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Old 06-20-2013, 08:51 AM
 
12,535 posts, read 15,173,486 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Coolhand68 View Post
People said the same thing about television 50 years ago. They called it the boob-tube and blamed television for robbing people of their intellect and creativity.
It take it you've never seen Honey Boo Boo?

I have never used Instagram, I don't spend much time on Facebook, and I only use Twitter to keep up with professional groups and organizations. However, I met my SO through a hobby BBS and several "real life" friends through none other then MySpace years ago, so I do see the benefits of the Internet for socializing. It's great for initial contacts. Then you can take it from there in person.

But beyond that, I wouldn't want to go back to life before the Internet either: It has made my work exponentially easier. Back in 1992, I spent a lot of time at the Library of Congress making myself seasick looking at microfiche, and spent a heck of a lot of time poring through phone books, dialing 411, and explaining myself to receptionists. Now LinkedIn and the Internet make it very easy to find people I'd like to talk to and arrange for mutually beneficial times for a phone call. I just email them directly. The Internet opened up a new market and new opportunities for my work, as well. I've even been paid to tweet!
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Old 06-20-2013, 09:09 AM
 
13,498 posts, read 18,138,198 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by D. Scott View Post
It is having this effect. Many of us text, Facebook or twitter instead of talking on the phone or in person. A phone call or even a handwritten letter is still a truly personal way to communicate. To boot, We have become glued to our smartphones. You see dates, groups of people out having dinner and they are all on their smartphones. We communicate more but talk less, And I have long said this.
I would say that the current social environment is exactly the opposite: We talk more, but communicate less.
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Old 06-20-2013, 09:11 AM
 
Location: Back in the gym...Yo Adrian!
10,172 posts, read 20,742,717 times
Reputation: 19861
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lilac110 View Post
It take it you've never seen Honey Boo Boo?

I have never used Instagram, I don't spend much time on Facebook, and I only use Twitter to keep up with professional groups and organizations. However, I met my SO through a hobby BBS and several "real life" friends through none other then MySpace years ago, so I do see the benefits of the Internet for socializing. It's great for initial contacts. Then you can take it from there in person.

But beyond that, I wouldn't want to go back to life before the Internet either: It has made my work exponentially easier. Back in 1992, I spent a lot of time at the Library of Congress making myself seasick looking at microfiche, and spent a heck of a lot of time poring through phone books, dialing 411, and explaining myself to receptionists. Now LinkedIn and the Internet make it very easy to find people I'd like to talk to and arrange for mutually beneficial times for a phone call. I just email them directly. The Internet opened up a new market and new opportunities for my work, as well. I've even been paid to tweet!
Haha! Honestly I haven't. Whatever television I watch now is typically Discovery Channel/Nat Geo, IFC, TMC, some sports and an occasional sitcom like Big Bang Theory or Maron. I've tuned out the tabloid celebrity culture that has engulfed our society. It was either that or pull an "Elvis" on my TV and waste perfectly good bullets.

I can't tell you how many precious hours of Christmas shopping I have spared myself by not having to leave my house to shop at crowded malls. Just for that alone, I am grateful for the internet.
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Old 06-20-2013, 10:18 AM
 
9,238 posts, read 22,840,492 times
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In terms of verbal, face-to-face, communication, I think there are ways technology has both facilitated communication and harmed it.

But I am really concerned about the deterioration of written communication. There seems to be less and less regard for proper grammar, punctuation, usage, and spelling. I even find employees entering their supposedly professional documentation in "text speak." I work with Master's level people who can't even tell the difference between "there," "their," and "they're."

Just the fact that many respond to my concern with "what's the big deal?" proves my point.
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Old 06-20-2013, 10:23 AM
 
17,815 posts, read 25,574,545 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Dissenter View Post
They may have been in a convo that they had enough sense to not say out loud in dront of their parents.

I have seen the same thing Kathryn Aragon described without any parents around. Saw two young guys around 19 sit across from each other in a restaurant both staring at their phones.

In fact if you pay attention and look around the next time you eat out you will see this is quite common.

I saw 4 guys who all worked for the local county sitting at Taco Bell and all 4 of them were texting on the their phones the whole time.

Why go out to eat if you're not going to converse with the people at your table? Eat by yourself and stare into your phone.
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Old 06-20-2013, 10:25 AM
 
17,815 posts, read 25,574,545 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KathrynAragon View Post
I'm quite sure that's the case. It doesn't make it any more palatable, however.

In fact, it's rude.

After that, we made the rule that when we're sitting at the table together, no cell phones are allowed to be used!

It's rude and it shows a lack of social skills.

Many of these kids are going to have a hard time in interviews, they don't know how to make eye contact and don't have the ability to have an intelligent conversation.
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Old 06-20-2013, 02:34 PM
 
Location: So Cal
52,007 posts, read 52,457,444 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Coolhand68 View Post
Haha! Honestly I haven't. Whatever television I watch now is typically Discovery Channel/Nat Geo, IFC, TMC, some sports and an occasional sitcom like Big Bang Theory or Maron. I've tuned out the tabloid celebrity culture that has engulfed our society. It was either that or pull an "Elvis" on my TV and waste perfectly good bullets.

