Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is a powerful tool, but like many powerful tools, it has the potential to allow humans to let our natural abilities atrophy. It’s the same way that the invention of the jackhammer pretty much caused humans to lose the ability to pound through feet of concrete and asphalt with our bare fists. We’re already seeing effects of this with the widespread use of ChatGPT seemingly causing cognitive decline and atrophying writing skills, and now I’m starting to think advanced driver’s aids, especially more comprehensive ones like Level 2 supervised semi-automated driving systems are doing the same thing: making people worse drivers.
I haven’t done studies to prove this in any comprehensive way, so at this point I’m still just speculating, like a speculum. I’m not entirely certain a full study is even needed at this point, though, because there are already some people just flat-out admitting to it online, for everyone to see, free of shame and, perhaps, any degree of self-reflection.
Specifically, I’m referring to this tweet that has garnered over two million views so far:
The other night I was driving in pouring rain, fully dark, and the car randomly lost GPS.
No location. No navigation.
Which also meant no FSD.I tried two software resets while driving just to get GPS back. Nothing worked. So there I was, manually driving in terrible… pic.twitter.com/hKlU6AlCEZ
— Oli (@CARN0N) December 13, 2025
Oh my. If, for some reason, you’re not able to read the tweet, here’s the full text of it:
“The other night I was driving in pouring rain, fully dark, and the car randomly lost GPS. No location. No navigation. Which also meant no FSD. I tried two software resets while driving just to get GPS back. Nothing worked. So there I was, manually driving in terrible conditions, unsure of positioning, no assistance, no guidance. And it genuinely felt unsafe. For me and for the people in the car. Then it hit me. This feeling – the stress, the uncertainty, the margin for error – this is how most drivers feel every single day. No FSD. No constant awareness. No backup. We’ve normalised danger so much that we only notice it when the safety net disappears.”
Wow. Drunk Batman himself couldn’t have beaten an admission like this out of me. There’s so much here, I’m not even really sure where to start. First, it’s night, and it’s “fully dark?” That’s kind of how night works, champ. And, sure, pouring rain is hardly ideal, but it’s very much part of life here on Earth. It’s perfectly normal to feel some stress when driving in the dark, in bad weather, but it’s not “how most drivers feel every single day.” Most drivers are used to driving, and they deal with poor conditions with awareness and caution, but, ideally, not the sort of panic suggested in this tweet.
Also, my quote didn’t replicate the weird spacing and short, staccato paragraphs that made this whole thing read like one of those weird LinkedIn posts where some fake thing someone’s kid said because a revelation of B2B best practices, or some shit.
It seems that the reason this guy felt the way he did when the driver aids were removed is that he’s, frankly, not used to actually driving. In fact, if you look at his profile on eX-Twitter, he notes that he’s a Tesla supervisor, which is pretty significantly different than calling yourself a Tesla driver:
This is an objectively terrible and deeply misguided way to view your relationship with your car for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that even if you do consider yourself a “supervisor” – a deeply flawed premise to begin with – the very definition of Level 2 semi-autonomy is that the person “supervising” has to be ready to take over with zero warning, which means you need to be able to drive your damn car, no matter the situation it happens to be in.
If anything, you would think the takeaway here would have been, shit, I need to be a more competent driver and less of a candy-ass as opposed to coming away thinking, as stated in the tweet,
“We’ve normalised danger so much that we only notice it when the safety net disappears.”
This is so deeply and eye-rollingly misguided I almost don’t know where to start, except I absolutely do know where to start: the idea that the “safety net” is Tesla’s FSD software. Because that is exactly the opposite of how Level 2 systems are designed to work! You, the human, are the safety net! If you’ve already made the arguably lazy and questionable decision to farm out the majority of the driving task to a system that lacks redundant sensor backups and is still barely out of Beta status, then you better damn well be ready to take over when the system fails, because that’s how it’s designed to work.
