30000 frum people have a kosher phone

LAkewoodscoop

Ashrecha!!

Ben Torah had to worry about consequences. It is called Moris atn

N0mesorah

No I work half day and left the main stream yeshiva and learn 3 times a day and don’t always wear a hat and jacket on the street and I wear a gartel. The last thing I’m doing here with my flip phone is for appearances cuz then I would do what all the others do and sit in bmg and “learn 3 sedarim” and just use a flip phone in public but then still use an iPhone in the bedrooms and what they watch! The list goes on!!!

n0mesorah,

“That’s not what appearances mean in this context”

I think that AAQ is closer to the mark on the context than you are.

Quick poll: When you see a real Ben Torah with a smartphone (Imagine the next Reb Dovid Feinstein) what do you think he does with it?

>real Ben Torah with a smartphone
> what do you think he does with it?

I would first need to know who is BT? (dubious acronym, that I need to clarify with even more dubious: Ben Torah, NOT Baal Teshuva, to which Gerer Rebbe would answer – “why NOT”). I see multiple references to BT – from R Feinstein to R Lamm, but I do not see a clear definition. I am guessing this is a slightly lower level than Talmid Chacham: TC someone who strives to be a full Chacham, but is humble to call himself the one – and BT is someone who seems to claim that his behavior is fully guided by Torah, but not ambitious to become a Chacham? Sort of a Talmid who is on non-degree path?

So, if we were to talk about TC, halakha is clear: you presume the best. So, I would think that his wife is expecting or/and his mother is not feeling well, so he needs a call. Or he is a doctor or a real estate broker and the phone is part of his parnosa, or he is learning off YUTorah site (or is this l’gnai?). Of course, none of this releases him from other halochos – greeting people first, not bumping into them while walking or driving.

So, if BT is a lower level than TC, I am not sure whether we have to give hum same benefit of doubt. Possibly, we give it to TC because he is constantly reviewing his behavior (do not question him in the morning about aveira he did yesterday night, as he surely did teshuva). If BT is not doing that, then he may not deserve the benefit, and if he does – then he is TC!

Always_Ask_Questions,

It’s already Adar where you are??

ok, there is actually bar Torah in Gemora:
Brochos 11 Shmuel to Rav’s son, looks like this is a reference to his father’s sayings.
Sukka 43 – same thing reference to father’s statement

Other references (only one in Gemora not to refer to someone’s actual father) seem to assume, like the posters here, that everyone know what this term means, even as it is pretty rare:

Gittin 62 has a Bar Torah Geneva (??) that Rashi explains as “ben Torah” who seems to like to argue – and has no (R) in front of his name.

More Nevuhim mentions that BT understands that even punishment from Hashem is not “bad”
Mishna Berurah uses the term in passing.

Avram, I am not insisting on ranking, just trying to understand the difference. To get to this –

are there TCim that are not ben Torah? learning well, but sometimes reads newspapers?
are there BT that are not TChim? guided by the Torah but not so good at learning it?

Seems like Gittin 62 revolves around this question – Rav Huna and Rav Ḥisda decide not to stand up for this Rav, who is BT, but still a baal machlokes, but then ask questions and listen to his divrei Torah.

n0mesorah,

“My point is that instead of saying to stop looking at this or you might see this, it would be better to say put your full attention on what you are trying to be immersed in.”

That’s nice in theory; however, it ignores the reality of how smartphones and their apps are designed. Google, Apple, Facebook, etc. have a vested interest in users spending time in their apps, viewing as much content as possible, and coughing up personal data. Smartphone apps and Web sites play on human psychology to accomplish this, providing a constant stream of dopamine-inducing stimuli in an easy to carry form factor that also has a lot of useful tools people want available (phone, messaging, flashlight, camera, etc.). A person may intentionally seek out one piece of information, but the app or Web site then throws a ton of unsolicited content back – links to other articles, pictures, etc. So is it really a bad thing that some people would prefer to stay off that battlefield?

“I wish people without smart phones would fill the void by being more attentive. But they are just as unaware of their surroundings as when they were phone addicts.”

This seems rather negative, and doesn’t fit with my own observations. How do you define being “aware” of your surroundings?

Avram > It’s already Adar where you are??

[After taking some time to consider the question] Yes.

You can buy a TrippleTell sim that have unlimited SMS but NO data

n0mesorah,

“It is obvious to the phone addict that s/he has way too much screen time. It’s not obvious to the kosher phone crusader how much time s/he devotes to a pointless crusade.”

False equivalence fallacy. The average American screen time on a smartphone is around 3.25 hours per day, contributing to a total daily screen time just north of 7 hours per day. Do you think the average “kosher phone crusader” is spending that amount of time per day on the crusade?

Also, I have already disputed your contention that advocating for kosher phones, filters, etc. is pointless.

n0 > also advocate for better uses of time in general

this is true. Also important what is the trade off between. I believe (meaning read something, but did not check) that there is a general decline in teenage crime & pregnancies attributed to teens spending times on the phone instead of in malls & gangs.

I don’t have a kosher phone, and I see nothing wrong with that.

I’m not sure what I meant by that – I’ve never owned a smartphone, and I don’t
think I’ve had a cell phone at all since coming back from yeshivah in Eretz Yisrael.
(Perhaps I was waiting for someone to ask so I could say that.)

n0mesorah,

“When advocating against too much screen time, also advocate for better uses of time in general. Otherwise nobody really improves.”

Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien. Should we stop highlighting the dangers of cigarette smoking because some former smokers may keep drinking? Just because we can’t solve everything does not mean we should do nothing.

random > Score-as-much-as-you-can games that end only when a
loss condition is reached go back at least as far as Tetris

Right, but that game never ended, no loss condition …

n0mesorah,

“I know a few kids who gave up their phones and now spend their days looking for drugs, alcohol, or trouble. . But that is not really my point.”

Do you know what motivated them to give up their phones?

“I have come across a whole bunch of people who think it is terribly important for me to get rid of my smartphone without knowing what I do with my time.”

One of my relatives is thoroughly secular, but has the most impressive smartphone discipline I’ve ever seen. She does not check it, but only picks it up when she wants to do something like send a message. Perhaps you are also one of those people with the innate ability to resist the pull. But this is an exception rather than the rule.

I’m also curious about these interactions that you have with the whole bunch of people. Do they accost you and ask if you have a smartphone out of the blue? Do you spend your time with people who don’t like smartphones and pull yours out in front of them? Do you engage in debates with them? I don’t fully understand why smartphones are so front and center.

“When I confront them with what do they do all day, their answer boils down to not having a smartphone.”

Not that they are being polite either, but you are hitting them with whataboutisms, so I imagine they’d get defensive.

“They will openly say, a yeshiva bachur who barely learns but doesn’t have a phone, is better than a serious masmid that has the internet in his pocket.”

They feel an unfiltered smartphone is a spiritual danger, so I’m not surprised by this statement. This may be a clumsy analogy, but how they’re potentially viewing it is: who’s likelier to live a longer life: the guy who sits all day and doesn’t exercise, or the guy who works out 5 days a week, eats a paleo diet, but keeps a rod of plutonium in his pocket?

“My point is that the anti smartphone movement is misguided.”

I wouldn’t judge a “movement” based on some interactions with individuals.

> In my own experience with “reading something”, conflating correlation with causation is a pretty common practice, particularly in polemical pieces and news articles,

I would not quote a news article to an esteemed chevra here as a possibility. So, we agree here. I meant that I saw a research paper and scanned it for conclusions, without reading carefully how research was conducted.

Note that google et al personalize your search results based on your history (middah k’neged middah, or they are letting you go where you choose to)… for some reason, I can’t find all these nasty things people here are saying are out there on Internets – what I search for, I got scientific papers as results. (or you can search scholar google com or books google com to begin with)

I was reading this conversation and I was shocked by some of the posts here, does anyone actually believe that from a Frum perspective it isn’t better not to have a smartphone?
Can anyone name a major gadol accepted by all of frum yidden who has/had a smartphone? The answer is obviously no. Why? Because no one would even think of looking at such a person as an Adam Gadol because at the end of the day everyone knows that someone with a smartphone cannot reach too high of a height. (I hope no one says their gadol has one. It would be pretty sad to hear that.)
All the different explanations of why it’s really not so bad to have a smartphone may many times be true, but the fact remains that it’s better without.
People get very lost on the details, but anyone that really honestly thinks about it realizes that when it comes to focusing on Hashem a smartphone is usually a minus. That isn’t to say that it is possible for everyone to not have one, but we should at least be aware that it is not in general a Frumkeit plus.
I will admit that in recent years there has been a growth in Torah oriented online communities -particularly Lakewood WhatsApp- which is very good for many people who would otherwise be mostly disconnected from Torah Yiddishkeit, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that to really put your focus in life on ruchniyus a smartphone is only a distraction.
And by the way, it’s not just smartphones, any internet connection is already a distraction, the more connection, the worse. (For example I just wasted 10 Minutes that should’ve been spent learning to write this:).)

Dear Avram,

I feel the movement as a whole is misguided. It produces a lot of of very public messaging. The main practical purpose of all their media is avoiding technology. There should be more about what is good discipline. Especially when it comes to using our free time.

n0mesorah,

“I feel the movement as a whole is misguided. It produces a lot of of very public messaging. The main practical purpose of all their media is avoiding technology. There should be more about what is good discipline. Especially when it comes to using our free time.”

I think the so-called “movement as a whole” disagrees with you on this. I think they’d argue that “good discipline” as you define it is tantamount to fighting a forest fire with a water pistol, and that not purchasing a smartphone at all or filtering a smartphone’s content is good discipline. This post was a recapitulation of our discussion, so we’re now going in circles. But re-reading some posts above, I have a couple more comments:

“It is obvious to the phone addict that s/he has way too much screen time.”

I don’t think that this is true. Some people are painfully aware that they spend too much time on their phones, but their attempts to limit screen time are unsuccessful. What would you tell these people? That they’re failures and need to try harder? That advice would probably cause them to become depressed. Others are completely unaware of how much screen time they use, and get shocked when they view the statistics.

Also – smartphone issues and bitul zman issues are not equivalent as you make them out to be. Sure a Venn diagram would feature some overlap (the guy ignoring his kids and tapping on a phone in his living room in 2023 may have been the guy with his nose in the newspaper or watching TV in 1983), but this is not the sole issue with smartphones. And would you seriously contend that smartphones don’t seriously exacerbate the bitul zman issue? 3.5 hours a day on average.

Dear Avram,

One thousand percent the void was already there. But the hanhala was told by the technology experts that it is all because of the phone. And they became conditioned to only see the phone issue and not the real issue. It got so bad, that these boys couldn’t ask for help. Some of them even knew that the phone was stopping them from worse things. It was like the biggest mitzva to get the phones out of yeshiva. Even if it killed a whole winter zman and half a dozen bachurim. Thankfully, most of that hanhala is no longer in chinuch.

I know major mainstream gedolim that had smartphones even when they themselves were involved in the anti technology movement. Almost nobody ever saw their phones. And the content of these phones are much different than your average smartphone, including my own.