How the iPhone Ruins Walking

The truck in the room are cars, not phones. And cities built over the idea that you must have them. Walking even in a more or less urban scenario should be something usual, enjoyable, part of our everyday life. Instead most people must have a car, have everything too far away from where they live (or just drive a few blocks instead of walking). Cities built around walkability, with trees, parks, benches and so on, with most of what you need at 15 minutes away from wherever you are, may make part of that flaneurism an everyday experience.

When someone posts a beautifully composed picture standing in front of a waterfall and the sunlight just so with the caption “I love spending time in the woods” I generally assume that she does not love spending time in the woods. The evidence rather suggests that she loves posing for and sharing photographs.

Likewise when someone writes a lot of long essays about how much he loves spending time in the woods and he can’t understand why no one goes hiking in the woods anymore I draw my conclusions from his actions, not words.

Eh, IDK. Seems to me iPhone, and the 21st century tech it symbolizes in this article, made people's lives more intentional than anything. The option to wander aimlessly is still there, and some take it. Yet being presented with options, I'm not surprised that to many it might sounds as enticing as watching paint dry.

As for the rest of it, it sounds a little.. forced. As if there's some kind of conspiracy. Can't it be that people value control of their time/life over some amount of spontaniety? Tech provides them that, which makes all this a side effect of a choice people make.

While tech is certainly one factor influencing the difficulty wandering aimlessly the article hints at another that to me is really the underlying factor which is the commoditization and “ownership” of land areas.

I was reading a collection of articles written by Scottish-American mountaineer/naturalist John Muir in the 1870s. He was writing about wandering around various parts of California.

The thing that struck me is that he would describe picking a path towards a peak and just following it from the base of a mountain. That would be difficult these days because there is so much private land and fencing that you never know if you’re illegally trespassing or if a path goes through. In a city of course the land is nearly all private so you have to follow whatever paths have been laid out between public spaces.

I still enjoy walking around to the extent it’s possible but I do wonder what it would be like to be truly free to roam the countryside without fear of the law.

> "No longer does one simply roll the dice and go"

Nonsense. Unless I'm actively going somewhere for a specific time (interview, doctor, what not), almost every one of my walks will include a "I've not been down that road before" diversion. Or a "Oh, an SSVI[1] sign down that alley!" diversion. etc.etc.

(And I think 99.9% of those walks since 2011 has been with an iPhone in hand.)

> A device that forces us to look down and ignore changes in light.

Gibberish nonsense. People choose to look at their phones because their friends and family are in there, because they want to catch up on the news, or any one of a thousand other valid reasons that aren't "THE PHONE MAKES THEM LOOK!!!!"

[1] Sprinkler Stop Valve Inside

Can't help it but think this is written from a position of a someone who doesn't have a long to do list and chooses the passage of emotions and frankly boredom as entertainment. Nothing wrong with that, however with the times being gloomy and oppressive as they are I would think this type of activity will be chosen less and less.

Where I live in the inner suburbs of New York City, my frustration is that all the neighborhoods are so chopped up by highways and railroads that it's difficult to wander. Most areas only have a couple ways in or out. A lot of the main roads are pedestrian-hostile, with incomplete sidewalks.

I like to walk home from work (about 1.5 hours) once or twice a week, no headphones. I like to be able to live comfortably with my own thoughts for an hour and a half without the need for constant stimulation and I have friends who truly seem to have lost that ability.

Fantastic article. I love walking, I try and get at least 2-3 miles a day. Usually at night after work, while the street lights put up a feeble fight against the darkness in my relatively small town. A great time for to catch up on podcasts and music and perhaps most pertinent to readers of HN I find my mind is much more nimble on these strolls. Ideas percolate much more readily. One tool I have found useful since my paths are limited here, WIGLE on my phone. I let it run in the background and gather it's WiFi and BT data as it helps to push me to walk down a different street each night and in the end perhaps the data is actually useful to OpenStreetMap when I upload it.

Temptation is the issue here. In the biblical sense. A demon telling me an attractive story. A story that draws me in and keeps me dreaming. And before I know it I'm dreaming all the time.

The storytelling demon is the phone. Always reminding me of the story. Periodically tapping me on the shoulder. "Hey hey look at this! This is important!"

Visual media is the problem, not phones themselves. Use your phone to listen to an audiobook, podcast, music, etc and leave the phone in your pocket. Problem solved.

> ears attuned to serendipity,

Ears attuned to.. the distant rumble of diesel engines. Maybe a few crows squawking. I don't think I'm missing out on much by tuning out city sounds.

Seems rather to be a complaint about the ruining of people watching, now that everyone is looking at their phones.

My thought is that this is an interesting new human behavior to observe, probably won’t last forever if we consider past technology cycles. So this is particular to this point in history.

Article actually has nothing to do with iPhone.

Not just people looking at their phones but people walking a dog, with two kids in tow, and still looking at their phone.

I do a 12 mile walk at least once a week and I'll encounter maybe 2 or 3 people on average who'll smile and say hello. It's worth it just for that reasurance that not every other person is an arshole.

There's something inherently contradictory about needing a blog post that itself needs the approval of long-dead Frenchmen to justify wandering. The irony is that they are assigning a purpose to this activity without realizing it: that you have to engage with it because it's "natural" and in contradiction to parts of modern culture.

You don't "need to wander". Wandering is something that you may or may not do, but you don't need specific tech companies and products to stop existing, other people to modify their behavior, or a cultural precedent to inform your behavior for that to happen. "Without surveillance" also includes self-surveillance

> used to like to come into the City to take pictures of people’s faces

Also kind of creepy and even illegal in some parts of the world.

