I am totally convinced now...Cellphones have made kids socially retarded

[Telstra]

I see this a lot. I do have a cell phone.... in fact I had one when usually only movie producers could afford one. They were pretty big back then... LOL!

But nowadays I still keep a cell phone. Only catch is that's it's JUST a phone, and it's pre-paid. I figured out years ago that I won't be a slave to a little device, nor an $80/month bill. For.... what??

I went to lunch with a few people I worked with.... I could not believe that we all sat at the same table and they were TEXTING each other instead of talking.

We are SCREWED as a society.

well, i don't think this is common and it is abit extreme texting.

 

[umjreon88]

Don't worry, I'm not socially-challenged so you are safe from my bimbo-ness...

 

[RaKroma]

Let's not blame everything on younger generations and kids. There are plenty of men 35+ who do the same thing. I see it in gay bars all the time. Adults standing there like sheep sipping on their booze and communicating with hookup apps but not with people next to them. Such atmosphere deters you from even attempting basic communication; it's like people are not interested to hear your voice or look at your eyes because they're glued to the screens.

 

[xbuzzerx]

Let's not blame everything on younger generations and kids. There are plenty of men 35+ who do the same thing. I see it in gay bars all the time. Adults standing there like sheep sipping on their booze and communicating with hookup apps but not with people next to them. Such atmosphere deters you from even attempting basic communication; it's like people are not interested to hear your voice or look at your eyes because they're glued to the screens.

That was more or less what I was trying to say too. The fact that younger people are more likely to be on these phones may give away more often their lack of social graces, but the phone didn't create the lack of social grace.

 

[Love me 2]

Y'all are old as fuck. I didn't get my first cell phone until I was 22 or 23 and they had already become mainstream by the time I was 18. I don't begrudge anyone who has one and have found it easier to stay in contact with and contact people.

The only thing I've noticed is that most of the people I text with have atrocious spelling and grammar. It's not abbreviation diarrhea either. It's enough to make me think that they defiantly[sic] have problems with there[sic] understanding of English.

My first Cell Phone was when I was 42 years old, and that was in 2004...now I am 50!

 

[Anders123]

Out of all of the catalysts for misplaced hysteria, the topic of texting is the most infuriating. Especially when people start with this melodramatic 'weeping for society' garbage. It's just like people who don't think twice when they see somebody reading a book or a newspaper at the park or on the train, but will scoff and complain if they see somebody there with a tablet despite the fact that they're also devices used for reading books or visiting news aggregation websites.

I wonder though why it's automatically assumed that mobile phones have caused social anxiety, but not that they're affording more opportunities to those who suffer from it. If this girl was so terrified of knocking on a stranger's door, I imagine that she wouldn't have taken such a job without her phone there to act as a bit of a safety blanket. It would have probably gone to somebody who had the confidence to knock instead, and you wouldn't even be aware that she (the timid girl who lacked confidence) exists. Both social awkwardness and anxiety are nothing new, it's just that people who suffered from them didn't have any less confronting forms of communication available in the past. Workplace incompetence is nothing new either, it's just manifesting itself in new and different ways.

Honestly though, you'd have to be pretty disconnected to believe that it's customary for friends to sit around a table and text each other instead of talking. Nobody does that. Texting isn't replacing actual conversation, and society is not screwed because people use their mobile phones. If somebody decides to check Facebook during dinner or a date, it's not the phone's fault; it's the fault of the person for disregarding their present company to satisfy their own obsession. The phone isn't making them do anything, it's simply allowing for them to exhibit rude behaviour if they so choose.

Absolutely every generation ever has viewed change among youth as some sort of impending doom. How can some of you lack the awareness to recognise you're doing the exact same thing?

 

[72-Jay]

but it is also sad when someone does not change with the times.

I guess I'm 'sad' then. I don't even own a cell phone.

Same here
don't own one. (don't want one either)

 

[Willie Boy]

It is true. Smart phones breed dumb people.

 

[lambdaboy]

Don't ask me I can no even understand why over 500 people (apparently with no life) wait outside an Apple store for the latest phone. I have a phone it takes pictures has fm radio and a chip and mp3 player and I can go on line the screen is touch sensitive. It is pay as you go and cost £35.

 

[gsdx]

Honestly though, you'd have to be pretty disconnected to believe that it's customary for friends to sit around a table and text each other instead of talking. Nobody does that.

No, they don't. But they DO sit around a table and communicate with OTHER people with their phones instead of talking to each other. You see it all the time. Even couples or friends walking down the street side-by-side with their faces and attention glued to their phones. But they're adults. If they would rather ignore each other and concentrate their attention on their phones, that's fine. However, I see children and babies time and time again begging for Mommy's attention when Mommy's attention is on the tiny device in her hand. Children and babies are quickly learning that Mommy's cell phone is more important than they are.

 

[blackbeltninja]

Out of all of the catalysts for misplaced hysteria, the topic of texting is the most infuriating. Especially when people start with this melodramatic 'weeping for society' garbage.

Valid points one and all, but I feel I need to stick up for the older crowd. I did my undergrad and postgrad work here at UCT. I was there pre-cellphones in the early 90s, when .za was undergoing the culmination of its momentous change. Back then, the public meeting spaces on campus were vibrant and full of life, people meeting each other and chatting and debating and arguing while having their lunch or during free periods between lectures. It was gregarious and noisy. Those same places are still full of people today, but eerily silent. Everyone has headphones on and is busy texting someone who is elsewhere. Hard to think that UCT prides itself on being a proud partner and supporter of that almighty revolution in the 80s and 90s - not a fuck any revolution would start up there now, that's for sure.