To be fair, our Tesla Supervisor here did take over when his FSD went down due to loss of a GPS signal, but, based on what he said, he felt “unsafe” for himself and the passengers in the car. The lack of FSD isn’t the problem here; the problem is that the human driver didn’t feel safe operating their own motor vehicle.
Not only was he uncomfortable driving in the inclement weather and lack of light (again, that’s just nighttime, a recurring phenomenon), but the reason he had to debase himself so was because of a technical failure of FSD, which, it should be noted, can happen at any time, without warning. Hence the need to be able to drive a damn car, comfortably.
What does he mean when he says, referring to human driving, “no constant awareness?” Almost every driver I know is constantly aware that they are driving. That’s part of driving. Do people get distracted, look at phones, get lost in reveries, or whatever? Sure they do. That’s not ideal, but it doesn’t mean people aren’t aware.
Unsurprisingly, the poster of this admission has been getting a good bit of blowback in comments from people a little less likely to soil themselves when they have to drive in the rain. So, he provided a follow-up tweet:
To everyone that says I should’ve have a license:
This is a true story – it was pouring rain a couple of weeks ago on a Saturday night, with insane wind making it a recipe for disaster. I had just washed the car and was on my way to pick someone up.
About 30 seconds after… https://t.co/POIA0Ue58n
— Oli (@CARN0N) December 15, 2025
I’m not really sure what this follow-up actually clarified, but he did describe the experience in a bit more detail:
“I knew the rough direction but not exactly. I never use my phone while driving, so 1 rely solely on the car nav. Unfortunately, it wasn’t working, and I had to pull over to double-check where I was going.”
That’s just…driving. This is how all driving was up until about 15 years ago or so. I have an abysmal sense of direction, so I feel like I spent most of my pre-GPS driving life lost at least a quarter of the time I was driving anywhere. But you figure it out. You take some wrong turns, you end up in places you didn’t originally plan to be in, you looked at maps or signs or asked someone and you eventually got there. It wasn’t perfect, but it was what you had, and when we could finally, say, print out MapQuest directions and clip them to the dash, oh man, that was a game changer.
I took plenty of long road trips in marginal cars with no phone and just signs and vague notions to guide me where I was going. If I had to do it today, sure, there would be some significant adapting to exhume my pre-GPS navigational skills – well, skills is too generous a word, so maybe we can just say ability – but I think it could be done. And every driver really should be able to do the same thing.
FSD (Supervised) is a tool, a crutch, and if you find yourself in a position where its absence is causing you fear instead of just a bit of annoyance, you’re no longer really qualified to drive a car. Teslas (and other mass-market cars with similar L2 driver assist systems) don’t have redundant sensors, most don’t have the means to clean camera lenses (or radar/lidar windows and domes), and none of them are rated for actually unsupervised driving. Which means that you, the person in the driver’s seat, need to actually live up to the name of that seat: you have to know how to drive a damn car.
This tweet should be taken as a warning, because while it’s fun to feel all smug because you can drive in the rain and ridicule this hapless fellow, I guarantee you he’s not alone. There are other people whose driving skills are atrophying because of reliance on systems like Tesla’s FSD, and this is a very bad path to go down. Our Tesla Supervisor here may actually have been unsafe when he had to take full control of the car and didn’t feel comfortable. And that’s not a technical problem, it’s a perception problem, and it’s not even the original poster’s fault entirely – there is a lot of encouragement from Tesla and the surrounding community to consider FSD to be far more capable than it actually is.
Driving is dangerous, and it’s good to feel that, sometimes! You should always be aware that when you’re driving, you’re in a metal-and-plastic, ton-and-a-half box hurtling down haphazardly maintained roads at a mile per minute. If that’s not a little scary to you, then you’re either a liar, a corpse, or one of those kids who started karting at four years old.
