[Mulderator]

I am one that disagrees the technology will result in less "social interaction" -- while there may be less personal contact, there is a trade-off of more social interaction. I know for myself as an example, I communicate with my brother by text while watching sports when we wouldn't otherwise communicate (he lives on the other side of the country). Also, I communicate with relatives that I haven't communicated with in more than 20 years (via Facebook). I also communicate with my children while they are away at school on a regular basis whereas I would not but for their cell phone and Facebook. Like everything new, there are pros and cons--I think the technology of communication electronically will result in more social interaction overall.

Also--I think ultimately the texting will be replaced/augmented (or be much less common) by IPhone's video call technology, which will ultimately be standard on all cell phones.

[Bastiat]

Yeah, I didn't want to point out all the social interaction taking place here. Duh!!!!!!!!

[pyritechips]

Originally Posted by Mulderator

I am one that disagrees the technology will result in less "social interaction" -- while there may be less personal contact, there is a trade-off of more social interaction. I know for myself as an example, I communicate with my brother by text while watching sports when we wouldn't otherwise communicate (he lives on the other side of the country). Also, I communicate with relatives that I haven't communicated with in more than 20 years (via Facebook). I also communicate with my children while they are away at school on a regular basis whereas I would not but for their cell phone and Facebook. Like everything new, there are pros and cons--I think the technology of communication electronically will result in more social interaction overall.

Also--I think ultimately the texting will be replaced/augmented (or be much less common) by IPhone's video call technology, which will ultimately be standard on all cell phones.

Now that's the stuff of Star Trek. Life imitating art.

I agree that contact is much easier. I remember how expensive and difficult making a long distance phone call was when I was a kid. Now I have long distance no-charge anywhere, anywhen - but I never use it! I said I hate cell phones. I hate house phones too.

[ekim68]

Originally Posted by Bastiat

Yeah, I didn't want to point out all the social interaction taking place here. Duh!!!!!!!!

Gotta love the technology, eh?

[Paquadez]

Originally Posted by Mulderator

I communicate with my brother by text while watching sports when we wouldn't otherwise communicate (he lives on the other side of the country).

Sums it up for me.............................

If I am meeting someone and they start sending/receiving texts and I see their eye focus glaze over or they take cell phone calls, then our meeting stops: instantly!

If their other task is more critical and important than the meeting with myself; then my meeting with the other person is instantly of far less importance, to me, than other more critical things I can and must do.

I notice that this phenomenon is more usual with younger people.

I also note they are incapable of good focus and concentration: their application to most things is lightweight and surface.

Mainly since they are constantly switching their conscious attention and focus between numerous distractions, none of which are of singular importance and the majority of which are mindless.

Example: call up a company you need some service from: the girly answering the call spouts instantly into the learned response: "Hi! ABC Inc, how may we assist you?"

You tell them; precisely; succinctly and with precision.

They answer "Durghhhh???????"

Mainly because the script isn't on their screen pop. You are actually conversing with a parrot.

Of course, if the person I was meeting with had singular responsibility for pressing the button that starts nuclear war between America and Russia, then that would be acceptable, in terms of the criticality having significant priority and deserving an interruption of the meeting and dialogue.

Just about everything else aint: it demonstrates a whole lack of manners, courtesy and human etiquette and is an excellent exemplar of how technology has intruded into modern life with little or no upside benefit to and for humankind.

Society has already degraded to the point where young people meet and marry through dating sites; rather than physical contact achieved via actual social intercourse, as was for hundreds and hundreds of years.

No doubt the future of procreation will be men and woman meeting on such as Facebook: and sending off eggs, embryos or spermatozoa to a mutually agreed clinical facility...............................

[Blackmirror]

I dont have need or desire a mobile phone

I had one a few years ago and i murdered it by putting through a full cycle on the washing machine and then tumbledrying
It never worked after that

[buffoon]

Originally Posted by Mulderator

I am one that disagrees the technology will result in less "social interaction" -- while there may be less personal contact, there is a trade-off of more social interaction.

Well, I suppose one could argue where the "social" lies in that interaction, when personal contact is absent.

I know for myself as an example, I communicate with my brother by text while watching sports when we wouldn't otherwise communicate (he lives on the other side of the country).

