I see this all the time. Even at work. Those in management are given an iPhone. Everyone carries their laptops with them wherever they go. When I first started working there. I couldnt figure out why everyone walked around with their laptop, or had two phones laying on their desks. Meetings and conversations are constantly interrupted by vibrating phones, or chirping laptops.
Times change. Go back 40 years ago. Look at a picture of people on a subway. Almost everyone sitting down, and many standing up are reading the morning newspaper or a magazine.
Times change. Go back 40 years ago. At a sporting event there would be person after person with a large program in their hands, checking current stats of their favorite players and teams.
Times change. Go back 40 years ago. On a car trip, kids in the back seat playing a travel game, mom in the front seat reading Redbook, dad listening to the radio.
Times change. Go back 40 years ago. A business meeting. Tons of paper, secretaries running in and out with updated information and reports.
Times change. Go back 20 years ago. I've certainly had my fair share of people on the streets of New York City run into me becuase they are walking and reading a newspaper at the same time.
Reverend Revelant wrote: Times change. Go back 40 years ago. Look at a picture of people on a subway. Almost everyone sitting down, and many standing up are reading the morning newspaper or a magazine.
Times change. Go back 40 years ago. At a sporting event there would be person after person with a large program in their hands, checking current stats of their favorite players and teams.
Times change. Go back 40 years ago. On a car trip, kids in the back seat playing a travel game, mom in the front seat reading Redbook, dad listening to the radio.
Times change. Go back 40 years ago. A business meeting. Tons of paper, secretaries running in and out with updated information and reports.
Times change. Go back 20 years ago. I've certainly had my fair share of people on the streets of New York City run into me becuase they are walking and reading a newspaper at the same time.
Nothings changed but the technology.
It's one thing to be engrossed in a cell phone or Ipad when you're not with friends or family, it's another thing when that technology is more interesting than the people and places that make life better. The new movie "Her" may not be so hard to believe in the coming years.
Nobody that matters wrote: When someone I'm talking with answers their phone, I leave. If that means they're stuck with the bill for lunch, it's their own damn fault.
Technology is not a valid excuse for being rude.
I feel bad even looking at my phone to see who's calling if I'm in the middle of a conversation. How did we all survive 25 years ago when we couldn't be contacted until we got home?
Rick wrote: It's one thing to be engrossed in a cell phone or Ipad when you're not with friends or family, it's another thing when that technology is more interesting than the people and places that make life better. The new movie "She" may not be so hard to believe in the coming years.
Rick. I agree, it's another thing. And a new thing. And it's not going to change or revert back, at least not for the foreseeable future.
We are at a paradigm shift. A leap. It happened with the invention of the printing press, the telegraph, photography, the telephone, computers and so on and so on.
All our complaining about the good old days is not going to change anything. Socializing, socialization, communication, education, politicization... it's all changing due to communicative technologies and access to information.
If you were alive 50 years from now, you wouldn't recognize the world.
And the bottom line is there is nothing wrong with it. If you want a real scare read Neil Stephenson's "Diamond Age." He was predicting this and more over 15 years ago.
I feel bad even looking at my phone to see who's calling if I'm in the middle of a conversation. How did we all survive 25 years ago when we couldn't be contacted until we got home?
