# Why do people use technology to avoid live contact when humans are by nature social animals? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 21, 2014, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302 "2014-06-21T16:42:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302/1 "2014-06-21T16:42:14Z")
In an [essay in today’s Washington Post](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2014/06/19/millennials-are-right-voice-mails-are-terrible/), Alexendra Petri decries, perhaps somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the use of smartphones for actually making voice calls. She says > [@](#): > > Phones are actually devices that you use to avoid talking to people, and anyone who thinks otherwise is surely older than 30. > > To be frank, a phone is just something I carry around so that if I ever wonder about anything, I can answer my question immediately without having to talk to a person. That is what it is best for: avoiding human contact. At the dinner table, it is what I look at instead of my family. On the bus, it is what I gaze intently at instead of the human beings around me. But even if she is being ironic (and I’m not entirely sure), we see this behavior all the time. So I am wondering why human beings have come to be manipulated by this technology to change basic social behavior that seems so deeply ingrained in how we have evolved. Why do people want to avoid human contact when it is essential to our well being? ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302/2 "2014-06-21T16:43:59Z")
People don’t want to avoid human contact. They want to avoid human contact _with you_. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302/3 "2014-06-21T16:48:58Z")
I think humans use technology more aften as a safer easier means of making human contact, not face to face but still communicating. ---
**Author:** ![CoastalMaineiac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e8c25b/32.png) [@CoastalMaineiac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoastalMaineiac)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302/4 "2014-06-21T16:57:15Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > In an [essay in today’s Washington Post](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2014/06/19/millennials-are-right-voice-mails-are-terrible/), Alexendra Petri decries, perhaps somewhat tongue-in-cheek, the use of smartphones for actually making voice calls. She says > But even if she is being ironic (and I’m not entirely sure), we see this behavior all the time. So I am wondering why human beings have come to be manipulated by this technology to change basic social behavior that seems so deeply ingrained in how we have evolved. Why do people want to avoid human contact when it is essential to our well being? I don’t know. Why are you here, when you could be out socializing in real life? I’ve always liked online discussions (even though I often appear the fool, I learn a lot from places like this). When someone posts to an online message board, an immediate response is not required. It enables you to put more thought into what you “say.” A lot of what is said offline is simple smalltalk, which I don’t find all that enriching. But when I come to sites like the Dope, I learn stuff. That means my own ignorance is whittled away, bit by bit; there is value to me in that. I can’t say the same for 90% of my offline conversations. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302/5 "2014-06-21T17:03:51Z")
I am still astonished that my wife can press a few buttons, and then speak directly to her cousin in Tasmania. I don’t often send or recieve texts, but I think that they are ideal for information type calls - See you in the pub @ 6. For conversations with a distant relative,a voice connection, possibly supplemented by viewing as well, is far better. Conversations flow, unlike texts, and sometimes things are better said than written. Especially in txt spk. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302/6 "2014-06-21T17:21:06Z")
technology may be socially remote though it allows you to be social remotely. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302/7 "2014-06-21T17:24:26Z")
There are two answers I have. There was an op-ed piece in the NYTimes a week or so ago that claimed that kids would rather be out socializing but their helicopter parents won’t allow them to go out evenings, so they text faute de mieux. The other answer is that companies generally hate their customers so much that they insist on your getting through long holds, then try to deal with the most unpleasant/clueless/whatever phone reps that I try to avoid that at all costs. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302/8 "2014-06-21T17:32:34Z")
For people walking around with their faces buried in their smartphones: Artificial stimuli can be more powerful than natural ones, social contact included. Hook each person up to their personal opium pump, leave them to regulate their own dosage, and see how social they’ll be. Same thing. ---
**Author:** ![GiantRat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@GiantRat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GiantRat)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302/9 "2014-06-21T18:34:08Z")
This is actually a subject I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Having worked for (far too many) really large firms that rely on remote communications (text, conference calls, email, etc) while we sit like hermits working in our homes, most of us _hoi polloi_ find ourselves more alienated than anything else. Many of us have reached the point of dreading the chime of an incoming text or email and the ring of the phone, while we find direct human contact a refreshing change of pace. On occasion, I simply pull the plug and go “dark” for a few hours to get rid of the nagging insistence of pseudo comms. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302/10 "2014-06-21T20:22:26Z")
This is probably better suited to IMHO than GQ. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302/11 "2014-06-21T20:23:19Z")
> [@CoastalMaineiac](#): > > I don’t know. Why are you here, when you could be out socializing in real life? Because I don’t have your phone number. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302/12 "2014-06-21T20:24:56Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > This is probably better suited to IMHO than GQ. > > Colibri > General Questions Moderator I won’t quibble with that, but I was hoping to get a factual answer based on sociological/anthropological study rather than just getting opinions from everyone about their personal experience. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302/13 "2014-06-21T20:28:27Z")
To be clear, my question isn’t why people interact online instead of interacting with \*different \*people in person. Online you can interact with people with whom you would otherwise have no way to contact or even know they exist. I know a few dozen local musicians that I see in person but I can contact millions of them online. The question is why do people use technology to avoid personal interaction with people with whom they would otherwise see in person or talk on the phone. This is more about texting vs. voice calls. ---
