Funny story.
I was waiting in the hallway for my 11am classroom to clear. I decided to kill time by checking my email on my phone. A man suddenly passes by the hallway and enthusiastically yells:
“Y’all need to get off your phones and in a book!”
I looked up from my phone to see the man smiling and shaking his head… as well as 6 other startled people standing in the hallway. Surprise, surprise! We all had our phones in our hands. I laughed to myself because, well, you’re in this class and you already know why.
I definitely enjoyed the Nancy K. Baym’s Personal Connections in the Digital Age reading. It was very in-depth and as scholarly article, relateable in many ways. The reading touched upon a number of points that even I think about when I think about technology today and its relationship with society. I found the topic of “disconnect” especially interesting. Is technology really making us more antisocial? Are we becoming too dependent? From the number of articles I’ve come across these past few weeks, it seems so. From “8 Science-Backed Reasons To Turn Off Your Cell Phone This Christmas” to “Bored … And Brilliant? A Challenge To Disconnect From Your Phone”, it seems that society is now acknowledging that: Yes. We have a problem.
Throughout this reading’s entirety, it made me think of a video that I saw 2 years ago. It uses a split screen to show a situation play out, but with different outcomes. The difference between the 2 scenes? One introduces the use of technology. It’s a very powerful almost-5 minute video. And when I watched it at the time, it really made me think about the role that technology has come to play in our every day lives. There’s been a number of times I’ve walked down the street and ignored what was going on around me. I’ve become more aware of the technological, social media realm, but have often looked pass what I experience in the “real world”. I’m still a little bit stuck in my own understanding of how to approach the topic of technology in our lives, and whether it has positively or negatively affected our relationships. As of right now, I can say that it has done both. Technology has allowed us to connect with people with same interests and whom we may never meet in real life. But it is times like these, what I saw while waiting in the hallway, that confirms we have lost something special with human connection.
What do you think?
This is a great video you chose to share with us. It really demonstrates how much we are missing out on by being so involved with our everyday technologies. I saw a video a few months ago that showed the outcome of a scenario with and without the presence of a smartphone. Similar to the video you posted, it concluded that a when a man was so buried in his phone in public, he walked past his future wife because he was so distracted, whereas when he used a map, he asked her for help and created a wonderful life with her after that interaction. Obviously these are both dramatizations, but are both based on the unfortunate truth that technology is taking over our everyday lives and is proving to be inescapable.
This post was very interesting and made me think about the sign we looked at in class also. I am a big proponent of being in the moment and present when interacting with friends, but I hadn’t thought about how this also affects the interactions we could be making with people we don’t know. I wonder how many people I have missed out on interacting with by being on my phone!
I think the video is a little cliche but maybe I’m just to much of an optimist/ “social butterfly” to let technology get in the way of me meeting people who seem interesting. Technology can build a wall around someone but it is also something you have in common and can talk about. I was recently on the bus and saw a girl holding this huge phone or a very small tablet… and I wasn’t sure so I asked. I could tell she had an accent and it turned out she was from Turkey and we talked about the food and people of Turkey and it was pretty cool. That same day there were about 5 people all on their phones including myself.
In the reading it says that sometimes “computer mediated discourse was seen as a social vacuum in which anything went” and I feel like this idea has transfered in a small way to real life, phones are like safety blankets and you can pull them out whenever and it’s okay… anything goes, you’re at dinner with your parents, fine… your hanging out with some new person your fond of… it’s okay. I think it’s interesting how it’s not just on the computer that we seem to distance ourselves but also IRL.
(except me ’cause I’ll talk to most anyone 🙂 )
One of my best friends of over 6 years I met on a bus ride. When so many of the people around us were buried on their phones we began a small chat and discovered how much we have in common. The rest was history after that. But I keep thinking, what if I sat in the row back? What if I was on my phone or him on his phone and we never started a conversation?
Further if I was to sit next to someone and become annoyed or not really enjoy their company, I would bring out my phone to distract myself and send a signal to the other person, I’m busy.
Maybe our parents generation is more patient, understanding and easy going in that setting. Maybe because they would have been more polite and continued conversation rather than ending it, simply because the device in their pocket allows them to.
Speculation, but great video and great ideas from you 🙂
I’m always kind of confused about why people present reading as the more acceptable alternative to using technology. If you’re waiting for class, is it really worth it to pull out a book and read for a few minutes? Yes, reading might be more productive, but just because you use technology doesn’t mean you’re keeping yourself from reading. Since you have to check those emails eventually, you might as well do it when you have time to spare. And I understand the point the video is trying to make–about people being isolated because of technology–but it would be misleading to say that just because the woman is reading rather than listening to music she is more approachable. I know a lot of people who would be annoyed if a stranger used that as an excuse to interrupt what they were doing.
I thought this video was really interesting, because it keys into what we talked about in class about being on the phone and contacting other people and seeming busy.
At one point in time, the boy and girl separately (when on their phones) look to one another as if to start a conversation, but both do not engage because they think the other person is busy either texting or talking. Meanwhile, in the reading version, they both feel more comfortable engaging in conversation with one another.
I think this really illustrates a key point of how through technology, people can always be in contact or their mind can be stimulated by something whether it is texting, reading an article online, instagram etc. And this really causes a lack of boredom in one’s life.
Sitting at a bus stop, I feel like is usually a boring activity, but in modern culture we don’t really allow this time to be bored and instead continue to entertain our mind and usually are really engaged in our phone or laptop.
The criticisms that come with this is that we lose more person to person interaction, which we see in the video, and in some aspects I believe that the video is illustrating the truth. From the lack of boredom, we are less likely to interact with strangers and one another when we could be contacting people we know or surfing the web. I think one of the key differences between the earlier generation and ours is that they allowed themselves to be bored (i know that sounds kind of weird). But with this boredom came curiosity which is probably what led to more social interaction.
I thought this video was intriguing because it really highlights that through this 5 minute bench video.