As I mentioned, I went to see Dark Knight Rises. I was standing in the lobby before they let us in and I noticed most people waiting with me were texting. I don’t text. I don’t want to know how. My reality, such as it is, is right where I am, where I’m standing, listening, looking. I like to get involved where I am. I like to look at faces and look at couples and wonder who they are. I like to tell myself stories about where I am. Chronic texters choose to leave their immediate, spatial reality — the place they are in — for some other reality somewhere else of chatting or whatever they do. That alternate reality has more reality for them than what I consider the real reality. Sad.
Tiburon Dave
It’s sad isn’t it…
I’ve got 5 teens in the house and their main method of communication is txt…
I knew the apocolypse was upon us last Spring when I was driving six girls to a Volleyball Tournament…all six were txting and I found out later that three of them were txting each other!!!
I asked my daughter if they were talking about something they didn’t want me to hear…she told me, “No, it’s just that most of the time txting is easier than talking”
I just turned 48 but I’m clearly a whole lot older than that…
August 17th, 2012 1:16 pm
Stan
I’m like you..I observe and wonder. You can see by my posts of what I say based on being worldly and curious-ha. I dont know why. Its not a bad thing,I guess. When I drive,I see people on the streets..wonder what life is that? From a shopping babe to a poor homeless guy pushing a cart-”Where did he get all that and what decisions go into using it?”
It’s always been like that. I know even as a little kid..when my parents drove to visit relatives..I would wonder as we drove along..Who lives in those Victorians,or those apartments close to the beach?. Heck,I would do that with factories too…what goes on behind those old dirty factory windows? And being innocent..I just wondered. No real idea or notion..just a curious kid
If you only knew how many times Ive noticed a friend(s) over the years looking at me looking..and wondering what am I doing?..lol..it is funny.
August 17th, 2012 1:25 pm
Peter
Similar feelings about photographing or video certain life events.
At kid functions or sporting event or being present at spectacular view most of time I forget the camera and instead absorb the scene, and maybe negotiate in my mind the moments before and after. I can tell a better story later. This also conveniently works well with my lack of gadgetry.
August 17th, 2012 1:25 pm
jason
I’m an old fogey so obviously I don’t get this texting thing.
I once saw my son conduct a conversation via text over the course of 18 hours. He showed me the text transcript and I told him he could’ve called up his friend and had the conversation in 5 minutes or less.
August 17th, 2012 1:31 pm
Bray
Lowell- I 100% agree, it absolutely drives me nuts. I was having lunch the other day, by myself miding my own business, looking out the window. The other 5-6 people waiting for their sandwich were texting away, the guy next to me leans over and says ‘You look like you’re bored’
Nope, just daydreaming I say. He then says “that’s why I have this thing” as he points to his not so ‘smart’ phone.
August 17th, 2012 2:12 pm
glenellen
People watching is fun. Especially at a sports event when your team is not doing well.
August 17th, 2012 2:17 pm
Mark M
That is their current reality you dinosaur! Just kidding, I actually sympathize with your point of view on this but it’s a losing battle I fear. My son does this as well and I’ve stopped giving him grief over it recently.
I like to eavesdrop on people and make up stories about them with my lady. Great fun!
August 17th, 2012 3:05 pm
latopia
No Luddite here. Have smartphone, will text. And browse. But only when necessary (not compulsively but if/when immediate access is required). Re social/socialization implications, it’s probably worse than you think. Personal observation: Phone compulsives who rely on phones or tablets (including Kindle readers) to obtain information are compulsively dumb, inaccurate, superficial.
Studies consistently show human beings read faster, comprehend more, retain longer from printed matter than they do online (using std desktop LCD). [ http://bit.ly/5Np4O4 ]. Imagine the deficits accrued from even smaller displays, esp. tablets & smartphones.
August 17th, 2012 3:11 pm
Stan
As a matter of fact I love the Cohn Zone,I could never be part of its demise..it completes me.