The way developments are going, you'll soon be able to do that on the same TV set that you're watching sports on. You can zap between brother and sports, depending on which is more or less boring at the moment.

Also, I communicate with relatives that I haven't communicated with in more than 20 years (via Facebook).

If that's your pleasure. Relatives that I haven't communicated with for 20 years probably gave me good reason for that. They'd be the last people I'd want to be finding me on facebook or anywhere else. Apart from which facebook is high up on the list of "dont's" for me. Content- and (more importantly) security-wise.

I also communicate with my children while they are away at school on a regular basis whereas I would not but for their cell phone and Facebook.

Children (little or older) are the one thing that overrules any preferences or rejections. Rejecting their technological new world will leave us out in the rain. As Jim will find out in a few years.

Like everything new, there are pros and cons--I think the technology of communication electronically will result in more social interaction overall.

"Result" as in "lead to"!!!??? I find messaging very comfortable in that it is not instrusive to the moment, for others or myself. So long as it's about exploring a date for the next meet up. Where I don't feel the desire to meet I feel electronic communication to be equally pointless.

Information exchange on the business level is a completely different matter.

Also--I think ultimately the texting will be replaced/augmented (or be much less common) by IPhone's video call technology, which will ultimately be standard on all cell phones.

With the option to turn the picture off hopefully not eradicated. And that goes for both theirs and mine.

[buffoon]

Originally Posted by Bastiat

Yeah, I didn't want to point out all the social interaction taking place here. Duh!!!!!!!!

You gotta be on a different forum

[Wino]

I love all the new tech and use that which benefits and is not detrimental to my life, personal or work. The tech addicted are worse than born again christians, reformed drunks and ex-smokers.

Like Paq, the minute someone answers their cell or texting in mid-conversation, I'm gone.

[pyritechips]

Originally Posted by Paquadez

Sums it up for me.............................

If I am meeting someone and they start sending/receiving texts and I see their eye focus glaze over or they take cell phone calls, then our meeting stops: instantly!

If their other task is more critical and important than the meeting with myself; then my meeting with the other person is instantly of far less importance, to me, than other more critical things I can and must do.

I notice that this phenomenon is more usual with younger people.

I also note they are incapable of good focus and concentration: their application to most things is lightweight and surface.

Mainly since they are constantly switching their conscious attention and focus between numerous distractions, none of which are of singular importance and the majority of which are mindless.

Example: call up a company you need some service from: the girly answering the call spouts instantly into the learned response: "Hi! ABC Inc, how may we assist you?"

You tell them; precisely; succinctly and with precision.

They answer "Durghhhh???????"

Mainly because the script isn't on their screen pop. You are actually conversing with a parrot.

Of course, if the person I was meeting with had singular responsibility for pressing the button that starts nuclear war between America and Russia, then that would be acceptable, in terms of the criticality having significant priority and deserving an interruption of the meeting and dialogue.

Just about everything else aint: it demonstrates a whole lack of manners, courtesy and human etiquette and is an excellent exemplar of how technology has intruded into modern life with little or no upside benefit to and for humankind.

Society has already degraded to the point where young people meet and marry through dating sites; rather than physical contact achieved via actual social intercourse, as was for hundreds and hundreds of years.

No doubt the future of procreation will be men and woman meeting on such as Facebook: and sending off eggs, embryos or spermatozoa to a mutually agreed clinical facility...............................

Brave New Worlds, Michael?

It's your mention of courtesy, manners and etiquette that I failed to articulate.

[WendyM]

Originally Posted by Derek

Relatives that I haven't communicated with for 20 years probably gave me good reason for that. They'd be the last people I'd want to be finding me on facebook or anywhere else. Apart from which facebook is high up on the list of "dont's" for me. Content- and (more importantly) security-wise.

This is exactly how I feel. If I haven't called or emailed or been to visit you in 20 years, looking at pictures of your kids on Facebook doesn't make us close, it just allows us to pretend we're close. The trend I've noticed now is that people communicate ONLY through Facebook. I get emails inviting me to join Facebook so I can find out the details of a get-together. I figure that if everyone knows I'm not on Facebook and they can't bother to email, call, text, or anything else to invite me, they probably don't care very much whether or not I come. And neither do I, since half of the people will spend the party on their phones checking Facebook. I don't think the technology is bad. I think the way people use it and rely on it is bad.

