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Most People Use Their Phones During Social Events, Despite Thinking It Harms Conversation
Mark Wilson points out that the Pew Research Center has released a new report on mobile etiquette in the age of smartphones. 90% of U.S. adults now have cellphones and carry them around frequently. Pew's survey looked into how this is changing social norms with regard to shifting attention away from physical-world interactions. Most people think it's fine to use a cellphone while walking the streets or waiting in line, but 62% think it's not OK at a restaurant, an 88% disapprove of using one at a family dinner. Disapproval of using a cellphone in a meeting, movie theater, or church is almost universal. 89% of people say they used their cellphone during their most recent social activity, whether it was texting, checking the web, or snapping a picture. Despite this, 82% say cellphone use generally hurts the conversation. 79% of adults say they occasionally encounter loud or annoying cellphone behavior from others in public, and more than half say they often overhear intimate details of other people's lives because of it.
they are quite literally incapable of normal conversation without involving the smartphone because it has become a part of their thought processes.
At some point Ray Kurzweil's vision of a connected brain will be a reality, and we will literally be able to use external computation in our regular thought patterns. Information retrieval is only the beginning; soon* these devices will help us be more creative by loaning us extra neurons when we need them.
* By soon I mean probably within a few decades
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
I have relied on public transit every day for years (I don't own a car) and I am continually amazed at the lack of empathy and disregard for other people that some have.
Even still, I wouldn't say that most people are rude.... It just seems that way sometimes because the obnoxious ones are disproportionately so.
What really gets me annoyed with people is not mobile device use (it is oddly reverent to see a train full of people with their heads bowed looking at their phones) it is littering in public places... why do people think it is acceptable to throw cigarette butts on the ground or pee all over public toilets?
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
There is a new meme going around. At the beginning of the dinner everyone puts their phone face down in the middle of the table. The first person to pick up their phone without the consent of everyone else before the end of the meal pays for everyone. This leave the option open to do things constructive to the conversation, like checking on a late party member, while still not paying.