Comment by iamnothere
4 days ago
I don’t carry a smartphone, and I also carry a minimalist wallet (extremely thin). I replaced my couple of “discount” cards, which have barcodes, with laminated photocopies.
I don’t get lost because I am familiar with my city.
I can access entertainment at home. Why do you need to distract yourself constantly?
Smartphones just aren’t necessary if you live life intentionally. (We should get rid of targeted ads though.)
What you say works for me, but unfortunately it doesn't work for a lot of folks in countries which are hyper-dependent on certain apps like WhatsApp (Brasil, India etc). These places use WhatsApp for literally everything - like I heard about professers sharing lecture notes and assignments over WhatsApp, govt agencies accepting documents and applications only via WhatsApp, customer support for many companies is also done only via WhatsApp (with no option to call or email), many payments are done via WhatsApp, restaurants have reservations and booking confirmations done via WhatsApp and so on.
For these folks, WhatsApp isn't just some messaging/calling app, it's an entire platform. I consider myself lucky I don't live in one of those places, but I can imagine it would be really hard to live a modern life in such places without WhatsApp. And it's also scary and concerning how a single foreign megacorporation like Meta has a stranglehold over everyday lives in so many nations.
Wondering how of all these are applying some type of GDPR if they are receiving personal data as gov authority via WhatsApp