Dad Takes Son To Mongolia Just To Get Him Off His Phone (bbc.com) 66
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Riding through a remote valley in Mongolia on the back of his motorbike, adventurer Jamie Clarke let the hum of the engine and the wind echo in his mind while his thoughts wandered. After several hours, he pulled over to shake off his helmet and take a look at the map. This was what he loved about adventuring -- the solitude, the landscape and the feeling of being in charge of your own destiny. But when his 18-year-old son pulled up right behind him on his own motorcycle, he had a different take on the long ride they had just finished. For him, being alone in his thoughts was novel and unsettling. "Oh my God, that was terrible! I can't be left with my brain like that!" But that was precisely why the two had decided to embark on this adventure together.
Mr Clarke, a lifelong skier, mountaineer and trekker, had felt like he was losing touch with his son Khobe, who was always on his phone at their home in Calgary, Alberta. He blames himself, partly. He has a smartphone just like everyone else, and he enjoyed playing games with his son on his Blackberry when he was small. [...] For a long time, he had dreamed of traveling across Mongolia on a bike. Now that his son was older, why not do it with him? About a year ago, he proposed it to Khobe. It wasn't an automatic hit. "I said no pretty quickly," Khobe says. "But it kind of turned into this fun idea it became such a thing of preparation that it was very exciting to go do it." Khobe got his motorcycle license and the two practiced longer trips. While his father has climbed Everest twice, Khobe had never climbed a mountain so he had to practice that, too. They left on July 28, and over the course of the next month travelled more than 2,200 kilometers (1,367 miles) across Mongolia by motorbike, horse and camel. "I think the whole time I was pretty consumed by missing my phone," Khobe says. "You realize how boring everything gets. When I'm bored I can just turn on YouTube or watch Netflix. What am I going to do, look at the stars and twiddle my thumbs?" But he also says getting to know his dad was worth it, especially the time they spent off the road in their tents or yurts just cooking and bonding. "I was surprised that when he's away from a work environment and family that he acts maybe closer my age," he says.
"It helped me see Khobe in a new way. I saw him as a kid who kept leaving his jacket on the table, not cleaning up the dishes," he says. "And I was able to see him step up to being a young man, and I was impressed by how well he was able to perform under pressure."
Mr Clarke, a lifelong skier, mountaineer and trekker, had felt like he was losing touch with his son Khobe, who was always on his phone at their home in Calgary, Alberta. He blames himself, partly. He has a smartphone just like everyone else, and he enjoyed playing games with his son on his Blackberry when he was small. [...] For a long time, he had dreamed of traveling across Mongolia on a bike. Now that his son was older, why not do it with him? About a year ago, he proposed it to Khobe. It wasn't an automatic hit. "I said no pretty quickly," Khobe says. "But it kind of turned into this fun idea it became such a thing of preparation that it was very exciting to go do it." Khobe got his motorcycle license and the two practiced longer trips. While his father has climbed Everest twice, Khobe had never climbed a mountain so he had to practice that, too. They left on July 28, and over the course of the next month travelled more than 2,200 kilometers (1,367 miles) across Mongolia by motorbike, horse and camel. "I think the whole time I was pretty consumed by missing my phone," Khobe says. "You realize how boring everything gets. When I'm bored I can just turn on YouTube or watch Netflix. What am I going to do, look at the stars and twiddle my thumbs?" But he also says getting to know his dad was worth it, especially the time they spent off the road in their tents or yurts just cooking and bonding. "I was surprised that when he's away from a work environment and family that he acts maybe closer my age," he says.
"It helped me see Khobe in a new way. I saw him as a kid who kept leaving his jacket on the table, not cleaning up the dishes," he says. "And I was able to see him step up to being a young man, and I was impressed by how well he was able to perform under pressure."
No idea if daily smartphone use is healthy or not (Score:5, Insightful)
But we do know that generations of art, music, and science were made by people not looking at a phone every 15 minutes.
Re:No idea if daily smartphone use is healthy or n (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm guessing the phone thing isn't really a relevant factor here...
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Meanwhile, the current generations are still generating art, music, and science...
No they're not. They're looking at a phone every 15 minutes.
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It's by design though, they are aimlessly consuming bland empty content, free of new thought, free of morality, freed from human to human interaction, subscribing consumers of mindless palp and advertising. Don't disturb the sheeple, they want to be shorn and slaughtered it's their right ;DDD (man, the big tech corps are just utterly disgusting, with Google as the new leader in evil and M$ is taking second place).
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I actually used my phone to write a large part of my novel. When I was out and about and waiting for something, I'd pull out my phone, load Google Docs, and write a paragraph or two. It was very easy and it meant that my writing was with me wherever I was. Of course, the final formatting for the book took place on a real computer, but the initial writing can be anywhere that you have a keyboard (virtual or physical).
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Guys guys! You're both pretty!
Point of fact, you're both right. But you're talking about two different sets of people.
There are generally (as much as you can divide any diverse population into two groups) people who create content, and people who consume content. The groups overlap of course.
