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Tuesday, March 03, 2009 Links on the Downsides of the Digital Age Online Communication is Hit or Miss. I have no idea who the blog post is referring to, but it does address one of my pet peeves about internet writing. One of the problems with writing online is that it is impossible to convey the nuances of meaning of a dashed out sentence without facial expression (unless you made a video of yourself and posted it). To compensate for this, people resort to emoticons and acronyms--which have by now become meaningless through overuse. I hope this will force people to be a little more articulate and precise in their choice of words. But in reality? People will prefer the fast shortcut over the thought out reply leading to even shoddier communication. The Crackberry Phenomenon. These days, everyone expects everyone else to be connected all the time. I dislike it. I almost never turn on my cell phone so no one can bother me with their so-called emergencies. If you want my attention, do it via e-mail (this means everyone, even family). Of course, getting a reply from me depends completely on my whim, whether I deem a particular piece of e-mail urgent or not, or if I'm bored. The thing is, with e-mail, I feel as if I have some sort of control over the communication. Phones, not so much. In the lab, I see people get interrupted in the middle of their experiments all the time with calls. Heck, even I'm interrupted with calls from the lab phone--even when they're for somebody else. One day, I'm just going to let it ring forever while I continue doing whatever it is I'm doing. In the old days, people went about their lives perfectly fine without phones or other electronic gadgets. It's not going to kill anyone if they just stopped using this stuff for a day. [posted by S. Y. Affolee on 7:31 AM : ]
Comments:
I thought it was my age - but I guess not! Then again, I see lots of people my age and older texting or chatting on their cell all the time too. It's as if they cannot run to the supermarket for a bottle of salad dressing without ringing someone up at home to ask if they prefer Newman's Caesar or Hellman's Ranch. And I've even heard a few stories of people at staff meetings texting or taking calls as they sit around the conference table.
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