I don't text much. Those little keys drive me nuts.

But if it weren't for the keys, I'd much prefer texting to the phone.

And email to both.

Of course I have this long-standing phobia with phones, which might have something to do with it. My land line (yes i still have one) is on an answering machine, and my cell phone has the ringer turned off about half the time.

I'm one of those modern "social anxiety" types. Have been longer than there have been personal computers.

So, on this one, I'm part of the problem, I expect.

---

You can text to the phone, if you were not already aware.

---

This is the funniest to me. The worst I see this is when people are in lines. Half the people in a line have their phones out. When I'm with a group of people and more than two are on their phones I like to pull mine out and either have a really annoying pretend conversation or point out the fact that were all on our phones. Besides getting a few laughs it usually gets everyone to hurry up whatever they were doing and put them away.

Responsible parenting? BURN THE WITCH!

Haha!

Yeah, after seeing the cultural differences in my own family, our kids will not have phones unless they are paying for it themselves.

---

I bet that this same article was written about television, the telephone, the internet etc. in its early stages.

Do some take it way too far? Yes. Is it obvious that I'm on a board where most members are around 30 or older? Very much.

Lol.

It wouldn't be so bad, Detlev, if it were just one layer of social insulation. But many people apply multiple layers at once. How often do you see someone texting, while listening to a pair of headphones, while fiddling with a crossword or sudoku puzzle, while sitting behind a laptop and Facebooking for good measure?

How on earth is a real human supposed to penetrate through all those layers of digital armor?

---

Okay, I'll be a provocateur.

Define "real person".

Is the person on the other end of a text, or an email, or a webchat, not a real person?

Ok, I'll give you the headphones and the puzzle -- and maybe the facebook, since I don't do that I dont know what it entails/doesn't entail.

But the others *are* human interactions. Are our discussions on PackersHome not interactions in community with real people?

What is lost for certain in modern "social networking" (I hate that phrase, btw) is one thing only: attention to people in close physical proximity. But what privileges people just because they are "next door"? Are we to be left to the whims of where fate has left us to be born? Are we to be required to incur the financial and other costs of moving just to be able to "hang out with" other, more interesting people?

Think about it this way: which is worse, putting the assholes around you on "ignore" or getting so pissed off with having to deal with them that you get all stressed out and have to go home and beat your dog/kid/spouse up?

Now, to be sure, there's another danger in texting, tweeting, etc. It encourages more superficial thinking and conversation. Its hard to have a conversation in any depth if you are limited to 140 characters at a time or to typing on microscopic keys.

But, lets be honest here, too. There's a lot of phone conversation and face-to-face conversation that it is pretty damn superficial and unthoughtful, too. I'm old enough now that I enjoy getting together with adult relatives on holidays, but they were friggin' torture when I was younger. (We called the annual family potluck the "family rebellion".) And I grew up with, and love, the small town culture, that starts with coffee in a diner in the morning and a beer in the neighborhood bar at night. But I'm not sure there's anything more in those conversations than there is in the modern tech variants.

The only thing that changes is who we talk to, and who we talk about.

What makes the "face to face" people so special?

Seriously.

---

Rock - you're in college. Thousands of years ago when I was in college back in the 1800s, you'd actually talk to people between classes. I can't speak for the Netherlands, but out here, doesn't happen any more. The very second they walk out the door (slight exaggeration, it's probably closer to 3 or 4 seconds), they whip out the cell phone and either start texting or start gabbing. Meanwhile, people who are right in front of their faces do not exist.

Is this a bad thing?

Yes.

Wade - Just read what you wrote. What makes it so special? What makes half-dome in Yosemite so special? Can we remove the mountain and just put up a concrete substitution in its place?

There's something to be said about face-to-face interaction. I've had jobs where I could only come home for the weekends. I missed my wife terribly when I had to sleep alone in a hotel room. Just being with her and talking about nothing is magical.

For someone who is socially awkward, I think the internet and the cell phone are wonderful inventions. They can communicate with REAL people and not have to deal with their social awkwardness. So yes, for some folks (who are often wonderful people by the way), those inventions are amazing things.

But there are still people like me who love to see someone in the flesh and talk to someone in the flesh. I don't get the same feeling with a phone. When I was a teenager and my early 20s, I'd have phone calls with girls for hours, literally. Fun, but so much better if they were sitting in my room with me. Some of the best memories I've had were with girls in Texas staying up until 3 AM or sometimes until the sun came up (where I had to jump out their windows before their parents woke up). Magical moments.

Not just with girls though. Some of my most emotionally intimate conversations have been with male friends. Talking in person for me is so much better than the phone.

So I guess it comes down to the person. Is it easier for you to communicate by phone or in the flesh? There is no right answer. Your answer determines your preference for technology or no technology. I'd just prefer no technology. That's just me though.

---

Why?

Seriously.

After all, a lot of those people right in front of them are pinheads. 🙂

---