[pyritechips]

Chris, I tend to agree more with el buffo's position. I also met two friends recently that I haven't seen in 35 years. They are on the other side of the continent also. After the initial exchange of "Where are you and what have you been doing?" an uneasy silence set in. "Friends" implies people with whom you spend time, know them intimately and share experiences and emotions. These two men are no longer friends; they are ghosts out of my past and I'm not sure I should reawaken them.

Yes, "social networking" can bring you into contact with people both familiar and new, but it's only a form of contact, as Derek alluded to. Once the contact is made the face-to-face contact is critical. Many times have I seen posts at this forum that state something along the lines of "You can't read the real emotions or intentions behind the words on your monitor." Well, that is partly the non-human nature of the media, and partly the inability of many people to use proper English grammar and their in ineptness at expressing themselves.

[pyritechips]

Originally Posted by WendyM

This is exactly how I feel. If I haven't called or emailed or been to visit you in 20 years, looking at pictures of your kids on Facebook doesn't make us close, it just allows us to pretend we're close. The trend I've noticed now is that people communicate ONLY through Facebook. I get emails inviting me to join Facebook so I can find out the details of a get-together. I figure that if everyone knows I'm not on Facebook and they can't bother to email, call, text, or anything else to invite me, they probably don't care very much whether or not I come. And neither do I, since half of the people will spend the party on their phones checking Facebook. I don't think the technology is bad. I think the way people use it and rely on it is bad.

Ah, hello Wendy. It's a pleasure to "see" you here. Those parts of your post that I have bolded go to the heart of my argument. I get friends requests on Facebook from people at work that rarely talk to me, yet they want to talk online. I don't understand that, unless it's my old complaint of people need to "hide" behind their monitors to be able to express themselves with false courage. I laugh at the second half of your post, not out of ridicule but out of the uber-irony of it all. I just shake my head.

[Paquadez]

Sci Fi and shades of Huxley indeed, Jimbo.

It's my own belief that in the not too distant future, as Bio-Tech and Pure Tech increasingly merge, babes will have a bio-chip implanted into their cerebral cortex or upper spinal cord, which will combine GPS, RFID and Comms.

"Education" will default to simple programming, probably when nominally asleep; the powers that be (Big Brother AKA Eric Arthur Blair?) will be able to track, direct and manipulate population at whim.

Pipe dreams?

I recently underwent a diagnostic procedure to measure gastric tract performance and problems.

I swallowed a Pill Cam: this combines a camera, transmitter, digitisation processor and light source (LED Strobe). The black cone-shaped doohad is the camera: and the white blobs the strobes, of which there are four set around the periphery.

The patient wears a simple waist belt which contains the receiver and recorder.

The next generation (Already under trial) takes biopsy samples en route: and the one after that (In development in Japan) carries out micro-surgery under direction of a consultant.

Anyone remember "Fantastic Voyage", 1966?

[WendyM]

Hiya Jim.

Originally Posted by pyritechips

I get friends requests on Facebook from people at work that rarely talk to me, yet they want to talk online.

In my opinion, they don't want to talk to you at all. In essence, they want you to subscribe to their newsletter. Then you can know when they're feeling grouchy or see pictures of them drunk on the beach in Hawaii or "listen" to them complain about work. And, in turn, long after you don't work with them anymore, they can check on pictures of Liam and read about how your family is doing. But why? They don't care anything about you and you don't care anything about them. But it's like watching Real Housewives of wherever. It's voyeurism at it's finest. True story: about a year ago I was at a video game store killing time waiting for my boyfriend to meet me for lunch. The guy who was behind the counter asked if I went to JFK High. Yep. Asked if my name was Wendy. Yep. Blah blah blah high school stuff. I had to ask him what his name was, and then even when he told me I needed context clues to figure out who he was. But I DID remember him and we chatted about old friends and whatnot. And then he asked for my Facebook link. I said I wasn't on Facebook and he went blank. He wasn't interested in my email address, or my phone number, or any other way to communicate with me, because obviously we'd exhausted all of our conversation in five minutes. But he was interested in a way to pretend to communicate with me. Why? I don't understand it at all.