smart phones and the society

[proxymoron]

I feel it is unfair to blame smartphones for people not talking to each other. It sounds very similar to what people felt about TV back in my childhood days. TV was "the thing" which is going to destroy our future and our health (coz we dont go out and play anymore). And things just turned fine for me and rest of the kids in that generation.

As far as Singapore is concerned, nothing much has changed since the pre-smartphone era of 2007 (year I landed here). At that time most people were busy with their PSPs (something interestly went to extinction after smartphone's arrival), or they would be on ipod with mostly eyes closed.

Currently at least the eyes are open, and can see occasional smiles on peoples face supposedly after reading / seeing something on the smartphone.

[JR8]

@SMS. An interesting look back there.

Perhaps it is more accurate then to conclude that it can be a killer or builder of human relationships, depending on how it is used, and by whom.

I think I’ve made a parallel point before regarding Facebook. When you’re young it seems the thing to do is accumulate as many Friends as possible. This I understand in a youthful way, projects popularity, but my impression is it obliterates much hope of having meaningful contact and exchanges with many of your core of real friends. Well, I suppose that’s how Facebook and the like get market share and advertising income. I use Facebook, but I limit it to about 20-25 Friends, all of whom are actual physical friends, and as they tend to be based at ‘all 4 corners’ it is an excellent way to keep in touch, up to date, share photos and experiences, tips/advice, pose questions, and so on. This doesn’t mean I’m going to be Messaging them while out at dinner... but that’s my choice. I try to use it, rather than let it use me.

I’m sorry to hear about ‘SMS-Jr’. I’ve told my wife that she can go through any of my IT (phone, PC, Facebook, e-mail, etc) and to her hearts-content, as there is nothing to find, and nothing for me to regret. If she ever has or will I know not, but likewise it’ll change nothing. One of my earliest GFs is a Friend on FB and she sometimes posts old pictures and tags me in them. AFAIUI these will also flag up on my Wife’s ‘Wall’. ... don’t know - if you having nothing to hide... And if you do have something to hide then what basis, foundation, is that for entering into a budding meaningful relationship?

[JR8]

That video is one-sided IMHO, especially all the harking back to ‘When I were a lad, we had real friends and real games’. The world has changed, not least in the UK with the recent spate of child-abductors/killers, meaning that many youngsters aren’t allowed out of sight, and the mobile is seen as a security device in case of trouble. The world has changed. My father bemoans me reading the newspaper at the table if anyone else is present, permanent 1-1 conversation is what is demanded instead, is your bemoaning mobiles just a slightly updated version of the same phenomenon.

Side note: the street-scene. I wonder why the creator chose that spot in London? It’s one of the richest micro-neighbourhoods in the UK (junction of Lansdowne Rise/Lansdowne Road). On the crescent behind him, on the left side, and about half-way down the row of houses is where Jimi Hendrix killed himself. I wouldn’t know that without reading newspapers... should reading a newspaper be bemoaned as being ‘anti-social’, I mean you can’t do it while building a den up an apple tree

The video is extremely mawkish; so much so that I’m surprised it wasn’t made by an American. We don’t tend to go in for ‘Life’s 10 little lessons’ publicly producing stuff like that. And since when are you going to strike up a conversation with a person on a train (as pictured), in London, NYC, or even, yes, Singapore? You need to be realistic!

@ BoC – good observation there.... bwahahaha...

@ Proxy – quite. Long ago my parents sold the TV because they felt we spent too long watching it. I thereafter went to bed at 4pm in protest for at least a er, week and bit I think

[sundaymorningstaple]

I've done a hell of a lot more than just strike up conversations on trains and planes. I've had great conversations on buses like Trailways & Greyhound and 30 years ago on SBS (rare today though).

As far as the street location, I wonder just how many viewers who saw that clip would have had any inkling whatsoever as to where it was taken. Just because the world has changed, doesn't mean necessarily for the better. But, each to their own. Each has the rights to their own opinions. Technology is great, abuse of same isn't. I'm sure the psychologists have proper names for all the anti-social behaviours now be exhibited due to the heavy diet in the past 15 years of iCrap.

[JR8]

As far as the street location, I wonder just how many viewers who saw that clip would have had any inkling whatsoever as to where it was taken. Just because the world has changed, doesn't mean necessarily for the better. But, each to their own. Each has the rights to their own opinions. Technology is great, abuse of same isn't. I'm sure the psychologists have proper names for all the anti-social behaviours now be exhibited due to the heavy diet in the past 15 years of iCrap.