We all need to accept the reality of what driving is, and the inherent, wonderful madness behind it. I personally know myself well enough to realize how easily I can be lured into false senses of security by modern cars and start driving like a moron; to combat this, my preferred daily drivers are ridiculous, primitive machines incapable of hiding the fact that they’re just metal boxes with lots of sharp, poke-y bits that are whizzing along far too quickly. Which, in the case of my cars, can mean speeds of, oh, 45 mph.
The point is, everyone on the road should be able to capably drive, in pretty much any conditions, without the aid of some AI. Even when we have more advanced automated driving systems, this should still be the case, at least for vehicles capable of being driven by a human. But for right now, systems like FSD are not the safety net: the safety net is always us. We’re always responsible when we’re in the driver’s seat, and if we forget that, we could end up in far worse situations than just embarrassing ourselves online.
But that can happen too, of course.
And this is modern automotive enthusiasm and why any cars that are fun to drive are becoming rarer and rarer. People don’t want to drive. They want real life to be like a video game, and to that I say, can’t they just play video games? Isn’t it more dangerous to treat life like a video game than to treat life like it is real?
The part where you said: “If anything, you would think the takeaway here would have been, shit, I need to be a more competent driver and less of a candy-ass” is the most entertaining thing I have read in 2025 and I totally agree with the point. ????????????
Sillier than a receding mullet! More powerless than his automotive! Unable to navigate tall buildings without GPS around!
(“Look! There in that Tesla!” “He’s absurd!” “He’s insane!” “It’s Supervisor!”)
Yes, it’s Supervisor … strange visitor from another mindset, who roams the Earth with mental powers and abilities far below those of mortal men! Supervisor… who can only follow a course set by Google Maps, avoids the steering wheel with his bare hands, and who, disguised as a competent driver, an ill-mannered believer in full self-driving automobiles, fights a never-ending battle against couth and judgement: it’s the American way!
Glob forgive us old folk who learned to drive before GPS and smart phones.
Also, if you’re a hire car driver, you better damn well know the area in which you operate. Dude on Twitter is deranged and delusional.
Driving like most things is all about what you are used to. I recently saw a video of a guy who was freaking out reacting to scenes of what amounts to normal driving conditions for Michigan winters.
Just a few weeks ago, when Chicago got hit with a lovely 12″ snowstorm, I got called in for a municipal plow shift. So that’s a 32 mile drive in predawn hours, and it had been snowing for a few hours but none of the jurisdictions had been out plowing yet. So the roads were absolutely horrible, slippery as fuck, and yet my 4 decades of driving experience (and a common FWD sedan) got me there without drama.
Y’know how I got 40 winters’ worth of driving experience?
By driving.
Sounds like survivor bias, we all know you need an AWD pickup or suv. /s
Thank you for your service. As a Chitowner I really do appreciate you and your colleagues.
I work for a suburb, but thank you for noticing.
Suburbs too. I was talking Metro. 🙂
I hope this guy is one day face down on a table when his doctor’s “Full-Selve-Scoping” Colonoscopy computer goes down. “You mean I have to push the scope in there with my hands?! How am I going to find the inside-butt-parts?!”
I suspect this person just wanted attention and to suck up. Fail.
13.5K posts in five years? Yep, attention seeking checks out.
That’s only 7.4 a day. He’s gonna have to up his game if he wants Elon to notice him.
I calculated it too. Lol. The only thing I do 7.4 times a day is pee.
Perfect. Just remember to tweet about it and you’ll be up to 5 figures in no time!
Yeah, but none of your pees are going to go viral
I really should start posting them. I could even post ones of me peeing on pictures of Musky. That might get some attention. Haha (this haha dedicated to Matt).
Don’t crush Crank’s dreams like that. If Crank gets that smart toilet camera from Kohler that films your bowel movements, maybe someday a hacker will find their way to the footage and make it go viral.
Oh, I’ve been posting my poops for years now. Just look at Truth Social under @realDonaldTrump.
You must have very regular bowel movements then. 😛
It’s so easy when you’re completely full of shit.
That’s not regular bowel movements. That’s irritable bowel syndrome.