It’s ok to leave your phone at home and wonder around… be it an iPhone, an Android or a “dump phone” they are just tools that facilitate certain activities.

> My father-in-law used to like to come into the City to take pictures of people’s faces. He doesn’t come in much any more. Everyone is looking down at their phones.

>This raises a critical point: the loss of random encounters that are the basis of being what the French call a flâneur.

Maybe this is just the Seattle resident in me, but if a bunch of random people are trying to talk to me on my walk I would become annoyed very fast. I am trying to walk here, I am thinking!

I love walking aimlessly to no specific destination, I do it often. But don't "randomly encounter" me if I appear to be thinking.

100% Disagree with the opinions of OP. I live in NYC and walk 6 miles a day (the joys of having a Jack Russell terrier).

Every walk we take is random; the phone allows me to stay connect if I need to but doesn't control my path. My Apple Watch keeps track of my distance/time walking (I get an alert at 35 mins if I'm on an hour long walk => 25 mins to walk home). The AirPods are always in Transparency mode where I can fully hear what's going on in the city with some music I like playing as well.

If you want to wander; you will wander.

My partner asks me where I am going when I head out on my motorcycle; I never have an answer for them beyond north, south, east or west. That might be for one hour or six, or longer.

I don't know, somehow even though I cannot resist using my smartphone in the boredom of my house once I go outside I completely drop the need to look at it. I might wait on a bus bench for half an hour and only occasionally take it out to check the time. I simply can't relate to this post, the phone is irrelevant to me in those situations

If you wish to be a flâneur, Mr. Greenberg, nobody is stopping you. Leave the iPhone at home and go wandering as your heart wills.

That the iPhone and ilk have demonstrated how few people wish to join you when not forced to do so sounds like a personal issue.

my iPhone 13 pro is so big that its cumbersome to bring on walks with my dog (in running/workout shorts) - so I just leave it at home.

downside is no music... but I do find peace in being 100% disconnected.

Perhaps the wandering happens for these people not on their walks but in their internet / phone browsing? I doubt it really disappeared and it didn’t just change its shape

Whether it's worth to look around, instead of looking at an iPhone, may depend on the city. In my experience, Gdańsk, London, Tallinn and Edinburgh are examples of places where it's nice to walk and look around. Warsaw on the other hand gets depressing quickly. There is something dehumanising about its look and the way it's spacially structured.

Just leave your technology at home. Easy.

> But capitalism cannot tolerate “free” time and space. And, so, at last, we have the iPhone.

To be clear, capitalism has nothing to do with the problem the author brings up in this article. The existence of the iPhone does not imply the overuse of the iPhone, or the misuse of the iPhone. People choose to look at their phones while walking, and I find it as frustrating and ridiculous as the author, but it's got nothing to do with economics.

It’s unfair to single out iPhone but of course I know what he means. I used to ask for directions and that sometimes lead to interesting conversations when I was lost but google maps has eliminated those opportunities.

Easy to listen to Baudelaire talk about being a flâneur, but also he was living in an apartment on the Île Saint-Louis, in the 4th arrondissement. It doesn't get much more central Paris then that.

I would prefer your father-in-law not take a picture of my face. There are things to take pictures of in cities other than non-consenting people. The "value of candid photography vs consent" debate is ancient at this point, so I won't retread it, but you can guess which side I fall on.

I never see phones out, but I still have to walk around people taking up entire sidewalks and aisles gazing absent-minded at something I can't see. People manage to wander despite the phone in their pocket, and it's annoying.

What we have here is a writer trying desperately to sound deep and failing completely without substance to fill the space. Is "we need to wander" the new "we need to stop writing" (Plato)? I see more and more of these trend pieces, and each is more vapid than the last.

This is why I finally ordered an Apple Watch with cellular, so that I can leave my iphone at home when going for a walk or hike, but still be reachable.

Catchy title but this has little to do with iPhones. It's more about apps which are also smartphone platoform agnostic.

Spent a week in Zwolle in Netherlands last week. They are close to banning cars in city centre. The place is amazing.

> We have Apple and Google Maps which conspire to take our time

If anything, Google Maps gives back time.

I would have a hard time agreeing with the author, even metaphorically. The author even seems to suggest the iPhone is more of a symptom of broader cultural issues:

> But capitalism cannot tolerate “free” time and space. And, so, at last, we have the iPhone. A device that forces us to look down and ignore changes in light.

Perhaps things are different in different cities, but having one's gaze fixated upon a screen while walking is more of an exception than a rule. Even going about life with earbuds firmly implanted within one's ears is far from universal. Yet that does not make people watching any more interesting. You can attribute that capitalism not tolerating free time and space if you like. Personally, I think it has more to do with our streets being conduits for transportation rather than being appreciated as public spaces. It is not as though capitalism forbids free time. Indeed, much of it depends upon free time. Yet we still live in a world where many people won't go out unless they have a purpose, may that be going from point A to B or going for a jog to get/stay fit. Appreciating one's surroundings appears to be reserved for tourists.

I made it maybe 7 sentences in. These kinds of writings ruin blogs.

if u are walking and ur phone is still suggesting restaurants, u arent walking away enough.

TLDR: get off my lawn! + capitalism bad!

I go on walks or bike rides and listen to podcasts or music or sometimes nothing. All those options are very nice.

It’s so true. I was about to go for a walk this morning, but no, because iPhone.