Current evidence points to increased attention spans caused by long-term lead poisoning.
This message posted by a co-worker responding to letters traced on her back with a finger
Nice. Good job. It’s a dying art, I tell ya…
Huh?
Sent via two soup cans tied together with string
Yeah, I’m not talking about bullshitting as much as the specific topic/task things. I just happen to be one of those people who prefers communicating in writing to communicating in person. I’ve got a coworker who’s particularly… tech-ignorant, shall we say, and he has a habit of doing things like coming to my desk with changes to a PPT deck and reading off every single one to me instead of just handing them to me. :smack:
SfG’s got a valid point. Sometimes written communication is just far preferable - especially when there are instructions involved. I love paper trails. Not really, but it is a good CYA mechanism.
However, I do love texting. The earlier example with sonic is very similar to how my husband and I communicate. I don’t want to talk to him - I gotta talk to him when I go home.
Exactly. And even in the best office environment, where there’s no need for the CYA aspects, there’s still the problem of, I’m going to have to write down everything you tell me anyway, so why not just write it down to begin with?
Sure…that’s part of the infancy aspect. The ‘technology’ is not only the phone, not only the software or the communications, but also how we use it, how we view it, how we shape it (and how it shapes us). And not just from a ‘I can do X’ perspective, but from the social aspect of ‘Can I do X at this time, or will that cause issues?’. Think about the car. In the early days, people just drove wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted, without road signs (or, in many cases, roads), signal lights or really anything else. They drove drunk if that’s what they wanted to do, parked where they wanted, did as they pleased. Eventually, however, norms of use emerged (or were formally set down in regulations or local ordinances).
-XT
<IT CROWD>
“Goddamn electric sexpants!”
</IT CROWD>
Posted by my cleaning lady. Don’t you have servants to do your every tweeting?
They’ve gone wireless too ya’know.
It’s all about attention. We’re still just monkeys sitting around grooming each other to keep our social network solid. Now I can get your attention, your text, your comment, your link, with a great deal less effort than before. And there are more of you grooming me, and you are farther from me and connected to many other people, my social network is now a world wide web of monkeys picking nits out of my back fur…
So, we can use the speech-to-text interface to dictate a text message and send it to a landline via the automated text-to-speech interface that Bell provides…
What?
Are you saying my social network is full of bugs?
:: posted via RFC1149-compliant carrier-pigeon link ::
The first time someone pulls out their blackberry or phone while we’re in a social situation is the very last social situation that person will ever find themselves in with me. I have zero tolerance for that kind of behavior and all the people that I care about spending time with know it and seem to be able to survive not fucking with their electronic toys for a few hours. The only exception is if my boyfriend’s young son calls, but he (boyfriend) knows that if any greeting comes out of his mouth other than “hey Tyler” he will be left standing there alone.
and converted to digital signals and are sent via microwaves and converted back to digital and then to fiber optics and then to digital and then WiFi and then to your device.
And then run through a speech generator to tell you the message, because you are texting someone else when the message comes in.
I have a Facebook page because my wife suggested I get one. My postings must be one every few months. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hear mundane little things that I may be doing or thinking about … {looks around} … like this. 
Good for you, wookinpanub, and btw, love the name, and I say good for anyone else who identifies themselves as the “top monkey” in their lives and doesn’t put up with other groomers popping into any tete-a-tete’s.
But, for better or worse, I think that most of us have learned to roll our eyes and fume at the most or sit (showing more politeness than perhaps is due our partner/friend/co-worker/waiter) and wait with a smile at the least, while someone answers an e-mail/text/phone call on our time.
I think what this boils down to is the convergence of a new heightened sense of our own worth as people (We think we’re not monkeys anymore.)–Hey! You can’t groom someone else while I’m grooming you!!! I’m a person over here!!!—and this new technology that allows the other person to be groomed, verbally, textually, whatever, AS OFTEN AS THEY WISH IT, by a super-group of monkeys including distant relatives, friends, acquaintances, co-workers, maybe a creepy out of shape 45 year old man pretending to be a high school senior varsity football player…
What I’m saying is, is it rude? Yes, we can all see that it is, especially when it’s someone else doing it, according to what we decided was rude before the technology was born. But is it worth fighting, is it stoppable? Not at all. We NEED to get all the attention that we each feel we need, to our own particular wants we’ll all always be true to this, and there will always be that monkey who’s fur is just chock full of fleas ticks and lice.
Let’s groom him, shall we? In more ways than on it’s for the greater good, I think.
But not while driving. I’m for laws banning that. My kids are on or near those roads and soon they’ll be too busy texting while on their skateboards/bikes/girlfriend to watch out for a distracted driver.
I really wish that was true.
Please don’t speak for me. I don’t care in the slightest if someone talks on the phone or texts in my presence. I’m boring. I’d find something better to do, too.
At work some people will send text messages asking if you’re at your desk so they can call you. Sheesh !!
Give a kid a hammer and everything becomes a nail.
I’m trying to come up with a similar phrase for texting.
Why, thank you!I found the rest of your post quite delightful, though I’m not sure if you think I have more fleas, ticks and lice than most monkeys. Also you really must teach your kids not to text whilst they’re on their girlfriend:p
Lest you all think I’m some kind of intolerant diva, I really am pretty easy going and tolerant of all kinds of stuff but this is just my personal sticking point and I haven’t had to lay the smack down on that many people because I’m usually drawn to the kind of people that woudln’t exhibit that kind of behavior to begin with.
Last weekend I went to a burlesque show in NYC as part of a bachelor party. It seemed that a third of the people there had their noses in some glowing blue screen. Taking pictures, looking at pictures, typing away. Is a woman taking off her clothes not compelling enough for you?
I feel like the last person in America who looks forward to those times when I am not connected. 8-10 hours a day is enough. I didn’t go for having the phone on my ear all day in eternal readiness, either. I guess on some level I can understand the appeal of its immediacy, watching your Twitter feed or Facebook page constantly change itself in real time, but I can’t imagine it won’t get boring.
Meanwhile, my new hobby is to follow people around who are live-twittering events and note what they are doing on a clay tablet with a pointed stick.