August 17th, 2012 3:13 pm
Dennis
There is texting, Facebook, twitter, instant messaging, email. My son, who works for me, does all them, sometimes all at once. My observation is that his generation is perhaps the most communicative to ever walk the planet, but they say so little. Body language is going the way of the blacksmith
August 17th, 2012 4:20 pm
Streetglide
I totally agree. The story of the tower of Babylon is instructive. The language of texting is uniting people around the world but a good power outage will confound them. I see couples together texting, ignoring each other. Pathetic.
August 17th, 2012 4:32 pm
mbabco
I’m on your side with this one. My wife teaches Thai cooking classes and we’ve had to make a rule: no texting in class. Sheesh. Why pay for a class and then not pay attention?
She also leads trips to Thailand and I’ve been accompanying her for 2 decades (yeah, lucky me). I think people had a lot more fun on the trips in the early days, pre-internet being available everywhere. It used to be that we’d pull into a town and people would walk the streets or go to a market and soak in the local color. Now they check email or surf the web.
I don’t even own a cell phone — I like being able to not be contacted by phone when I’m away from the house. So I’ve got nothing to text on. Long may it last!
August 17th, 2012 5:03 pm
Stan
OOP. That last post was meant for the Batman post. Happens.
August 17th, 2012 5:21 pm
loneraider78
I see it everywhere I go, and most of the time I’m fine with it. How people spend their time in the grocery line is their business.
But, the one place I see it, and it does bug me a bit, is at the playground.
I take my kids to the neighborhood park to play probably 2-3 times a week to give them a change of scenery from playing in our yard–plus, we don’t have a slide or monkey bars. But, I see other parents who just sit there noodling with their phone the entire time, barely ever looking up to see what their kids are doing. That bothers me a bit.
Granted, my kids are still very young and they need constant supervision while they play, but sometimes these other parents have kids the same age, or not much older than mine, and they play with their phone the whole time anyway.
Whatever happened to playing WITH your kids, or striking up a conversation with other parents?
I’m not a real sociable person in general, but I’ve found that children are an easy topic to relate to people about.
Bottom line: Parents need to pay attention to what their kids are doing and not just use the playground to occupy them while they facebook on their phone.
August 17th, 2012 5:37 pm
Bob In Portland
I can text but it’s been months. But I’m a dinosaur too.
August 17th, 2012 8:11 pm
lameduck
All I can say is don’t text and drink. Beer is sometimes better than wine.
August 17th, 2012 10:50 pm
Dr. Feelgood
You’re spot on, Lowell. Remember “futuristic” movies from a not too long ago, where the characters had “futuristic” communication devices that allowed them to engage in an alternate reality, to communicate with remote entities? Life is like that now. More and more, reality is unreal, it’s a suggestion of context without actual substance.
In my humble opinion, two classes of users have evolved: one that uses the phone as a tool, like say a hammer, and one that uses the phone as a living entity, on equal footing with family, friends and associates. Personally, I would never answer a phone, or use a hacksaw, in the company of other people, but would excuse myself at an opportune moment to check on the caller if I were expecting a call. However, some friends have no qualms about taking calls in the middle of conversations with their live-and-in-person friends.
I bitch them out and explain how rude the behavior is. Gratefully, most do relent and resist the phone ring-tone, but some don’t. Those are friends that I don’t see much of any more.
August 17th, 2012 11:00 pm
russell
I am the father of a teenaged girl that texts 4-8k times per month. Ridiculous! My boss told me 2 days ago that one of his daughters hit his phone bill for nearly 18k texts in one month… I ask you, how???? Is this our future? Text, status update, blah blah blah…..??????????? Count me out.
August 18th, 2012 12:35 am
Tommy CostaRica
I totally agree with all of you dinosaurs but you’re missing one of the great assets of the cell and that is if you don’t want to talk to someone and you see them coming you can grab your phone and pretend to be talking to someone. You know how you walk by a table in the lunch room and there’s someone there you don’t even want to have eye contact with just pull out your phone. And not only that, your feeling like you’re rubbing it in, “Look how popular I am!” I’m talking on the phone!
