4 ms·

The difference being after you read the paper for the day, that's it, it's done, there is not an infinite source of useless material to peruse. Nobody pulled o

by hobs 13y ago

The difference being after you read the paper for the day, that's it, it's done, there is not an infinite source of useless material to peruse. Nobody pulled out the newspaper during a meeting or a meal and pretended they were paying attention while really playing a game or reading some trite.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
halostatue 13y ago
That last statement (“Nobody pulled out…”) does not coincide with either my personal experience or the experience presented in some older television comedies where the husband is reading the newspaper as the wife is talking to him about something important and his response is “uh-huh” until the point she says something ridiculous or that he would never otherwise agree to. I'm pretty sure that “Married…with children” used this gag more than once.
haversine 13y ago
I remember a time roughly 20 years ago when this was commonplace. Newspapers folded up into quarters (roughly today's tablet computer size, actually) and held on the lap waiting for a lull in conversation or when most of the table had gotten up to use the restroom. I also remember that everyone had their own kind of 'roughly tablet-sized' time waster, including crossword books, Reader's Digest, novels, magazines, and yep, even TV Guide. Over the years this had expanded to portable game systems like GameBoy, virtual pets like Tamagotchi, the original push e-mail devices like BlackBerry and so on. Hell, even when Timex came out with Indiglo watches I remember people used to pull out their watches and compare backlights the way people started to do the same with ringtones on feature phones. However the modern smartphone is the amalgamation of all of these things into one. So in one sense the smartphone is really just an all-in-one version of the separate time-wasters. The key difference that I see isn't just that "after you read the paper for the day, that's it, it's done" (and I do agree with you on this point), it's that the mobile phone (especially the smart phone) also enables a new application that wasn't previously possible: engaging in conversation with someone else than the person(s) you are physically next to. No previous method of communication was portable like this with the potential to allow you to bypass a physical conversation so easily. And on top of that, since the phones have access to so many social connections, people seem to have unlimited opportunities to engage in long-distance conversations while ignoring those present physically. But someone else rightly pointed out in another comment that the problem isn't so much that this is possible, but that our social norms haven't updated to make this a truly rude act. I just went to our friends' American Thanksgiving party and watched many conversations halt at any incoming mobile phone notification. Which I find doubly-rude: that the conversations on the phone seem prioritized over finishing an in-person exchange? I think the best thing we can do is to just own the device we like, and practice the social etiquette that we hope others adhere to as well.

by hobs 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

halostatue 13y ago

That last statement (“Nobody pulled out…”) does not coincide with either my personal experience or the experience presented in some older television comedies where the husband is reading the newspaper as the wife is talking to him about something important and his response is “uh-huh” until the point she says something ridiculous or that he would never otherwise agree to. I'm pretty sure that “Married…with children” used this gag more than once.

haversine 13y ago

I remember a time roughly 20 years ago when this was commonplace. Newspapers folded up into quarters (roughly today's tablet computer size, actually) and held on the lap waiting for a lull in conversation or when most of the table had gotten up to use the restroom. I also remember that everyone had their own kind of 'roughly tablet-sized' time waster, including crossword books, Reader's Digest, novels, magazines, and yep, even TV Guide. Over the years this had expanded to portable game systems like GameBoy, virtual pets like Tamagotchi, the original push e-mail devices like BlackBerry and so on. Hell, even when Timex came out with Indiglo watches I remember people used to pull out their watches and compare backlights the way people started to do the same with ringtones on feature phones. However the modern smartphone is the amalgamation of all of these things into one. So in one sense the smartphone is really just an all-in-one version of the separate time-wasters. The key difference that I see isn't just that "after you read the paper for the day, that's it, it's done" (and I do agree with you on this point), it's that the mobile phone (especially the smart phone) also enables a new application that wasn't previously possible: engaging in conversation with someone else than the person(s) you are physically next to. No previous method of communication was portable like this with the potential to allow you to bypass a physical conversation so easily. And on top of that, since the phones have access to so many social connections, people seem to have unlimited opportunities to engage in long-distance conversations while ignoring those present physically. But someone else rightly pointed out in another comment that the problem isn't so much that this is possible, but that our social norms haven't updated to make this a truly rude act. I just went to our friends' American Thanksgiving party and watched many conversations halt at any incoming mobile phone notification. Which I find doubly-rude: that the conversations on the phone seem prioritized over finishing an in-person exchange? I think the best thing we can do is to just own the device we like, and practice the social etiquette that we hope others adhere to as well.