seriously though, I think more and more people will see the benefit of occasionally entering into an "internet free" zone, by themselves or in groups. Preferably the zone is designed specifically for offline experience, not an augmented one relying on the guest's own "will power" to resist the pressure of internet.
I go on cruises with my computer full of videos. I will relax on deck while watching a movie (usually something funny) and time and time have someone how I get should good internet streaming. Then I get weird looks because I say I have no internet access, too many people do not even know that they so not need the internet to use their machines.
Worse, my single most important use of the computer I take is the deck plans of the ship I am on, it is invincible the amount of details you can find if you download the right plans. I find all the places onboard that often many cruisers do not know are there.
MH370 disappeared more recently than that. Hard to believe it could happen again though - particularly with the forthcoming phone to sat services from SpaceX and Apple.
One of my favorite experiences was sitting on the balcony of a cruise ship, watching the ocean go by, with my laptop on my lap. I really wanted to live and work like that for a while. Of course, I can't afford it, and the internet was barely able to pull up sites like HN. But the internet is part of how I relax and connect to people.
Not sure if you're religious or interested in certain spiritual practices, but almost all organized religions have silent retreats. No phones allowed and talking is only allowed in specific contexts or times. I aim to do this once per quarter.
Do your due diligence though because "silent" has quite the range.
Should we hold back the progress of the world, including something that's literally lifesaving in remote areas, because you don't have enough discipline to use a power button?
I am very, very, sick of this purely self aggrandizing "tragedy."
First of all, I didn't say we should hold back progress. Just that I'm personally mourning the loss of disconnected spaces.
Also, it's not an issue of self discipline when social norms dictate that everyone around me is using their phones, and expecting me to do so to interact with them. On a cruise ship there used to be no such expectation. No boss expecting me to be aware of new emails, no friends expecting me to respond to their Facebook invites if I want to come to their parties, no one at the bar expecting me to follow them on Instagram, and no restaurants asking me to scan their QR code if I want to eat.
I don't know when the last time is you've tried to live for a week without a phone, but its become next to impossible unless you're in a protected environment like a cruise ship or a wilderness retreat.
What are you talking about? Just leave the phone at home and go outside. Tell your boss you don’t have coverage. There’s nothing to mourn here maybe besides your lack of really easy self discipline and frankly I’m having a hard time empathizing with or understanding it.
Better yet, tell your boss (and everyone else) you check for texts twice a day, and emails once a day, and respond with similar timeframes. If it's urgent, well, they know where you are. They can come and see you.
They'll whinge at you for living in the 20th Century, but your stress levels will be down.
Embrace the fact that no-one is irreplaceable, and train your understudies.
If I'm on vacation, I'll tell my boss I'm on vacation. Maybe I'll skim work emails and even handle ones when I can do so quickly but I'm under no obligation to do so.
Try to see both sides of this rather than assuming no utility to the world from people intentionally entering an Internet-free zone for several days.
As we enter the era of increased satellite connectivity, it makes sense that some cruises would offer no Internet access to passengers as a perk. That would have nothing to do with the crew having access.
So go on a cruise where that's the prearranged theme.
Like seriously, there is no problem here, no tragedy.
When I hear what you're saying it's roughly equivalent to "I wish I could go out to bars and talk to people who don't have TV" about 2 decades ago. It's preposterous to assert this is some big deal, or that you don't have your own agency to create an unplugged environment with like minded people if you like.
Just because you don't want <X> does not mean you get to demand everyone else also does not get <X>.
You want to be disconnected from the internet? Great, more power to you. You want those around you to also be disconnected from the internet? In the most sincere way possible, fuck you.
If you can't fight the urge to bust out an internet client upon seeing someone else mess with one, that's a You problem and specifically a lack of self-discipline.
Unless you literally own the cruise ship and you are literally the law onboard as captain/owner of the ship, nobody has to accomodate your lack of self-discipline.
Of course, if you want help resolving your lack of self-discipline that's a different story, and I'm sure many folks would be happy to give you advice on that front.
> Unless you literally own the cruise ship and you are literally the law onboard as captain/owner of the ship, nobody has to accomodate your lack of self-discipline.
vs. What we're replying to:
> As we enter the era of increased satellite connectivity, it makes sense that some cruises would offer no Internet access to passengers as a perk. That would have nothing to do with the crew having access.
And again, it's not my lack of non-discipline: it's me enjoying being in places where the other people I'm with are disconnected. I value disconnected experiences; if a quarter of people around me are nose-down in a phone, that devalues the experience for me a fair bit. There are likely decent markets for disconnected experiences.
If you go on a cruise ship marketed to like-minded passengers like you, yeah, someone probably has proper authority to throw some complaints around. Namely whoever is the captain of the ship.
The post I replied to (you) reads, in part, as follows: "I also like to unplug, and it's really annoying to unplug and then have a few people not bought into the idea around you."
Absolutely, find cruise ships without internet connection if you're that deep into that sort of thing. Nobody's stopping you, nor is anyone stopping cruise lines from not providing internet.
What I'm saying is: You don't get to just go on some cruise ship and then complain people around you don't act exactly like you. That is absurd.
> What I'm saying is: You don't get to just go on some cruise ship and then complain people around you don't act exactly like you. That is absurd.
I don't think anyone is doing that (straw man)-- which is part of why your reaction seems so over the top to me. At worst, people are bemoaning the loss of one more low-network space; which then morphed into a discussion of why a deliberate low-network space might be considered worthwhile beyond the personal choice of not using one's phone.
And then you started putting words in my mouth about me not being able to refrain from using my phone.
You represented Internet on a cruise ship as an unqualified advancement in progress and appeared to be disgusted with anyone thinking otherwise. Also, I did not make a substantial edit, just a minor one for clarity. I can’t imagine you would’ve written something significantly different, after reading the whole chain.
