Well this is odd... my mouse ran out of charge a minute into this "exercise." That's never happened before

This is excellent I loved this so much. I cant stop laughing.

That was hilarious. I wasn't expecting to play it all the way through at first.

I feel like I played this wrong, but it eventually let me win anyways.

Hilarious!

This is perfect. Especially the fact that 1) it never ends, and 2) you eventually figure out that the best way to get a promotion is not to be faster of more efficient but the exact opposite - delay ending the current task, and keep making it larger, until the next one comes along. Beautiful.

The sounds made me feel like I live 1998 again. Surreal.

The stuff of nightmares.

Thanks, I hate this

Just like a normal day in the office

I'm pretty sure it is a sort of art game / digital experience. Compare with "it is as if you were making love"[1] by the same creator, which gives a sex-inspired series of input tasks with an extremely barebones interface yet claims to be a "usable and efficient experience of pleasuring a partner".

[1] https://pippinbarr.com/itisasifyouweremakinglove/

An anecdote about that pressure and how we assume that people are messaging or browsing all the time.

I was playing a game of Power Grid [1] about one year ago and I noticed that everybody were tapping on their phones all the time between their turns. After half an hour I finally said, "Oh well, I'll also start sending messages or you guys will think that I have no social life." They raised their eyes and looked at me startled. "But I'm using the calculator!" "Me too." "Me too."

[1] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2651/power-grid

I've actually been socially pressured to check my phone at a dinner table if at a certain point everyone else at the table checks theirs (which is not even a jab at them- at least a few people probably had a legitimately urgent-enough notification to attend to... making after-dinner plans, checking train schedule etc.) It's just funny how strong the social urge is to not just sit there if everyone else is also checking their phones.

You know how in every zombie movie there's a bit where our intrepid protagonists must blend in to avoid capture. I think this is that sort of thing.

It's art.

Well yeah. Otherwise what are you suppose to just sit there awkwardly in public?

Heh, I loved it within seconds. So relaxing while also so darkly funny. Everyone is a bit different I guess. I sent it to some of my art-biz friends.

Knowing I would be out alone for a meal, I would have carried reading material- book, magazine, paper articles. Maybe a notebook to scribble notes.

Now, I have an internet of reading material via my phone. Or my tablet.

My family and I are close. We talk lots and often and tend to have enough context when a sentence or two needs speaking. We go out together, we chat a bit at the start of a meal, and we don’t need to speak much afterwards. We don’t get awkward, we can be quiet. But my brain continues - write a note, surface-level research on an idea … so we each look at a device for a few minutes. My daughter is keeping in touch with her significant other, my wife is likely gaming or maybe window shopping. If anyone speaks up, we pull away from the devices to talk.

I’m personally not addicted to the device itself. But I’m like Johnny 5 - my intellectual curiosity is difficult to satiate. The readily available access to “input” is what keeps me plugged in.

Back on topic: these art projects, or statements, or whatever that are designed to bring attention to our attention to our phones … interesting, fun, perhaps important. But I’m not a fan of the social nostalgia that sometimes appears in the comments. I never did just interact with strangers. Never had a meaningful conversation with a random person. I would have had my face in a book.

In 2025, my phone is my book.

I went on a trip without a smartphone, as an experiment. You get used to the lack of entertainment. On the second day I got a book and a notebook. I talked to people more, paid more attention to my surroundings. It was a fun time.

Agreed. This is amazing. Really awesome aha moment when you realize what’s going on.

I’m going to start reading physical books again.

Thank you.

There was even an era before dumb phones :) Some people burried their heads in newspaper or books, some looked and watched the world go by. I still do it, phone is really last resort since I strongly believe its slowly making me more addicted to it (more like my brain is doing it on its own).

Which is pathetic IMHO, I don't want to be tied to gizmo who is spying on me to sell me more tailored adverts, I want to have it as a servant and nothing more and certainly not reverse.

There is an art in enjoying a situation while doing absolutely nothing, just looking around at the world and people. One shouldn't be uncomfortable when left with oneself alone for a while. This does a lot with stress management and cleaning up cluttered mind.

Is that the phone analog of your nose suddenly feeling itchy when playing music?

You press Play Online to play. Swipe Right is just a (confusing) image on the page.

I tried swiping right 10 times like an idiot, thinking I didn’t swipe fast enough or something

Same. Firefox iOS

that's a screenshot, you have to click on the link to play

What’s wrong with looking outside? I’m at the point where I treat my phone like it’s radioactive, actively trying to limit each encounter with it. I think we should all be staring out the window more often.

That’s kind of the weird trap, isn’t it? That it feels like there’s normative social pressure to do your phone too, right at the moment that everyone who would notice you doing or not doing so has turned their attention elsewhere?

One of my hobbies when visiting London is smiling whilst taking the Tube somewhere. Oftentimes I am the only person in the carriage not wearing a glum or flat expression.

You can simply scroll and tap a black locked screen. No one’s going to ask anyway.

Just yell instead.

What's so awkward about that?

Do you also tip just because there's a line behind you and the self-service cashier tells you the machine "is going to ask you a question"?

Somebody gave us that when our child was born. I donated it somewhere pretty quickly, not interested in reading a smartphone training guide to a 6 month old.

Did the creator of the site just update it? Because it definitely has instructions like that now: it told me to narrow my eyes and grimace!

You can bet that it won't matter if the robot is looking at you, it'll be capturing audio/video and collecting huge amounts of sensor data about its surroundings at all times. A robot looking at a phone would be redundant. Maybe the publishing lobby could push to get them to read physical books instead.

I also found this weirdly meditative!

Almost made me worry: how much of a phone addict am I when I find this meditative?

Elite Beat Agents changed my life and how I perceive music. What an amazing game. If you didn’t cry when doing the You’re the Inspiration level, you have no soul.

I enjoyed it. I wish it had gave performance metrics so I could track improvement in speed.

It's always been there. Before the phone we had the walkman. Before that the newspaper. There's always something to indicate 'do not disturb'.

When I'm having a busy day I don't always feel like talking to randoms. I live in a city, not a village and I'll never know everyone.

Is it a social pressure to stare at a screen or to just pretend to be occupied with something else? Would reading a few pages of a book, for instance, satisfy this social pressure? I do agree more generally that smartphones are borderline essential for many social expectations, though. I personally find smartphones really distracting, being a device that allows for instant information at merely the hint of boredom, and if they were less socially enforced I probably wouldn’t have one.

Whenever I spot people watchers , I secretly observe them (not to make them suspicious or feel uncomfortable). They are the most interesting species!

never fail to impress the huzz

That's the point lol

The problem is you can’t just tell people throw their phone away. You have to tell them what to do instead.

Otherwise? They’ll just open their phone again and scroll Reddit or Hackernews.

It won't need much. Just a manifest really.

No idea why this was downvoted; I love your idea. After all, what are social activities but doing things, and sometimes pointless things, together?

Most of culture is (hopefully) new takes on topics which are much older than smartphones. "The topic is old" is not a sufficient condition to consider something tired/cliche/old.

I'd say this one is different enough to be considered at least mildly interesting, even if you take into account that the genre "purposefully absurd pastiche of attention-stealing tech" is not new.

Welcome to Hacker News.

why?