Give it a few generations and we'll all look like this all the time.
Re: peoplestaringatcomputers
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 1:03 pm
by Canadian_watcher
GRRR I keep hitting quote instead of edit today. sry double post. see below
Re: peoplestaringatcomputers
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 1:04 pm
by Canadian_watcher
I prefer the computer to the effing cell phone, which I guess is just a little baby sized computer - but it's the portability that drives me crazy. I was at an art show last weekend and I was watching a grandmother and her gorgeous, tall, 14 or 15 year old granddaughter walk along. The grandmother was holding all sorts of bags and trying to engage her granddaughter. I overheard:
"Can't you tell them you'll get back to them later. We're having fun."
Of course, she had to repeat this, because the granddaughter was barely aware that she was around other living humans. Instead this girl who should be involved in her surroundings was hypnotized, walking a foot behind like a blind robot, staring at a teenylittletextbox held at chest level.
Honestly, as the parent of a teen, what I've witnessed since the phenomenon of texting has taken hold makes me want to cry.
Re: peoplestaringatcomputers
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 1:06 pm
by justdrew
how the hell did the secret service zoom in on this apparently the day it started? There's one set of posts from 3 days ago, none older or newer. Maybe an apple store found the software?
Re: peoplestaringatcomputers
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 1:07 pm
by 2012 Countdown
Canadian_watcher wrote:I prefer the computer to the effing cell phone, which I guess is just a little baby sized computer - but it's the portability that drives me crazy. I was at an art show last weekend and I was watching a grandmother and her gorgeous, tall, 14 or 15 year old granddaughter walk along. The grandmother was holding all sorts of bags and trying to engage her granddaughter. I overheard:
"Can't you tell them you'll get back to them later. We're having fun."
Of course, she had to repeat this, because the granddaughter was barely aware that she was around other living humans.
Honestly, as the parent of a teen, what I've witnessed since the phenomenon of texting has taken hold makes me want to cry.
Not to be sexist here in my implied higher expectations of a grown 48 year old man, but sometimes on rare occasions when I am with said 'friend' as a get together, the texting is constant. The man is a 16 year old girl, and a rude one at that.
Re: peoplestaringatcomputers
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 1:14 pm
by Searcher08
I found the Tumblr site quite beautiful and thought provoking and full of irony.
If I was a nascent silicon intelligence, looking out at the world for the first time, I would be struck by how little presence these carbon-based forms seem to me.
The texting reminds me of (I think, Sega) advert -
"Wherever you are, Be somewhere else"
which, frankly, sucks total ass.
Re: peoplestaringatcomputers
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 1:15 pm
by Canadian_watcher
^ colour me confused.. is this really a 48 y/o man or a 16 y/o girl? lol.. nevermind, it doesn't matter. Ohhhh, wait... I get it now.
that was a little sexist there, 2012~~~!!! But I hear you. It's awfully rude for anyone to do it and tho we kind of expect it from overly-communicative young females it always shocks us more when coming from someone out of type.
@Searcher - lol. YES.. it DOES suck total ass!!! I never thought it would be so difficult to convince other people to live in the moment ... but it *is* .. I really don't think they understand it.
Re: peoplestaringatcomputers
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 1:28 pm
by norton ash
In a restaurant last night with a friend while he answered an urgent Blackberry... nothin' to do but look around, because they won't hear you if you speak anyway.. at other bored people marooned alone with texting companions ... one of whom smirked, rolled her eyes at me, and I smiled back in sympathy and resignation.
Re: peoplestaringatcomputers
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 1:32 pm
by hanshan
...
justdrew wrote:how the hell did the secret service zoom in on this apparently the day it started? There's one set of posts from 3 days ago, none older or newer. Maybe an apple store found the software?
Heh...TIA in action
...
Re: peoplestaringatcomputers
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 1:36 pm
by hanshan
...
norton ash wrote:In a restaurant last night with a friend while he answered an urgent Blackberry... nothin' to do but look around, because they won't hear you if you speak anyway.. at other bored people marooned alone with texting companions ... one of whom smirked, rolled her eyes at me, and I smiled back in sympathy and resignation.
Don't use any of the new electronics including cell phones & find the virtual obsession ('scuse the pun) to be a rather odd pathology. Kindly ask friends to turn them off if we're conversing.
...
Re: peoplestaringatcomputers
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 1:46 pm
by tazmic
I feel bad lowering the tone of a thread I started, but...
Re: peoplestaringatcomputers
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 2:59 pm
by Searcher08
Canadian_watcher wrote:^ colour me confused.. is this really a 48 y/o man or a 16 y/o girl? lol.. nevermind, it doesn't matter. Ohhhh, wait... I get it now.
that was a little sexist there, 2012~~~!!! But I hear you. It's awfully rude for anyone to do it and tho we kind of expect it from overly-communicative young females it always shocks us more when coming from someone out of type.
@Searcher - lol. YES.. it DOES suck total ass!!! I never thought it would be so difficult to convince other people to live in the moment ... but it *is* .. I really don't think they understand it.
Soz CW yeah wot? No Yes imtx rplying to my Twitter feedall bout <bump> awareness <falls over into fountain>
Re: peoplestaringatcomputers
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 4:04 pm
by tazmic
Canadian_watcher wrote:@Searcher - lol. YES.. it DOES suck total ass!!! I never thought it would be so difficult to convince other people to live in the moment ... but it *is* .. I really don't think they understand it.
This moment moves, is alive, captivating & consuming. Time falls into its wake.
In the virtual.... a read facebook page is dead. There is no life unless its moment can be made to move. A blank future captivates the new generation of future-consumers that can now feed the machine in real time (instead of waiting 'til payday), maintain the flow of their own s(t)imulated pseudo-moment, and with a little help from Moore's law, perhaps escape noticing the time bound, always decaying nature of their replacement for the present.
Re: peoplestaringatcomputers
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 4:47 pm
by 8bitagent
I am now thoroughly hating this time period more and more. I used to have more luck randomly meeting cool people, getting people energized and excited, inspired even. And even I used to be excited. Now to quote the collective modern jargon, this time we are a living is a giant dose of "meh". The youth seem burned out, and we're all being further sucked into a zombifying facebook/smart phone/twitter/text/youtube mashup matrix of crap.
My friend said in chat last night "yeah is a shit hole out there. people are becoming more douchier. the government is corrupt. the economy is crap. i sit here and listen to the bullshit neo cons and the lame duck democrats and think to myself are you fucking serious? i find that its all a narrative. a crappy corrupted narratve a breakdown of social structure"
tazmic wrote:
Canadian_watcher wrote:@Searcher - lol. YES.. it DOES suck total ass!!! I never thought it would be so difficult to convince other people to live in the moment ... but it *is* .. I really don't think they understand it.
This moment moves, is alive, captivating & consuming. Time falls into its wake.
In the virtual.... a read facebook page is dead. There is no life unless its moment can be made to move. A blank future captivates the new generation of future-consumers that can now feed the machine in real time (instead of waiting 'til payday), maintain the flow of their own s(t)imulated pseudo-moment, and with a little help from Moore's law, perhaps escape noticing the time bound, always decaying nature of their replacement for the present.
Beautiful. If you wrote a book I would read it...(I just re-read William Gibson's Pattern Recognition)
Re: peoplestaringatcomputers
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 4:59 pm
by 8bitagent
There's a part me that says, fuck it. Bring it all down. Implode the economy, project mayhem x 1000, bring down all communication/grids with cyber attacks. I mean that's what these tricksters want apparently, bring it.
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 12:24 pm