Chewster said:
No, I feel that for sure. Teaching in private acadmies it was a nightmare because it was all business and taking little Miho's phone away meant an annoyed call from a parent/walking revenue stream. Public school is easier because the kids have to go and so their complaints don't matter and now that I'm at uni, who cares? If my students use their phones for stuff other than the occasional translation, I just give them a shitty participation grade.
But I know the type. I'm visiting a friend in Shanghai now and yesterday we screwed up our subway stop twice because he was messing around on his phone and not paying attention. He's better when not on public transit though, so I kind of forgive him for it. He's also a fair bit younger than me, which I think tends to be a factor.
My only vice with smartphones is taking pictures, even when I never post them to any social media (I still have my 2009 California trip pictures on an old laptop somewhere). I tend to take a lot of photos and if I've been drinking, I sometimes go on a tear if there are lots of people around and I remember I have a camera and I end up photographing everying and ignoring everyone. My ex, on the other hand, took tons of pictures sober but never drunk, posted them all to Facebook (even if blurry or they had poor composition) and then would delete them all off her phone right away. Different strokes, I guess.
The big problem I have is the university is pushing all of us to get a Facebook and Twitter ... for no fucking reason. Well there is a reason, because they want to pretend as if people having 24/7 contact with you is somehow 'putting our best face forward' ....
Fuck off... seriously, our 'best face' would be 'these are my office hours, only these times, and it is your responsibility to treat that contact with respect as you would any professional relationship' ... Not to have lecturers and course co-ordinators get constantly beeped at whenever they turn on their phones because some shithead couldn't be bothered to print off a course outline and their laptop is about to die in the library.
Social media is the least bit social.
I remember one job interview I went to years back, the panelist went; "Odd... I can't seem to find much about you online."
As if that was somehow
fucking alien a concept of a person wishing to remain a private individual...
My answer was simple enough; "I'd much keep my professional life and personal life separate. You can't do that very often online... so one must win out." And for some reason they were impressed by that answer. The simple fact that, no, I'm not the type of person that will just sit there Twittering or responding to Facebook, rather I'll be working.
But now I can't even do that .... the technojunkies want me to be as pathetic, OC, and utterly irrational as them and get a 'personable Facebook profile' because of my
professional conduct.
So I personally loathe it. I really--really do. It has cut the IQ of humanity by half. Now I get it, not all industries. Media personalities obviously have a certain degree of social exposure. Artists, what have you. But that blurring of theline between private and public individuals shouldn't be broken arbitrarily. Your example of the Shanghai commuter-- totally get where you're comingfrom.I see people get bumped into at Central because they're checking their phones. Almost getting hit by cars and buses at Railway Square because they are
constantly looking at their phones.
Phones are no longer fucking phones... they're just social media portals. Hell, I was in one relationship where Facebook was
just always in browser on their Samsung Note. It's kind of fucked up.
What the hell do these people do when they can't broadcast to the world that they exist every 10 minutes? Sit there and whimper?