Yes. .
Not being a ‘trendy’ is something you should wear as a badge of honour. It’s certainly no reason for self doubt.
I was perfectly happy with my little flip phone and basic cable tv. Then they said the flip phone was no longer feasible - they put a smart phone in my hand, and that was it. No instructions. I can make calls and receive calls, but that’s about it. I HATE that thing…I still have basic cable because I live alone and no one to tell me about/set up netflix and hudu and streaming - I’m lost.
And who are all these ‘celebrities’ now? I’m not just an old woman yelling at a cloud, I have a young friend who says she can’t tell one actor from another. She says they all look alike: ‘generic man-face’. (she can identify women easier, but isn’t that interested in movies or tv, though she goes regularly and enjoys superheroes, etc. and is a great video gamer.). My husband used to say, “I think I’ve lived too long”, and went back to reading his dead-tree books, lol.
I think you are overestimating common interests to some extent. Most people are not foodies - but most people also do not see food as simply fuel , by which I mean the people I know who would happily eat People Chow. Most people are somewhere in the middle, and like to try new recipes , although not necessarily complicated ones and would like to be able to read restaurant reviews - because even if you don’t go to restaurants for enjoyment , you will end up at restaurants for other reasons. Most people don’t actually like crowds - they just put up with them and the way you are different really is only in what you ae willing to give up to avoid crowds.
And some things are not really a matter of interest - I’m not particularly interested in my phone or tablet. What I am interested in is what they can do - mostly when I am travelling. With a phone/tablet I can watch Netflix when I’m stuck at the airport for hours , or on the plane and at the hotel. And I don’t have to either spend a week or two away from email , this board and the newspapers* or bring a laptop with me. I don’t need to bring a flip-phone and a camera and a navigation device when I go on vacation.
* My husband still wants dead-tree newspapers so we have home delivery - which comes with a digital subscription.
Never mind
Somehow we are miscommunicating. Of course I understand much that cellphones can do. They are very useful tools for certain uses. But I don’t understand why so many people seem to want to do so many things on their phones, or why they feel a need to be “distracted” by their phones instead of existing in their meatspace.
It amazes me that people walk down streets/through airports with their phones out. Or that they feel a desire to FaceTime/speak/text with people when out and about. Or promptly respond to every beep their phone makes. The BEST virtual things on my phone are generally of less interest than pretty un-of-the-mill stuff in the real world around me. I am generally fine with my thoughts, without requiring virtual prompts or distractions.
I do not like the small screen size, so I have no interest in watching vids or reading books on phones. I can keep my calendar and keep notes on paper. And I always bring reading material. And I do not find the interfaces with so much tech intuitive. I have never encountered a book I was unable to open. But I have encountered many a website I was unable to open, or on which I could not find the most basic info I desired.
Again, the stuff on your phone is the same stuff as on your PC. And you are sitting around using your PC right now, so it must be of interest to you.
Musically, most definitely. Understand, I’ve listened to some pretty avant-garde stuff in my time (so this post is solely focused on the more underground stuff, and not anything mainstream). But so often when I see a link to a song/video/album, I’ll hear the most amateurishly executed, disjointed, unimaginative and slavishly retro stuff imaginable. The art of songcraft seems to be a fading notion anymore, including but not limited to hook-making, tension buildup and release, artful dynamics, and intricate and propulsive rhythm sections. Even my old avant-garde stuff still often incorporated such elements even as they pushed the boundaries of texture, rhythm, and originality. Now everybody just dumps a bunch of notes and beats into a blender, and the most tasteless ooze then seeps out, where nothing interesting happens for 3-5-10-20 minutes; far too often I get the idea that it’s all being done insincerely too, pure poseurism. It’s even worse when acts that used to have those elements in abundance seem to have completely lost the ability to incorporate them anymore.
My batting average when seeking out new stuff is, optimistically, about 1%. Yet if I mention this on any music boards, I’ll inevitably be told (A) I am just an inflexible old fart who needs to grow out of his old Beatles records, and (B) I’m not looking hard enough, and if I can’t find anything I am the problem, not the musicians in question. Yet I’ll read people praising this shite to the high heavens (esp. if it is an older act which has lost touch with its former excursions), and I simply cannot grasp what it is that they like about it. [Note they often are NOT forthcoming about any details, at all, when they do]
Here’s one new act that I have gotten into, a psych-prog outfit with a female singer which has staked out some pretty novel territory (this just started up randomly on my daily music list as I finished my post too).
