[Discuss] [OT] Smart Phones

[Kent Borg]

On 03/01/2013 10:10 AM, Rich Pieri wrote:
> It's a dopamine gadget. It's not life-changing.

Except really good dopamine gadgets (and dopamine drugs) ARE life-changing.

Don't underestimate some of the change we might take for granted. A ton 
of practical stuff has changed in the last couple decades. Remember 
buying a newspaper to see what movies were playing where and when? Now 
you might look up the time on your tablet--or just watch the movie on 
your tablet. Very life changing for newspapers and movie houses. 
Certainly smartphones didn't do all that, but phones and tablets are 
crushing notebook sales. They are taking over, they might not change 
your life over a weekend, but they are way important and part of a lot 
of ongoing change.

> It only makes you feel like it's life-changing because of all the 
> little squirts of dopamine your brain gets every time you "discover" 
> something new. 

Sounds like a key way our brains measure "life changing". What could be 
more real to me than dopamine in my brain? Seriously. If that doesn't 
qualify as real, I could care less about things you claim are real. 
Saying otherwise is like saying that how much money I have isn't 
important because the only thing that is important is "economics". 
Fiddlesticks. Money is a very key measure of economics for me, and so is 
dopamine an extremely important measure of life; take away my dopamine 
and you will take away my life.

-kb