Wade, I've had girls admit to me that they're not talking to anyone when they walk down the sidewalk on the phone -- they just do it to avoid looking like a "loser" who has no friends. Of course, since Midwesterners are reared to be so goddamn polite, all they're doing is guaranteeing they won't make any new friends, because no one will dare to interrupt their ostensible phone call. I also know for a fact that some of those people aren't actually playing music; they just have 'phones in their ears to "look busy."

But behold the power of social conditioning. Even I, knowing those facts, won't interrupt them.

I hate the Midwest.

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NSD,
Far be it from me to chastise someone for hating the Midwest. I am *so* tired of Iowa.

Yesterday afternoon I was staring out the window across all the "green space" at the center of our campus. I was trying to understand the paths people follow, why some follow the sidewalks, others cross the grass.

Most people expect it is in general going to be a "shortest distance between two points" but it's not clearly that at all. A lot of it (i hypothesize) is well-trained people "keeping to the rules" of "staying on the sidewalks" (more so here than in such 'fuck the world and its rules' places like Leicester Square or wherever).

But then I started noticing something else. Almost every walker was a singleton; and they almost never took paths where they met someone else along the path.

Unless they were handsfree (rare here), they weren't talking on cell phones (less than 5% of total observed). Couldn't tell about earphones at the distance I was. But it was clear they were almost all taking paths that wouldn't intersect with each other.

Now part of this was due to being a fairly low traffic part of the day. The "movie theater" principle: when people go to a movie theater, they tend to sit "apart" from each other, too. until the congestion is such that they have no choice.

But I think it's interesting because we're not talking a campus of complete strangers here. This is a place that trumpets its "small town-ness", it's "community" whenever it has the chance. It's part of how we justify charging 40K/year for spending time with us.

And it was a time of day when the pace is probably as low as it gets for a large fraction of students and faculty (i.e., between 3 and 5 p.m.)

And it was a pretty nice fall afternoon, too, so there was no "lets get out of this dreary weather ASAP" operating either.

Yet despite all that, the traffic at the center of campus, at the center of the "community," follows the movie theater model.

Of course I can't really cast stones. I was standing by a window at the end of all....by myself, with my back to anyone that might appear elsewhere in the hall.

Until I answered the phone.

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I think you're right but on a different level. I don't think people aren't socializing, but the way we socialized has evolved. Face-to-face interaction still happens but not in physical space. I have friends that talk to each other through Skype via webcam and they have conversations even though one is here in Milwaukee and the other one is in Italy. Part of my dad's job is to setup web conferences for various people stationed around the world. You'll have people from many different countries all talking as if they were in a meeting in the same room because of webcams and the capabilities of the internet.

I myself grew up socially on the internet, which makes me seem retarded sometimes in person. I'm shy with new people but open up once I get to know someone. However when I'm on the internet I can immediately be myself because of the anonymity granted by it. It allows me to cautiously approach a group of people without putting myself in an awkward position. I would come home from high school and immediately hop on Ventrilo to talk to members of my gaming clan--there were over 30 of us and I could always count on someone to be there to converse with.

I agree with you that physical social interaction is lacking and because of the way I grew up I lack a few conversational skills. But at the same time I have hundreds of friends that I know through the internet in communities like here at PH. I still have my "real-life" friends that I spend a lot of my time with but I enjoy socializing on the internet as well.

To be honest though I despise sites like MySpace and Facebook. I feel like nobody is genuine on them--it's pretty much a space to advertise yourself so people end up only using the information or pictures that "sell." I treat my page as a joke, in fact my religion is listed as "Green Bay Packers" despite the fact that I'm a pretty strong atheist (Green Bay Packers pretty much qualifies as my religion).

I don't have alot of friends here at my college. When I'm by myself, I use my cell to not look like a loser. 😞 ....It seems everyone else has alot of people to text, so I kind of feel like an outsider

All you're doing is perpetuating your lack of friends by a) not reaching out and saying "hi" to those around you and b) making yourself look unapproachable and unsociable. No one really assumes you're a loser just because you're not talking on the phone.

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