To content creators, the smart phone is just another tool. It's good for capture, the editing tools are... ok... and it's well connected for upload. Ideal for photologs, good for contributing to youtube channels, g
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We also know that generations of genocide, slave-trading, and crimes against humanity were made by people not looking at a phone every 15 minutes. Meanwhile, the current generations are still generating art, music, and science...
Not to mention that we have living proof you can both constantly shitpost on twitter and commit (war) crimes: Trump.
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Meanwhile, the current generations are still generating art
Art is dead.
Every time I visit a museum of contemporary art, I want to vomit. An all black painting spanning 10 meters in width with a kind of a crack or crevice in the middle and some solids that look like human shit smeared around. It's called "Projection No 37". I'd love to see that scam artist hanged.
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Not familiar with this piece you describe,"Projection No 37". Who is the artist or gallery where you encountered it? Do you have similar objection to abstract art by previous masters such as Mark Rothko? I know I have, but one day waiting for friends to go for lunch I was sitting in front of one of his pieces and it hit me. Since then, I've made it a rule to skip a meal before hitting the galleries in ord
Smartphone genocide & slave trade, and crimes. (Score:1)
Re:No idea if daily smartphone use is healthy or n (Score:5, Insightful)
But we do know that generations of art, music, and science were made by people not looking at a phone every 15 minutes.
Do you have any evidence that mobile phones have reduced any of that?
I suspect that the people creating great works and the people constantly checking their phones are disjoint sets.
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What, there are people who are naturally novel, rare, or bizarre?
Oh! You meant "curious"...never mind....
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Clearly the GP's parents weren't interested in their kid's education -- I've seen third-graders with better language skills. Or is he suffering from too much smartphone use? In addition to the curios/curious debacle, there are at least:
-- I have seen kids take a strip of staples and through [sic] them into the ceiling just to waste the day. .
-- I understand that there ate [sic] technical skills in skiing and mountain climbing, and that some consider that really [sic] useful way to spend your life. .
-- . .
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At least teen pregnancy rates are lower (than ever?).
https://www.pewresearch.org/fa... [pewresearch.org]
So (Score:4, Funny)
Does Geico motorcycle insurance cover trips in Mongolia?
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I've never slashvertised and don't know if this gets removed / modded out / obliterated - but World Nomads used to treat me well for travel insurance on multiple 3 month+ adventures.
Oh good, real great advice (Score:1)
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Re:Oh good, real great advice (Score:5, Insightful)
Mongolia is an edge case. Every year I take a week, point the bike in some direction I haven't been before, and just follow my nose. Sometimes it sucks (33 degrees and raining in Donner Pass, trapped behind a semi crash) and sometimes it's just spectacular (riding through the painted desert or across the northern US) but in each and every case I'm alone with my thoughts and in total control of whatever I intend to do that day. It's a great feeling. Ok, the freezing rain wasn't that great, but other than that, I highly recommend it. No Mongolia tickets necessary.
I'm in the US. It's a big country, and after 20 years of annual weekly trips, there's still a lot I haven't seen. Wherever you are, there's probably places you haven't seen.
But the point I think is whether you can stand being alone with yourself.
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Actually, I would like to space for something new for a few hours. :P
One case study. (Score:2)
Does not a conclusion make.
"The Onion" doesn't count as news... (Score:2)
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I thought it was a Onion article. Alas, it's from the BBC. What a time to be alive!
Do you like yourself? (Score:2)
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... and the Tablet, and the SmartWatch, and the iPod Touch ...
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Put away your smartphone for a month and find out.
My doctors do all their scheduling for surgery, post-op and such via text and phone.
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A bit too much. The rest of you all, not so much (Score:2)
I probably like myself a bit too much.
My smartphone has helped me confirm that I don't like about half of the people on Slashdot. :)
Seriously, though, lately a I've been trying to understand where people on Slashdot are coming from, to have some empathy. That has helped me dislike people less. Even when I think someone's conclusion makes no sense, it's better now that I'm trying to truly understand why they fell that way.
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twiddle your thumbs (Score:3)
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"What am I going to do, look at the stars and twiddle my thumbs"
Sounds pretty good to me. I certainly enjoy it more than using a cell phone (smart or otherwise). For example, I'd noticed Betelgeuse was looking a bit weak well before the current media storm.
Then again, I don't usually twiddle my thumbs while looking at the stars, but hey, whatever gets you through the day.
So.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Guy with too much money and toys loses touch with son due to gadgets.
Son goes on trip, is blown away that there's a larger and more interesting world than the boring digital sandboxes that nerdy young men trying to extract money from you can create.
It's nice to hear about this lesson occasionally, though.
Oh, and as a climber who has climbed some bigger stuff? Everest has been pay-to-play for a while now. I'd be impressed if he did, say, Mt Thor (or some other crazy remote terror-fest) twice and then took his son out there to do it too. With enough money it's easy to sound badass...
Re: So.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: So.... (Score:2)
That sounds pretty negative in and of itself. I've spent the last 4 days withdrawing off Suboxone, I'd probably be glad to get it back. Life is still better off without. His problem is his heart wasn't in it.
