Let's Stop Judging People for Using Phones Outdoors

In 2008, I ran a bunch of the Wicklow Way using this Nokia ‘phone’ with just a photograph of the OS map. It went about as well as expected, considering the technology!

Even the inspiration we get from top outdoor athletes to tackle new adventures has been brought to us with the help of technology. Look at professional alpinists Adrian Ballinger and Cory Richards. When the duo made summit attempts of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen in 2016 and 2017, they documented each challenge, setback, and eventual victory via Snapchat, with the hashtag #EverestNoFilter. Their photos, video messages, and real-time updates—which also appeared on Facebook, Instagram, Strava, and YouTube—made for gripping storytelling and a passenger-side view of climbing the world’s highest peak that few had seen before. Thanks to it, amateur mountaineers had fresh motivation to pursue their own epics.

With these myriad benefits, the traditional premise that outdoor recreation is best experienced with only your own senses, sans phones, screens, and gadgets, seems deeply outdated. 

From “Let's Stop Judging People for Using Phones Outdoors”.

As referred to in my earlier post about using watches and smartphones while out in the hills, it’s easy to stay stuck to the old ways that we need to depend on a map and compass. It’s messy in this transition era as the devices become more and more capable, however it is the future….

Reference

Anderson, Z., Lusk, C. and Jones, M. D. (2017) ‘Towards understanding hikers’ technology preferences’, in Proceedings of the 2017 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and Proceedings of the 2017 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers on  - UbiComp ’17. the 2017 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and  the 2017 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers, Maui, Hawaii: ACM Press, pp. 1–4. doi: 10.1145/3123024.3123089.