Re: Socializing
I believe it was around 2004 or there abouts that I felt a shift when it came to talking to people. All of a sudden everyone was getting a cellphone, even teens my age I was certain shouldn't have one. I actually didn't get my own mobile device until I was about 19, but I did pay for my own personal home phone because I had the money to aford it.
And what a difference it made in general! I heard stories of how the cops were showing up at homes where the teen had called in because mommy or daddy was threatening to take the phone away. I'm not going to say that parents always have their children's best interests at heart, but to see cops siding with the teens more often than not and saying the parent had no right to take the phone away from them was something of an absurdity to me, particularly when the parent was paying the bill.
Chatlines became regular hangout spots for teens across the globe; those that weren't chatting via phone were grabbing up AOL Instant Messenger, participating on message boards and entering chatrooms where all of a sudden they were in constant contact with people twice their age. It was then that I knew that all of the "I know what you are but what am I" stuff in pre-school had been nothing in comparison to what I was seeing taking place. The scary part about it was that for the most part, everyone felt alright with flinging insults at one another because annonimity. I can't promise you this, but it wouldn't surprise me to discover that some of the very people who were participating in the childish banter were AOL admins themselves.
Today, all of this crap is commonplace, so much so that even politicians are engaging in it. The thing most of us don't want is the actual upset. You need to break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend? Send a text! Need to cancel a date? Forget making a call! Know your parents are mad at you? Hit ignore when the phone rings! If someone doesn't answer your calls, they'll more than likely reply to your texts!
And for the record I'm not some crazy old cojer saying texts are the spawn of Satan. I believe in texts! I believe in tech in general! Texts have the added benefit of helping you remember a conversation precisely as is rather than your having to seriously jog your memory for details you may or may not recall correctly anyway.
But if there's anything I've learned about reading texts over talking to people, it's that when I'm at the mercy of a buntch of letters on a computer or smartphone screen I can't always give proper connotation and mood to what the person on the other end is saying. I can try to imagine it, but depending on the conversation, the end result might be really really bad, and it might be made even worse by the speech synthesis I have at my disposal. You would think that someone like me would feel better about texting than calling, as I do have a hearing impairment. You would think I would appreciate the comfort of not having to ask someone to repeat themselves over and over again when I can't understand whatever it is they're saying. ON these and other counts you would be entirely wrong, because I still can't always gage emotion correctly from what you're typing, and I'll never trust any AI engine that tells me it will be able to interpret that data for me. Please don't even make that suggestion! I'll talk to my computer the day I want such a thing to happen and will just drop people out of the equation! :d
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