Honestly though, you'd have to be pretty disconnected to believe that it's customary for friends to sit around a table and text each other instead of talking.

I will also admit to seeing groups of younger people (usually high school kids) wandering around the local malls in packs, like they do. Except again, half of the kids in the group have headphones on and are blaring music into their ears and not chatting with the other half they've come out with. Not that it matters, because the half without headphones on are texting other kids who aren't there. Makes me wonder why they bothered coming out with each other.

-d-

 

[rareboy]

^ This. I don't think it is about rudeness but insularity. And the vast majority of kids now that we interact with are so immersed in the technology of communication that they don't even understand how isolated and socially inept they are when it comes to interacting with actual people or even knowing how to speak with someone on the phone on a simple business matter.

 

[Anders123]

Perhaps my post was unclear. The first two paragraphs were directed at the OP. I brought up social anxiety as a possible alternative to 'social retardation' in direct reference to the girl calling from the front lawn (and possibly even the intern opting not to make the cold call). It would be ludicrous to suggest that every person who has an obsession with their phone is suffering from some sort of anxiety disorder, but it was no more objectionable for me to offer an alternate perspective than it was for the OP to assume it was simply poor social skills caused by excessive mobile phone usage. There is no proof of either here.

I even acknowledged later in my post that mobile phones enable anti-social behaviour in social situations, but that doesn't mean I don't object to people assuming that young folks exhibit said behaviour every time they go out or that they just don't know how to socialise. It just wreaks of disconnected confirmation bias. At school, teenagers interact with their teachers, they interact with their coordinators, and they interact with each other. When they go to their friends' houses, they interact with their friends' parents or even their siblings. If they play football or cricket on the weekend, they interact with their coaches, they interact with their teammates, and they interact with their opponents. If they work part time in retail, they interact with their managers, they interact with their coworkers, and they interact with their customers.

I just don't buy it that young people don't learn how to socialise when most teenagers go to school and spend time with friends, or work, or participate in hobbies outside of that. From reading some of the posts in this thread, you'd think that young people just sit there like zombies attached to their phones or that they're incapable of having actual conversations. That just isn't the case and that's where my objection lies.

 

[Kahaih]

Does anyone else find it a bit odd, perhaps amusing, that this conversation is taking place on a recreational web forum - - between members with rather large [daily?] post counts?

 

[Anders123]

It just wreaks of disconnected confirmation bias.

Ugh, I meant reeks. I'm sick at the moment, so I blame my cloudy head.

Spotting a mistype like that when it's too late to edit is infuriating though.

 

[xbuzzerx]

Perhaps my post was unclear. The first two paragraphs were directed at the OP. I brought up social anxiety as a possible alternative to 'social retardation' in direct reference to the girl calling from the front lawn (and possibly even the intern opting not to make the cold call). It would be ludicrous to suggest that every person who has an obsession with their phone is suffering from some sort of anxiety disorder, but it was no more objectionable for me to offer an alternate perspective than it was for the OP to assume it was simply poor social skills caused by excessive mobile phone usage. There is no proof of either here.

I even acknowledged later in my post that mobile phones enable anti-social behaviour in social situations, but that doesn't mean I don't object to people assuming that young folks exhibit said behaviour every time they go out or that they just don't know how to socialise. It just wreaks of disconnected confirmation bias. At school, teenagers interact with their teachers, they interact with their coordinators, and they interact with each other. When they go to their friends' houses, they interact with their friends' parents or even their siblings. If they play football or cricket on the weekend, they interact with their coaches, they interact with their teammates, and they interact with their opponents. If they work part time in retail, they interact with their managers, they interact with their coworkers, and they interact with their customers.

I just don't buy it that young people don't learn how to socialise when most teenagers go to school and spend time with friends, or work, or participate in hobbies outside of that. From reading some of the posts in this thread, you'd think that young people just sit there like zombies attached to their phones or that they're incapable of having actual conversations. That just isn't the case and that's where my objection lies.

I think for the most part Anders that my posts largely reflect what you're saying as well.

But I could easily jump over to the other side and say that I have also seen the exact same thing as Blackbelt and Rareboy, too. Big public spaces full of eerie silence and a lot of phones out and being played with. I'd hardly consider myself a fossil in my early 30's, but I'm old enough to remember my very early adulthood in a world that was still largely cellphone-free, and I do remember awkward situations (say for example, the first day of a class in college where no one sitting there really knew anyone else in the room yet) where people would eventually break down barriers and just start talking to each other, whereas today they just fiddle with their phones.

 

[borg69unimatrix]

^^^
I do a lot of driving. I couldn't tell you how many times people have walked out across the street, or out of a store in a parking lot staring at/fiddling with their phones oblivious to the traffic around them, or the fact they nearly got hit.

 

[RaKroma]

The idea of going up to some strangers house to mow their lawn is creepy in itself. Must be a suburban thing.

I don't know if it's creepy, but some of those suburban honkies are trigger happy when they see a stranger at their door.

 

[Scealle]

^^^
I do a lot of driving. I couldn't tell you how many times people have walked out across the street, or out of a store in a parking lot staring at/fiddling with their phones oblivious to the traffic around them, or the fact they nearly got hit.

Oh god this happens to me all the time (as in I am the driver)

 

[Kahaih]

^^^
I do a lot of driving. I couldn't tell you how many times people have walked out across the street, or out of a store in a parking lot staring at/fiddling with their phones oblivious to the traffic around them, or the fact they nearly got hit.

I've noticed that there are quite a few rather smart, usually female, pedestrians who will send a small scout out into the street ahead of them - in a stroller.