I’ve been out of sync with the mainstream for my whole adult life. I was always a odd kid. I was interested in the same things then as I am now – animals and plants, art and writing. The Back To The Land part of the general ‘alternative’ movement was what I embraced … but when it was abandoned as cultural thing, I never quit. Pop music, celebrities, fast food, tv shows, cars, sports, fashion, and about anything else similar – I could never summon any attention for them. I never had a television after I left home – sometimes I didn’t even have electricity, and I lived out of a backpack for years – but I didn’t follow the news or trends any other way either. It’s only in recent years that I started watching streamed tv series and reading NYT online.
The one way I am “mainstream” is being a churchgoer, which was a midlife change from being vaguely buddhist. I treasure this link I have to so much American culture, since I have so very few. Even if my personal beliefs aren’t all that much like those of the mainstream, I share a lot of the vocabulary and activities. When someone has felt separate for one’s whole life, it is really nice to ‘belong’ somewhere, in some form.
Are you interested in the arts? If so, which ones, specifically?
What is your definition of “healthy”?
I’m very interested in certain types of music. And I am more interested in reading about many aspects of representational arts, film, and theater than sports. And I would rather read about the local high schools’ drama, debate teams, clubs …, than competitive sports.
Healthy in general, or in terms of PBJ? For PBJ, The highest fiber bread at the store w/ blueberry jam and crunchy all peanuts (<1% salt) PB.
In general - eat more fruits and veggies, limit animal protein, generally avoid simple carbs, less processed food is generally better, lots of fiber, less sugar/salt/fat, fewer additives. That sorta thing.
I guess so - I wouldn’t consider using my phone or a tablet as a tool to be the same as being interested in technology. " Being interested in technology" sounds to me like the modern equivalent of my grandfather, who was the first in the neighborhood to get a TV, the first to get a Super 8 camera, the first to get a camcorder and so on .
Those people with the phones in the airport - if they couldn’t distract themselves with the phone, they would be doing it with something else. An iPod , a CD player , a cassette player, a transistor radio, the TV screens in the airport ( and didn’t they used to have coin-op ones?) Or a book - because whether I am reading a book, newspaper or magazine on my phone or tablet or my Kindle or one printed on paper, I am being distracted instead of existing in my meatspace. You prefer to distract yourself by different means than a lot of other people - but that’s not nearly the same as being out of touch .
I’m sitting around using my PC right now, because I’m getting paid to sit here and work on my work computer. I prefer the interface on computer, and do not bring my laptop with me when I am out of my phone.
And no, I do not have nearly the same stuff on my phone as on my PC. But fine. You perceive and interact with your phone differently than I do.
Well, I only wanted to make my OP so long…
Again, you seem more concerned with my specific word choice in writing a forum post rather than a dissertation. I even put out of touch in quotes. So, using your airport example, I wonder why I prefer to distract myself by different means than other people.
I’m really not concerned with your word choice - I clearly didn’t understand what you were asking. There probably isn’t an answer for why you prefer to distract yourself by different means than other people - just like there probably isn’t an answer for why I prefer butter pecan ice cream when more people prefer chocolate.
I mean you have access to the same things. You are sitting in front of a sessile general-purpose computer posting on The Straight Dope. I am sitting in front of a mobile gereral-purpise computer posting on the Straight Dope. You are over-emphasizing the distinction that one of the computers is smaller than the other one.
Exactly!!! Phones are a piss poor replacement for computers. A 3" screen? Seriously?! Condensed everything? I can perhaps understand kids who haven’t got the money to afford both using them so as to be on equal footing (so to speak) as their friends.
As for those that can’t go literally anywhere without phone in hand, well that’s just sad. And generally for the most part, rude. The further decline of civilization.
That their near primary purpose is a tracking/monitoring device would be another thread. People have come to take stolen privacy as a given.
Team BP represent!
You…you think modern phones have 3 inch screens?
When my kids were younger, having a cell phone with me got me to the hospital where they were taken hours before I would have otherwise heard. Since then I’ve made a point to ensure that I’m never without my phone. I don’t get many calls, but some of the ones I do get are very important. Having a phone iwth me allows me to leave the house instead of waiting around a land line. I am old enough to remember mailing out resumes and cover letters and then sitting in my apartment all day in case someone wanted to call me for an interview. So, for me, a portable phone is a miracle.
But I’m with the OP on a lot of the other things Except I’m not mystified by it. (except for “video gaming,” that mystifies me. Neither my wife, myself, or any of our five kids have ever done it. I’m not even completely sure what “it” is. You get a character and go build a city or shoot people?)