Well since you see a road-sign at one point right beside the narrator it wasn't much of a challenge if you've ever walked that way. Perhaps a rock fan or two here might have an interest in the piece of RnR trivia that went with it. I don't know, as I titled the paragraph, 'Side-note'.

I'm not saying the world has changed 'for the better'. But what I am suggesting is that the older generation believing that 'what was good enough for me, is good enough for you', is not a position likely to gain much traction.

A diagnosable condition for using mobiles? Do you think they had one for over-reliance on the use of carrier pigeons, back in the day?

[nanana]

[JR8]

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/19/tech-surpass/
'Dear Quote Investigator: A friend sent me a link to a message on a website with the title: “The day that Albert Einstein feared may have finally arrived”

[nanana]

regardless his quote or not, we definitely have a generation full of idiots.

[sundaymorningstaple]

^ This.

[JR8]

regardless his quote or not, we definitely have a generation full of idiots.

Care to elaborate, or was that your point in it's entirety?

[sundaymorningstaple]

I think it was pretty obvious it is the quote and not the originator that was the whole point.

[Beeroclock]

[quote="JR8"]http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/19/tech-surpass/
'Dear Quote Investigator: A friend sent me a link to a message on a website with the title: “The day that Albert Einstein feared may have finally arrived”

[JR8]

Sure. Just I was wondering why the poster believes we have a 'generation full of idiots'.

@BoC.

I'm not sure how many scientific leaps there are to be had that match that that Einstein made. Even if there are, I wonder if they can be expressed in any way that would make any sense to 'the man on the street', and hence strike the average man as being 'of significance'.

[Beeroclock]

I'm not sure how many scientific leaps there are to be had that match that that Einstein made. Even if there are, I wonder if they can be expressed in any way that would make any sense to 'the man on the street', and hence strike the average man as being 'of significance'.

I wonder that too, but then again they probably thought the same after Newton, and then Einstein came along.... I just don't know if the kids of today would care much for science. Perhaps technology (be the next Jobs or Gates) or finance (the next Buffett or Branson) or sports or music ... But what role models or incentive to do science, does anyone even remember who wins the Nobel prizes these days for chemistry, physics etc?

[JR8]

I wonder that too, but then again they probably thought the same after Newton, and then Einstein came along.... I just don't know if the kids of today would care much for science. Perhaps technology (be the next Jobs or Gates) or finance (the next Buffett or Branson) or sports or music ... But what role models or incentive to do science, does anyone even remember who wins the Nobel prizes these days for chemistry, physics etc?

Mornin' BoC
For what ever reason this floated into my mind as I was waking up this morning. I was pondering how Einstein is popularly held up as a 'great, a genius', but then also contemplating how many people know the first thing about any of the work and breakthroughs that he made.

'''Roll up roll up, I'll get a pint for anyone who can explain any of Einstein's break-throughs, in terms that a reasonably intelligent man might be able to understand''' (and NO reaching for Wikipedia!)'''.

Perhaps he is popularly considered 'a great', simply because we are repeatedly told that he was? But that hardly follows the Scientific Method; and I wonder if Einstein himself might have had a chuckle about that...

Newton is probably a good comparison. At the time maybe, what 20-50 people in the world might have comprehended the significance of his work. Now hundreds of years later, I expect 'Newton's laws' are taught to most school-children. They do make some basic sense: 'Every action has an equal and opposite reaction' (nope, I didn't look it up!). For example, 'Little Jonny punches Kevin in the face, and Kevin falls over backwards'. Not so hard to grasp

Now, back to the Theory of Relativity, or the search for the search for the Higgs-Boson Particle... ?

Maybe the 'youth of today' do aspire to be the next Jobs, Gates, Buffet or Branson. But sadly I suspect such people are all doomed to fail. I don't think it is a thing you plan to be. Rather I think it is a thing for which you have a required natural aptitude (of which 99.999% don't), and of the ones that do I wonder how many realise it before the moment 'Preparation meets opportunity', and it starts to happen. When Branson was selling records and fanzines over the payphone from school, I can't imagine he had any inkling or dream of owning an airline. It was probably an innate ability and chance, rather than something more planned that got him there...


--- Anyway, a little deep for brekko I was making chocolate ice-cream last night (batch #1!) and had a small scoop on my Weetabix this morning just to test it out. I suspect the cocoa powder used has as much caffeine in it as a couple of espressos

--- Interesting thought. The modern cult of celebrity. And the moulding of historical 'dry as a stick' scientists into cultural celebrities...