That explains the constant capital letters. Verbal diarrhea.
Same. It’s that . 4 that becomes troublesome tho…
Indeed! Until they cut your prostate out… Then you just add up the many 0.2s. That how you get non-integer urine units.
6.2 between going to bed and when you get up in the morning?
Sounds about right.
The fact this person is still streaming Gotye on spotify tells me everything I need to know.
Somehow or another this dude rings a bell. Maybe he’s somebody I used to know.
Well, seems like from his perspective, FSD didn’t have to cut him off…
Severely underrated comment.
Hey that’s a banger of a song
I don’t even use cruise control in the rain.
You might not.
But, then, I’ve encountered many lovely people using cruise control in a snowstorm.
This is a very smart person.
Then how do you drink your pina coladas?
I honestly don’t know what’s worse, having AI drive or distracted humans.
I suspect distracted humans are worse overall. But I know if and when AI wrecks my car I will be inordinately pissed at it, positive that I wouldn’t have made the same mistake. And I probably wouldn’t have, in that one particular situation.
I can give Jason a window to the data he needs to show that driver-assistance tech is making drivers worse. It’s the Canadian Loss Experience Automobile Rating (CLEAR) system and is a dataset collected by Canadian auto insurers that scores makes and models on their claims frequency and severity. I ran the 2023 Tesla Model Y against similarly-priced EV and hybrid competitors (Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Lexus RX) and it showed that the Tesla had worse ratings for at-fault collisions, not-at-fault multivehicle collisions, and injury claims compared to its competitors that have less-sophisticated driver assistance setups. (Both the Tesla and Hyundai had very low rates of comprehensive claims because the Lexus RX is one of Canada’s most-stolen cars.) Check out the comparison tool: https://www.ibc.ca/insurance-basics/auto/how-cars-measure-up
Tagged under “DIPSHIT”.
Congrats to Oli! The first to be tagged by The Autopian as “DIPSHIT”! Could not be more deserving.
David Tracy (maybe with the help of Lewin) needs to track down this resplendent whackadoodle and interview for an Autopian-exclusive piece.
Maybe a web redemption of sorts? Put him in Project Cactus.
There’s a truck stop near me on a 4 lane divided highway where truckers will make a left out of the parking lot and block the near lanes while waiting for break in traffic in the far lanes. Recently a guy in a Tesla was (likely gruesomely) killed when he went under a trailer at 70mph. Didn’t slow down at all. It’s a straight section of road. If you’re paying any attention whatsoever, you have a mile to react when a trucker does this.
At the time of the news article, it wasn’t certain whether he was using FSD or not. Even if he wasn’t, none of the other driver nanny features saved him. I do not trust these things.
As an aside, the trucker was acquitted of whatever charge he got because the car was going 70 in a 55. So if you’re going 15 over, somebody pulls out in front of you and you hit them, you’re at fault!
Another guy got killed in a Tesla a few years back in a similar crash. Truck was crossing and FSD didn’t ‘see’ it and hit it at speed.
I wasn’t able to find an article after a brief search, since Teslas hitting stationary vehicles is such a common occurrence.
FSD stands for ‘Fuck, i Suck at Driving!’
For Simplistic Dummies
That buy into hype
OH BOY do I have a bone to pick with that. FSD is a LEVEL 2 SYSTEM. It is NOT a safety net. If you have become so accustomed to doing fuck all in the drivers seat that doing the thing you are legally expected to be doing as a licensed and insured driver of a vehicle then you should have your license revoked. Period. This is absolute negligence on BOTH the drivers part and on the part of Tesla. The driver for the obvious dereliction of caution and attention, and Tesla for creating this narrative that their cars are far more capable than they are in reality.
