Gripe--nay, rant
I think this one is actually an interesting one, however, I cut it anyway.
Yet another reason I hate the ubiquity of MP3 players: It makes it virtually fucking impossible to meet new people in any way other than intentionally and expectedly.
Really, it's no wonder that up to 20% of new relationships started on dating sites. Everybody has these god damned ear buds in all the time, shutting them off from and out of the physical world around them. (I saw that stat somewhere, I forget where.) Walkers, joggers, and runners are only a small part of this, people walking through grocery stores, standing in line at a coffee shop, sitting in a bookstore, walking their dogs...one need not look hard or far to find somebody encapsulated in this musical cocoon of their own creation.
How many of you have had this happen:
1: "Hi, I'm ___" or "Hi, what's your name?" or some other conversation starter.
2: [silence]
1: ...
2: [turns head to look at something, reveals ear buds]
1: Oh. [walks away]
It happens to me all the time. But I like talking with people. Not even to flirt, just to engage and perhaps find that 1 in 1,000 person who is worth talking to. When it happens, it's quite fun.
It's all but made the stories of how persons A and B met in an interesting way obsolete in this new era. People rarely seem to just bump into someone anymore in unusual ways, it's all been relegated to the social environments where people make the conscious decision to remove their ear buds and engage in a small fragment of reality. It is only in these times that people can connect, or collide, with each other. But it's nowhere near as adventurous or unexpected when both parties have chosen to allow others to interact with them. I wonder if perhaps there is an overlap in the mentality of chat programs, where we choose to put up an away message or use invisible modes even though we're online and at the computer; this is done purely to have selective options over who we interact with, rather than allow anybody who finds/has our screen names to contact us. I'm not drawing a causal link here, or even presupposing correlation twist the two, just musing and wondering if there is perhaps a cognitive similarity.
But I digress.
Our culture has evolved technologically so quickly that I believe we have had to lay some social constructs by the wayside as they have fallen into rapid disuse, but we have done so not only at our own peril, but without having been given enough time to really think about what we were doing and the consequences of doing it.
And there are people who are so set in these new ways that they never learned how to interact with the world as they became more and more a part of it. These people for whom "music is life" (a statement that I actually find problematic, as it precludes more immediate and visceral experiences in some individuals) always have their MP3 players going, and can IM their friends or use the iPods or what-have-yous to surf the web, etc. All the while ignoring the real world going on at normal speeds all around them. But these behaviors are so omnipresent and culturally accepted that they are rapidly becoming the new norm for the generation that is coming to the fore in America right now (the "Millenials" or whatever the media has dubbed us).
Meanwhile, while people are staying in touch with friends, family, message boards, tweets, IMs, e-mails, stock quotes, news articles, gourmet food trucks, and anything else on Earth, all the while with some song playing in their ears the entire time, they're missing the tangible, tactile, earthen experiences that can actually create more powerful memories. Sensory recall is a major part of memory formation, touching, tasting, hearing, smelling an interaction with the world is far more likely to leave a lasting impression than a digital interaction will. If I meet somebody and we strike up conversation, it's far more memorable to me than somebody finding me on Facebook, or an "I got your e-mail from a friend" type thing. That's how our brains work. But with everybody shutting their ears and downcasting their eyes, it's so much harder now than ever before to accidentally or incidentally create those memories.
Looking backward, how many movie scenes take place in innocuous places where characters chance upon each other? How many stories have our parents and grandparents told us where fate/luck/chance/the Universe/whatever threw them together? How many friendships came about by surprise?
Where can I get an app for that?
Yet another reason I hate the ubiquity of MP3 players: It makes it virtually fucking impossible to meet new people in any way other than intentionally and expectedly.
Really, it's no wonder that up to 20% of new relationships started on dating sites. Everybody has these god damned ear buds in all the time, shutting them off from and out of the physical world around them. (I saw that stat somewhere, I forget where.) Walkers, joggers, and runners are only a small part of this, people walking through grocery stores, standing in line at a coffee shop, sitting in a bookstore, walking their dogs...one need not look hard or far to find somebody encapsulated in this musical cocoon of their own creation.
How many of you have had this happen:
1: "Hi, I'm ___" or "Hi, what's your name?" or some other conversation starter.
2: [silence]
1: ...
2: [turns head to look at something, reveals ear buds]
1: Oh. [walks away]
It happens to me all the time. But I like talking with people. Not even to flirt, just to engage and perhaps find that 1 in 1,000 person who is worth talking to. When it happens, it's quite fun.
It's all but made the stories of how persons A and B met in an interesting way obsolete in this new era. People rarely seem to just bump into someone anymore in unusual ways, it's all been relegated to the social environments where people make the conscious decision to remove their ear buds and engage in a small fragment of reality. It is only in these times that people can connect, or collide, with each other. But it's nowhere near as adventurous or unexpected when both parties have chosen to allow others to interact with them. I wonder if perhaps there is an overlap in the mentality of chat programs, where we choose to put up an away message or use invisible modes even though we're online and at the computer; this is done purely to have selective options over who we interact with, rather than allow anybody who finds/has our screen names to contact us. I'm not drawing a causal link here, or even presupposing correlation twist the two, just musing and wondering if there is perhaps a cognitive similarity.
But I digress.
Our culture has evolved technologically so quickly that I believe we have had to lay some social constructs by the wayside as they have fallen into rapid disuse, but we have done so not only at our own peril, but without having been given enough time to really think about what we were doing and the consequences of doing it.
And there are people who are so set in these new ways that they never learned how to interact with the world as they became more and more a part of it. These people for whom "music is life" (a statement that I actually find problematic, as it precludes more immediate and visceral experiences in some individuals) always have their MP3 players going, and can IM their friends or use the iPods or what-have-yous to surf the web, etc. All the while ignoring the real world going on at normal speeds all around them. But these behaviors are so omnipresent and culturally accepted that they are rapidly becoming the new norm for the generation that is coming to the fore in America right now (the "Millenials" or whatever the media has dubbed us).
Meanwhile, while people are staying in touch with friends, family, message boards, tweets, IMs, e-mails, stock quotes, news articles, gourmet food trucks, and anything else on Earth, all the while with some song playing in their ears the entire time, they're missing the tangible, tactile, earthen experiences that can actually create more powerful memories. Sensory recall is a major part of memory formation, touching, tasting, hearing, smelling an interaction with the world is far more likely to leave a lasting impression than a digital interaction will. If I meet somebody and we strike up conversation, it's far more memorable to me than somebody finding me on Facebook, or an "I got your e-mail from a friend" type thing. That's how our brains work. But with everybody shutting their ears and downcasting their eyes, it's so much harder now than ever before to accidentally or incidentally create those memories.
Looking backward, how many movie scenes take place in innocuous places where characters chance upon each other? How many stories have our parents and grandparents told us where fate/luck/chance/the Universe/whatever threw them together? How many friendships came about by surprise?
Where can I get an app for that?