August 18th, 2012 7:58 am
Stan
I’m watching one of those Ken Burns like takes on WW2 on the History Channel. They read a letter from some American soldier about fighting the Japanese ” The Japanese(edited-but you know what they really called them) were yelling out at us at night “F- Babe Ruth!”..then the American said in his letter “That really pissed us off”…I cant make up this stuff and how all around us ties together…WW2-KNBR..life IS funny…
August 18th, 2012 11:18 am
B-Rad
Texting is quiet, isn’t it?
I hate that!
The more gossip I can hear, the more teenage girls giggling I can hear,
the more housewives complaining about their horrible, work-obsessed
husbands I can hear, the more guys talking sports I can hear, the more
crummy work environments I can hear about – the more health problems
I can hear about – these are the things that complete me and make my
dreary life tolerable.
August 18th, 2012 12:10 pm
Mike
The world is becoming rude Lowell……..from the texting to the reality shows to Facebook . Did you know a person could have 800 friends or more?
We are also inundated with the “critic”, the Yelp crowd whose contribution to society is complaining without a name or a credential.
The food critics are especially annoying as they complain about everything and everyone. We are creating a world of scammers and people who have no basis of reality so they have expectations that are impaired at best.
Yes – bring back the good old days.
August 18th, 2012 12:55 pm
Hank
Mr. Cohn
I know you have awaited a day like this when Harbaugh might confront adversity and have to face the music (media) and address questions the fan base wants answered. Now is that day. If you’re still vacationing, maybe you can take a day to go to a presser and see for yourself how Harbaugh responds, up close, live. My bet is that he doesn’t offer much, but that he protects his team. That is his biggest strength. Compare it to Dennis Allen’s comments at halftime yesterday.
Your faithful, longtime reader.
Hank
August 18th, 2012 8:08 pm
CohnZohn
Hank, I’m out of town and can’t attend his presser.
August 18th, 2012 8:43 pm
Steve
I was at a restaurant tonight. Great Japanese food, lovely atmosphere. The couple next to me, from the minute they were seated to the minute they paid and left, we’re texting. Not sure if they were texting each other, but it wouldn’t surprise me. They didn’t say a word to each other the entire time. What a waste.
August 18th, 2012 9:37 pm
Johnc
Stan, I recognized that reference to the Joker spoken when he was in jail… it was one of the best lines in the movie which I have seen three times ..once in theatre and twice on DVD. Incredible performance by Ledger.
August 19th, 2012 4:49 am
Frippertopia
Hegel & Marx wrote extensively on how the evolution of complex societies inevitably lead to an individual’s sense of “estrangement” or “alienation” from self and others. What Erich Fromm noted in the modern “post-industrial, consumer world as the struggle to become “fully human”.
The breath-taking advances of computer technology/Internet over the past 20yrs has pushed these tendencies to unimaginable heights, the social consequences of which we can barely grasp at this point. The SF-based psychoanalyst Allen Wheelis wrote a book about how technology can fundamentally change the human character. I don’t know where this is all heading. It
has brought about scary things such as people texting while driving and other inattentions to serious matters, and also has been instrumental in both the “Arab Spring” and “Occupy Wall Street”.
August 19th, 2012 11:44 am
Streetglide
Come retirement, I’m moving back to the northcoast where it will remain cool while the ice melts and the Central Valley floods. won’t have a cellphone or a computer. Just a pickup, Martin D-18, a Harley, good chain saw and some dark earth to plant row crops. Stop by some time, I’ll make dinner… -L-
August 20th, 2012 7:22 am
Stan
Never texted in my life. And I have a 1940′s black Bell telephone that I’m thinking of hooking back up..I miss that rotary sound..
August 21st, 2012 12:17 pm
Stan
Speaking of reality..you realize that the present popular idea of time is..there is no past and its the FUTURE projecting to the present. There is no past because there is no information past the big bang. In other words everything that’s going to happen in the universe is already known to the infinite future. So,unless you are there now..our present will seem random..when the fate is cast.
Sounds almost right..I always feel like no matter what door I pick,with all the thought I put into it…something makes sure its never going to be the right door..Know what I mean?
But they could be wrong too…
August 23rd, 2012 10:33 am
Stan
It’s called “The Holographic Universe” theory.
August 23rd, 2012 10:35 am