Here’s what I want every single Tesla and FSD owner to understand: Tesla FSD system is a vision only system that is working with less information than you, a human. It does not have stereoscopic vision, nor radar, sonar, nor lidar, and therefore does not actually know what and how far the things around you are. It is guessing. It’s entire system is built on a complex system of guesswork (machine learning/AI, in essence same as ChatGPT, etc). What does this mean? It means it’s imperfect. Very, very imperfect. It can operate just fine on a scanned highway when it’s bright and sunny and there is minimal traffic, but the instant something happens it can’t understand, it will either deactivate or crash.
The simple fact that what I just said above is NOT common knowledge, and is actively the opposite of what Elon and Tesla are preaching is exactly why their system is so dangerous. I get that tweety boy here is Australian, but so many accidents have happened in the US because of this exact same mentality amongst Tesla drivers. NHTSA and Congress need to do SOMETHING. The investigations never lead to punishments that mean anything, and Tesla can continue to bribe their way through this corrupt administration thanks to an overvalued stock. This madness needs to stop before more people die in avoidable accidents.
Were they watching Harry Potter and the Half-Baked Features at the time?
It’s scary how much autopilot is used in commercial aviation but that doesn’t prevent the pilots from being able to know how it all works themselves. Unfortunately, FSD might end up being the point where mandatory ongoing driver training is forced on us (which is still a good idea, I just wanted it to be an organic decision and not a reaction to a handful of people relying on FSD)
I am firmly of the opinion that Airbus pilots are generally worse at actual stick and rudder flying than Boeing pilots for this very reason. And it shows in incidents where the Airbus automation throws up it’s little electronic hands and says “you do it, buddy” – bad things happen. And there have been crashes and MANY near crashes due to this. 787 and 777 are also FBW, but they don’t automate the aircraft handling in nearly the same way. Skills unused atrophy in short order.
I am very firmly of the opinion that until real, “take a nap” self-driving is a thing, nothing more than distance-keeping cruise control and the most basic of not going into the ditch lane keeping should be allowed (and it should be intentionally abrupt about it). Too many cars are just barely good enough at this to lull you into getting killed. These L2 systems should be disabled in anything less than perfect conditions.
I’m not sure for the Airbus/Boeing thing, but when I was learning to fly and discussing with pilots, it seems that those who frequently fly small planes for pleasure are much more able to take control successfully.
Very much agreed about that too. Airline pilots do very, very little hand flying. But with Airbus, they are never REALLY hand flying unless things have gone so far sideways that they are in some seriously deep shit. Which is not the time you want to be relearning how the thing flies with no computer in the mix.
I’m not a pilot, however my understanding is Airbus uses a lot more “guardrails” in the sense that it literally won’t give you the control authority to stall the plane etc. it makes sense that bad things happen when suddenly the plane reacts differently and it’s not obvious why. I imagine it’d be like if suddenly the throttle or brake sensitivity changed in a car: we’d all drive like shit, at least for a little while.
On the other hand, plenty of Boeings have crashed from pilot errors that an Airbus would have prevented. From my limited understanding, you could make a case either way for which approach is safer.
Even beyond that – Airbus’ FBW is always “managing” control inputs. You literally pitch or bank the airplane to where you want it and the airplane stays in that attitude all by itself. There is no feedback in the joystick. Until it all goes away and that joystick might as well be directly connected to the control surfaces. Practiced in the simulator, of course, but it’s still wildly unlike how the airplane normally responds to inputs – which is the last thing you need in the middle of an emergency. Boeing FBW also incorporates plenty of guardrails, but pilot inputs are much more directly translated. And of course, the 737/757/767 is just good old-fashioned “it does what you tell it to do” at all times (trim runaways, MCAS stupidity, and other failures excepted, of course).
I think the Boeing FBW implementation is the happy medium between the two.
It really comes down to pilot skill.
Air France 447 crashed because the Airbus computer gave up, and the pilots didn’t know how to fly without the Airbus guardrails.
Asiana 214 crashed because the pilots of the Boeing considered a manual approach on a clear sunny day to be a ‘very difficult approach’.