Re: So.... (Score:2)
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You make a good point, I did miss the actual story and ended up posting about a different idea instead. Thanks for keeping me straight.
Re: So.... (Score:2)
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It's pretty ridiculous, even in the pay to play Everest scene, to not say it's an accomplishment. And furthermore, it's not a *terrible* example of at least being around / involved in trip planning for an extended outing. Even if you pay for everything I would be very disappointed if you didn't learn something about expedition planning going on an Everest expedition.
The point of the sentence wasn't to impress you personally on mountaineering prowess, DripDry.
But I get it, your comment was really just to s
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Stop Giving Smartphones to Under 16 Year Old Kids (Score:4, Informative)
It's really funny, here we have an article and some people complaining about smartphone addiction.
And not even like what? 2 weeks ago, we have an older article complaining about how pedos were stalking underage kids on instagram.
https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
Where the vast majority of commentators couldn't see the lowest hanging easy solution in their faces.
People, the solution is simple: stop giving kids smartphones. I said this before and i'll say it again:
It's like the pedophiles on AIM got with the times and moved over to Instagram .
Allowing kids pocketable computers to instantly access porn and publicly post scandalous public photographs? All because mommy and daddy couldn't say no.
"It's because I want them to be able to contact me!"
" I don't want them to not feel uncool!"
Just another case of shitty parents being shitty parents. Want to solve the pedophile problem parents? Here's a hint: it isn't with a spy app.
Don't give underage kids Smartphones!
And to the idiots who will undoubtedly say, "Derp, they'll just borrow a friends phone" or " you can't watch them 24/7".
Good! Then they can get that one or two second internet hit or they can learn to be clever and figure out how to get onto those services themselves. Regardless, the time spent on the internet is a fat 15 seconds versus every waking second of the day.
If you really want to be watchful over your kids, get them a dumb phone with zero internet access.
See how easy it is to fix this non-issue?
Re: Stop Giving Smartphones to Under 16 Year Old K (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's not worth engaging with people who have simple solutions to parenting, it's like "Just teach your kids abstinence and STDs/teen pregnancies won't be a problem. It's simple." The most uptight parents either break their kids and create incredibly sheltered man-children or turn it into a rebellion/war for independence where the children do everything to live a secret life outside their thumb of oppression. Now there's obviously a ditch on the other side of the road too where they're not setting any limits
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It's not worth engaging with people who have simple solutions to parenting, it's like "Just teach your kids abstinence and STDs/teen pregnancies won't be a problem. It's simple." The most uptight parents either break their kids and create incredibly sheltered man-children or turn it into a rebellion/war for independence where the children do everything to live a secret life outside their thumb of oppression. Now there's obviously a ditch on the other side of the road too where they're not setting any limits or rules but you can either equip them with the skills to deal with the world or shield them from it.
The parents who focus on the former tend to have the kids turn out okay, even when they run into creepy/scary shit they weren't supposed to. Those who focus on the latter tend to blame whatever or whoever eventually breached the moat, like the kid in the neighborhood had found daddies porn mags or knew how to get beer/booze/weed. Here in Norway 87% of the 9-11yo and 98% of the 12-16yos have smartphones now, it's not about "being cool" it's about being normal. Just because you grew up without one everyone short of the mentally challenged have one now.
It's like you didn't even read my post because I addressed all of your points.
Just because a lot of people do something doesn't make it normal. I'm sorry, but that is the epitome of bad parenting and giving up.
Being a good parent isn't saying, "gosh all of the kids are drinking, so here's a fifth of vodka, go get hammered johnny". It's sitting down with them, explaining the effects of alcohol, pass a glass of wine, and move on.
They'll probably drink eventually, but they won't be mystified by it as opposed t
I read that book (Score:5, Funny)
So...it's basically Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?
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So...it's basically Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?
:spoilers!
I think the funniest part of the book is near the end. The writer/motorcyclist realizes that his son, who has been riding behind him as his passenger, hasn't been seeing the sites of all the splendorous places they went to. He was only looking at his dad's back.
Social Justice Warriors complaining... (Score:1)
...about "white privilege" in 3...2...1...
This is really getting out of hand! (Score:2)
Well, call me an unluddite (aluddite?), but OSMand is offline, and GPS doesn't need a phone connection, and my solar cell power bank would let me enjoy music and books and even some movies on my microSD card(s) even in deepest mongolia.
Just like we did, with cassettes and a radio and physical books back in the 80s.
What if I told you that pocket computers aren't The Devil(TM). Nor is communicating with your actual friends or people with the same interests. It is not "the phone" they are "looking at". It is t
Khobe? (Score:2)
I'm sure there will be selfies out there. (Score:2)
Son will complain now; be thankful later ... (Score:2)
Like most youth kids don't fully appreciate the time spent with their parents.
When they are 50+ and their parent(s) have died they will fondly think back remembering the time he and his father spent together without cellphones and be thankful for the opportunity and experience.
It's all about perspective.
That's a great Dad who was able to help show his son that.
The art of quiet contemplation is dead. (Score:1)
The guy's problem with his son started... (Score:2)
...the moment that he decided to name him "Khobe".