Great to see research like this. It should go without saying that one should be blocking ads and really not using any news apps whatsoever. However, a nice analysis like this is invaluable to understand exactly why these sorts of ads and apps are a negative experience.
No joke, just try dusting off the cobwebs. Your mind is a muscle, but total (and of course metaphorical) atrophy takes a very long time. You can get back into the swing of it.
>* Lockdown Mode disables javascript JIT in the browser - I want fast javascript, I use some websites and apps that cannot function without it, and non-JIT js drains battery more
This feature has the benefit of teaching users (correctly) that browsing the internet on a phone has always been a terrible idea.
No keyboard, no mouse, tiny screen. Every single action you'd like to take is slower and more cumbersome. Want to selection a portion of a URL? Well, get ready for an adventure. Tap the URL bar once, then -- oops, now it thinks you want to copy. You can't tap the individual sections. Try to move the little "copy bars" but oops, the press didn't register because they're tiny. Spend about a minute randomly pressing the URL bar until you can actually get the behavior your want. Or, try to switch tabs. It's not hard per se, but it's an order off magnitude slower than ctrl+tab. Or search within a page. Can you just hit ctrl+g and start typing and then press ctrl+g again? No, no, you need to enter a menu, enter a submenu, then wait for the onscreen keyboard to show up, then glide your finger over that with a few corrections, then move your finger down the the tiny next button.
It's all objectively terrible, and it accomplishes nothing except allowing the user to use the internet right then and there.
Phone networks by design track you more precisely than possible over a conventional internet connection to facilitate the automatic connection to the nearest available network. Also, for similar reasons it requires the phone network to know that it is your phone
The phone network already needs to know where your phone is to be able to route incoming calls.
Also, I don't get how the situation with your home internet connection changes much. Your ISP knows exactly where you are because your house doesn't move.
Installed apps can track you even more, so what you're arguing for is presumably not "don't use websites on your phone", but rather "do not use your phone, just use your desktop computer".
Which sure, not using your phone is more secure, but good luck convincing users that they shouldn't use any apps or websites on the go.
>dual parent working households; lack of social services in state provision;
These two feel interrelated :)
> I think there's a non-trivial probability that concern over social media is a moral panic, and it's being used as a scapegoat for larger social forces.
Do you know if there are countries where the causes you laid out are not the case? (given demographics, I'm not sure if there are too many strict counter examples)
My wife's telehealth provider will not even attempt to work if it's running Linux. It just yells at you about a compatible browser. I haven't tried playing with a user agent switched, but it's frustrating. Especially if we were using Chrome, the telehealth would surely work, but I suppose the provider can't be bothered to care.
I'm shocked they didn't stash "defender" in there somehow. I used to joke that one name they'd rebrand the start menu as "defender for application launching" and rebrand the power button as "defender for powering on."
Microsoft's brands are historical markers. There's an era when a new Microsoft product is .NET, and an era when it's Azure, and one where it's 365 etc. If you have a new Doodad, if you say "Microsoft Doodad" the other divisions hate you because that's not their thing. Brand it "Hot Brand Name Unrelated Word" and now you're part of the family even though you have no product purpose and your customers will forever be confused.
"Azure Active Directory" wasn't Active Directory, and who'd have guessed a year ago that "365 Co-pilot" would mean the Office applications in 2026. Yes really.
And what people don't understand is that these two modes, much like those which can successfully restrict their calories and stay in shape, are dispositional more than anything. Most people will fail to "upgrade" to the better path, and people in the better path will fail to understand why most people are complaining about LLMs.
I still use an old fashioned external GPS model for this exact reason. The kind you had in the 2000s and 2010s made by Garmin. It's significantly more private, and however imperfect the UI, a UX team has never ruined the UI every 6 months to justify their existence. Since it's not on the internet, it doesn't matter if if it's insecure.
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