AF447 literally could not have happened on a Boeing. The pilot flying kept the stick hauled all the way back, the other pilot couldn’t see or feel that he was doing that. He literally held it in a stall all the way down, even after the actual problem had resolved itself. By the time the senior captain got back in the cockpit, figured out what was going on, and told him to get the nose down, they ran out of altitude before they recovered. In a FBW Boeing, the yokes are linked so both pilots always know what is going on (and they give feedback). Sure, poor piloting, but allowed by poor design decisions.
Boeing isn’t completely innocent in the Asiana crash – the autothrottle modes were confusing and were not annunciated clearly. Combined with being at the end of a long flight so tired pilots that confusion allowed the speed to get too low. IIRC if they had started the missed approach even a few second sooner they would have made it.
At the end of the day, the vast majority of crashes are in one way or another “pilot error” – but the hardware (and software) can certainly help that along. Usually a fault starts the problem, but how the pilots react to it determines the outcome. The “Swiss Cheese” model of crashes is very real. Pilots are only human, and so are aircraft engineers. It’s is absolutely astounding how safe commercial aviation is, but it will never be perfectly safe.
You know, this reminds me of the first time I used an ADAS equipped car (2018 Subaru Outback rental car). I was initially impressed until we hit some rainy/foggy conditions and the system immediately shut down. The fact it decided to check-out at the time a driver would most need a bit of assistance was something of a red flag on the actual capabilities of ADAS systems…
Exactly. Camera-based systems are inevitably going to be worse than the MKI eyeball in those situations at best, if they work at all. Experience and even intuition are a thing. And in truly bad conditions, there is no substitute for “butt-feel”, as anyone who has encountered black ice on a bridge can tell you. You know immediately that the surface has changed just from the feel of the car even though it doesn’t look any different – and there is no ADAS system on the planet that can do that.
I get you on the black ice reference, the day I learned to keep an eye on the tire spray of leading cars (or lack thereof) was a revelation.
On the camera based ADAS, I guess I just kind of assumed it would have been tuned or filtered to a part of the spectrum where it might be a bit more sensitive than our eyes (kind of like with blue vs. yellow light at night). The fact that it wasn’t drove home that maybe they weren’t ready for prime time…
They totally aren’t. I figure they have the driving ability of a newly -licensed teen driver, at best. And a drunk one at worst.
You’ve never encountered black ice with water ON it? THAT is the most fun of all, and a serious “code brown” moment. The fun of living in a cold coastal environment most of my life until I smartened up and moved waaaaay south.
Yes I’ve experienced wet black ice; it’s basically the odds are stacked against you and hope your inertia is pointed in an advantageous direction…
I grew up in the wet slush/ice of Pennsylvania Appalachian winters and now live in the Rockies, so winter driving isn’t new.
“Human driving?” I think his car wrote this tweet. Also, I believe the correct terminology for messages on X is no longer tweet, but X-crement.
I’m sure they aren’t tweets anymore, but Musky boy has ranted many times about how it’s not twitter anymore and it pisses him off royally that people still call it that, so it will forever be twitter and tweets to me.
I want to say I’ll start calling Twitter “X” when Musk stops deadnaming his daughter…
…but I still call RAM Trucks “Dodge Ram” so maybe not even then.
You know, if he were to take some dramatic steps like that to be a less terrible person, I would be fully willing to stop calling it twitter out of spite, and instead just do it out of habit. Result might be the same, but the motivation is completely different!
Yep. I’m with Nlpnt: as long as he deadnames his daughter, I’m going to deadname his website.
He still uses the husk of Twitter, so I’m pretty sure that Grok edited the post.
Yes, hello, I am the supervisor of this product I pay thousands of dollars for the privilege of supervising.
People typically overestimate their own driving abilities and therefore end up do stupid things. Weird to see someone similarly overestimate Tesla’s driving ability while probably fairly accurately estimating their own.
I think the ego element remains, it’s just that this individual has melded his personality with his car’s.