**Author:** ![CatherineZeta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@CatherineZeta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CatherineZeta)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302/14 "2014-06-21T20:50:46Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > The question is why do people use technology to avoid personal interaction with people with whom they would otherwise see in person or talk on the phone. This is more about texting vs. voice calls. I talk to people on the phone mostly for work related things and I talk to my mom and one long distance friend on the phone, but otherwise texting is so much easier. And usually they’re just short texts to arrange seeing each other in person. I feel like texting is also less intrusive. Like if someone calls me when I’m in the bathroom I have to let my phone ring and then call back. If they text me I can respond quickly and it’s not a hassle that I happen to be in an inconvenient place. And not just being in the bathroom- like if I’m carrying a bag of groceries and my hands are full, a text can be answered when I get a chance. Also sometimes it can be hard to hear someone on the phone if there’s a bad connection. Texting has less issues with that. And that’s weird that the author thinks it’s weird that one would look up information on the phone rather than asking other people. Do people usually ask other people for information aside from directions? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302/15 "2014-06-21T20:57:17Z")
Texting is social interaction. What makes you think it’s not? ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2014, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302/16 "2014-06-21T23:14:30Z")
> [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > For people walking around with their faces buried in their smartphones: **Artificial stimuli can be more powerful than natural ones, social contact included. Hook each person up to their personal opium pump, leave them to regulate their own dosage, and see how social they’ll be. Same thing.** I’m not sure if on-line “social” (if you can call it that) activity is more powerfully stimulating than IRL social activity. I kind of think the opposite, that it’s quite lame, _except_ that one can make up for that by spending endless hours doing it. That said, I also suspect that on-line “social” activity pings just enough of people’s “social needfulness receptors” that it sorta-kinda satisfies people’s social urges. Combine that with the relative physical ease of on-line “socializing”, vs the actual effort one must expend to physically get off one’s butt and get out there, along with the easy opportunity to spend endless hours at it – the result it, for a lot of people, that on-line “social” activity becomes the course of least resistance, and that’s what people end of doing. But I agree with **Martian Bigfoot** ’s analogy with drugs that bind to receptors and displace other more natural actions of those receptors, not always beneficially. [Here’s a post I wrote a while back](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15214633&postcount=9) that I think is tangentially relevant; in particular, see the last paragraph there: > [@What religion or belief set is strong on symbols?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-religion-or-belief-set-is-strong-on-symbols/626489/9): > > There is evidence that other animals do this too, to a lesser extent. There have been all those animal-language experiments that taught some rudimentary language skills to chimps, gorillas, dolphins, sea lions, and parrots. There was one study I heard of with raccoons, who instinctively wash their food in rivers before eating. Some raccoons were taught to accept tokens for certain behaviors, which could later be exchanged for food. When they got the food, they washed it. But after a while, they began washing their tokens too. This is a non-human example of animals starting to treat their symbols like the real thing that those symbols stand for. (ETA: This came from a book called “How Animals Misbehave”, IIRC, but I don’t know the author off-hand. Maybe I can find it Real Soon Now.) ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302/17 "2014-06-22T04:37:27Z")
I simply do not believe technology is supplanting human interaction. I think it’s increasing and enhancing it. There, I’m the contrary opinion, but I’m quite convinced of it. ---
**Author:** ![CatherineZeta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@CatherineZeta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CatherineZeta)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302/18 "2014-06-22T05:17:08Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I simply do not believe technology is supplanting human interaction. I think it’s increasing and enhancing it. There, I’m the contrary opinion, but I’m quite convinced of it. I completely agree. Thanks to Twitter for example, I have international “friends” (I put friends in quotes only because we’ve never met in real life) who I can talk to instantaneously on a daily basis. That would have never happened prior to the invention of the internet, facebook, twitter, etc. Sure there were pen pals back in the day, but it’s way easier to lose touch when you have to wait weeks for snail mail rather than being able to reply immediately. I think texting people works the same for keeping people who are out of sight in mind. You can send someone a quick text (or email) about something just to let them know you’re thinking of them or have something to tell them even if it’s not practical to pick up the phone or go visit them in person. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302/19 "2014-06-22T05:26:12Z")
I can only speak for myself but I want any possible reason _not_ to have to interact with the dumb fuck standing/sitting next to me _where ever_. Too bad nothing seems to work too well. I was in line (a loong line) at the credit union when i felt a tap on the back of my left shoulder. An older gentleman who was behind me in line said, “Do you mind if I ask you a question?” (For those of you who might be unfamiliar, I use a wheelchair) Now I was already stressed, I just wanted anonymity like every other person there waiting to be served. I didnt know this guy and I felt like his questions were a bit intrusive that day. On another, less stressful day, perhaps but I didnt feel like telling him “what happened” or “was born like this or did I get in an accident?” Or then hearing that I should Thank God that I am still alive and breathing. Or that I was saved for a reason ( that one is especially loathsome). Or any of the myriad things that come up in convos with strangers. I just didnt want that this day at the credit union. So I just said, “Yes. Yes, I do mind.” And i looked down at my android, God Bless it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47c2d/32.png) [@Hershele\_Ostropoler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hershele_Ostropoler)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2014, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302/20 "2014-06-22T18:30:58Z")
I’m not sure what humans supposedly being social animals has to do with it. > [@Martian Bigfoot](#): > > For people walking around with their faces buried in their smartphones: Artificial stimuli can be more powerful than natural ones, social contact included. I, too, am not sure how interacting with other people magically becomes “artificial social contact” when they’re not physically with you. > [@CookingWithGas](#): > > The question is why do people use technology to avoid personal interaction with people with whom they would otherwise see in person or talk on the phone. This is more about texting vs. voice calls. I can see my sister in person when our schedules mesh. I can text or chat with her any time. Extrapolating from that, I’m not sure people are e-interacting with people they they would otherwise see in person or talk to on the phone. Not much, anyway, ad only in the sense that rather than move heaven and earth to make two phone calls a week, they’re having zero or one phone calls a week, texting and chatting a lot, and leaving heaven and earth where they are. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-use-technology-to-avoid-live-contact-when-humans-are-by-nature-social-animals/691302.md?page=2)