I can't tell you how many precious hours of Christmas shopping I have spared myself by not having to leave my house to shop at crowded malls. Just for that alone, I am grateful for the internet.
You got that right man. I haven't gone shopping at Christmas in the mall for yrs now. It's a beautiful thing.

As others have said, it's all in how the technology is used. I've been beating this drum about gadgets destroying interpersonal relationships for several yrs. now.

I too find it annoying when people can't pull their face out of the phone, especially when in situations where you are supposed to interact with others, such as having a few beers at a local sports bar.

While people like to blame it all on younger people, it's not entirely them, I see 40 yr olds doing it too, granted it's is far far more common for the 20's something set to be doing it.

All is not entirely lost, as a young guy I work with, about 24 or so, was just bitching about the same thing, he went out with a few buddies to go have a few beers after work and he said that four of them were sitting at a table and everyone had their noses buried in their IPhones.

He was like, why the hell did I even bother to show up.... LOL
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Old 06-20-2013, 04:25 PM
 
Location: Wonderland
67,652 posts, read 60,572,966 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by seain dublin View Post
I have seen the same thing Kathryn Aragon described without any parents around. Saw two young guys around 19 sit across from each other in a restaurant both staring at their phones.

In fact if you pay attention and look around the next time you eat out you will see this is quite common.

I saw 4 guys who all worked for the local county sitting at Taco Bell and all 4 of them were texting on the their phones the whole time.

Why go out to eat if you're not going to converse with the people at your table? Eat by yourself and stare into your phone.
'


Bingo.

This is a pet peeve of mine. And even though it irritates me, it's also easy to get sucked into that mode. Recently, my husband and I just quit taking our phone into restaurants, or into places that we're going mainly just to be together. It's too intrusive - constantly dinging or alerting us to texts, voice mails, emails, weather alerts, news events, etc. It's not that I want to disable the notifications - it's just that there are TIMES when I don't give a rat's ass about that stuff. I have more important things to do - like spend quality time with the people I'm WITH, instead of non quality time with the people who aren't around.

I love technology and am eternally grateful for it. We travel a lot and I can't imagine life without that GPS! That being said, I've ALWAYS traveled a lot and managed somehow to find my way everywhere before GPS or even MapQuest.

I have a tablet that I read books on, and take with me when I'm on a road trip, so I don't have to lug my laptop around (har! Just a few years ago a laptop was a lightweight luxury compared to a desktop PC!).

I met my husband on Match.com, for pete's sake! I enjoy interacting on this forum, because I like the exposure to different lifestyles, values, ideas, and personalities. And I really like Facebook and Instagram, because I have grown kids in Guam, England, Austin, and brothers in Ohio and Arkansas, and cousins scattered from California to NYC. We all post a lot of photos and my grown kids and I "talk" on FB just about every day. Twenty years ago when I moved overseas, I was lucky to get to talk with my parents for 15 minutes once a month - it was too expensive to talk more often.

But my parents and I wrote letters back and forth every week - and now we have several boxes of letters that hopefully will be interesting to someone down the line. I also wrote my grandmother at least once a month throughout my entire childhood (so did my parents) and she saved those letters. Reading them is like taking a step back in history. We don't have anything like that now. I just have a feeling that we're missing out on something that could have been a treasure for our descendants.

In fact, along those lines, just yesterday and today I decided to work on a photo project. I got online (WalMart's website -even though I hate WalMart!), and uploaded tons of photos and ordered a variety of prints in different sizes. I have thousands of family and vacation photos online, but hardly any printed from the past ten years or so. So I'm going through them and printing the best ones. You can even order hardback, customized books with your photos and captions in them, for next to nothing. They're ready that same day. That's pretty amazing. I decided to print a lot of photos, and make some of those books, to give to my kids and grandkids.

Something tangible, you know? Something that's NOT in "cyberspace" but that they can actually hold, touch, sleep with under their pillow if they want to.

I think we're in danger of losing some precious elements of our society.
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Old 06-20-2013, 04:49 PM
 
Location: Windham County, VT
10,855 posts, read 6,349,322 times
Reputation: 22048
From "Hamlet's Blackberry: A Practical Philosophy For Building A Good Life In The Digital Age"
by William Powers, 2010.
Quote:
Originally Posted by book excerpt
pg.54: "The gadgets and brand names change over time, but the tendency remains the same: away from the few and the near, toward the many and the far.
Parents, the magazine [Time] concluded, should teach their kids 'that there's life beyond the screen'.
In fact, most parents don't need to be told that, and many have been trying for years.
They aren't having much success because our thinking has never gotten beyond the vague notion that 'there's life' of some unspecified sort out there that's good for you, kid, trust us, and you'd better go find some now.
This is the old eat-your-brussels-sprouts argument that's never worked for any generation, and it's a particularly weak approach to this problem.
Kids aren't stupid, and they're especially good at spotting double standards.
Everything they see and hear around them tells them that the screen is where all the fun and action are and where they need to go to thrive and succeed."
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Old 06-20-2013, 05:21 PM
 
874 posts, read 1,261,236 times
Reputation: 1603
Don't mean to sound rude, but if you can't think of five people who can hold a conversation in person, I think the problem may lie somewhere else...
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