YOU’RE NOT MY SUPERVISOR!!
Are we sure this is a real person and not just Elon having Grok tweeting in support of “FSD”?
It is important to realize that X payouts reward engagement, and posts like this that inspire thousands of angry reactions are literal cash in the bank for the people who write them.
It’s a more direct and brazen descendant of ‘click-bait’ articles, with the same results, only amplified and sped up.
Much of our discourse unfortunately follows from this truth.
I am glad I scrolled before commenting. This is more eloquent than what I would have written.
Yeah I would highly recommend everyone avoid clicking on this guy’s profile for that reason.
I nearly did just to verify that there was evidence of this being you know, a real human being. I’m going to take Torch’s word for it.
Aaaaaaaand this is one of many reasons I got rid of my account and never looked back.
If something’s so stupid that it escapes containment, I recommend screenshotting it instead. Can’t delete a screenshot when the entire internet mocks you for being stupid and irresponsible.
He appears to be of the generation that never looks up from their smartphones, so yeah.
We can stop claiming that phone addiction is a generational thing now, actually. Society in general is just Like That™️ now.
Meh, I’m verging on being An Old. Half the time I forget my phone in my bedroom and don’t realize it until 3/4s through the day.
Of course, I am sitting in front of an infinitely better screen all day long, most days. Baffles me that the kids want to use a tiny screen with an f’ing *miserable* keyboard more than absolutely necessary.
HR people touting the benefits of hot desking clearly don’t realise how much more productive and safer it is for me to have my two 4K monitors and ergonomic keyboard and mouse.
Using a phone makes some things so much harder than they need to be.
Hot desking is an absolute abomination unless the situation is that hardly anyone actually works in the office. My company ofice has a section for it for that reason, but everyone who works in the office more than very occasionally has a cube or an actual office of their own. In our old office I had a desk, and I was only there about 5 days a year. But we downsized post-pandemic since only ~15 people regularly work there anymore.
Absolutely terrible when I have to work onsite with clients who have bought into this madness. Cubes are bad enough.
Yeah the assumed generational divide on smartphone addiction has been dead for a while now. Most of the boomers I know are absolutely fucking GLUED to the things. My wife’s grandparents act like they’re reenacting the ITYSL Barley Tonight sketch (I have so much stuff on my phone!) every time we see them.
For people who become inactive, it’s just 18 hours a day of Facebook rants or AI slop. Fox News would be worried if it wasn’t on in the background.
Don’t get me wrong, most people these days have severe boundary issues with their phones. But the olds have definitely caught up with the rest. And even worse, don’t seem to have any idea whether or not what they’re looking at is real.
I consider myself very fortunate to have parents that didn’t get into social media and get roped in to all that, and the only news stations they typically put on are local stations. But they do tend to sit in front of the TV on one of their devices often enough that my sister throws an “iPad kid!” dig at them whenever that happens.
My parents are pretty good, all things considered. They mostly back up their talk about not being screen-bound. Mostly.
My MIL spends nearly all day every day with cable news or a procedural on the TV, with her laptop open, while looking at her phone. She’s retired, but not actually that old (early 60’s).
She’s made multiple comments about how kids these days are glued to screens. Whilst sitting in front of THREE SCREENS. While my daughter is playing with Lego and my son is spinning records. So yeah, the hypocrisy gets a big ol’ eyeroll from me.
The biggest lie in this dork’s story is the fact he has people who like him enough to be in a car with him.
/thread
Can we also play that out? Bunch of ppl in a car, driver suddenly says “OMG it’s stopped working. Literally, like if I don’t push the peddle it slows down.”
Passengers respond how exactly?
Probably with a blank stare.
“It’s pedal, not peddle.”
–passenger, maybe
Touché.
I would cuff him upside the head. Reality is that I would not ride with someone like that to start with. I have a couple of friends who I simply will NOT ride in a car with. If we are going somewhere together, I am driving, my car or theirs, doesn’t matter.