The Death of Social Reciprocity in the Era of Digital Distraction • Hacker News Board

Re: The Death of Social Reciprocity in the Era of Digital Distraction

#41

Post by cgs » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 4:12 PM UTC

aphextim wrote: post #3

One thing I try to always do is smile and/or wave at babies/young children if they make eye contact with you. In a world where there is a lot of negativity being broadcast on the news 24/7 and click bait headlines, it is good to instill a sense of happiness in the youth of today by being friendly. Walking places a lot of people are distracted by their phones and hardly make eye contact anymore of if they do they make…

Along the same lines, I try to even just make brief eye contact with strangers after reading that it makes a difference, and recognizing it's something I appreciate when others do. From a recent NPR article [1]:

"Kipling Williams, a Purdue University psychologist, studied how people felt when a young woman walked by them and either made eye contact, made eye contact while smiling, or completely ignored them. Even brief eye contact increased people's sense of inclusion and belonging."

"Just that brief acknowledgment, that brief glance — with or without a smile — made them at least temporarily feel more socially connected," Williams says. And it works both ways. Those that had been "looked through" felt even more disconnected than the control group.

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/07/26/7442670...

Re: The Death of Social Reciprocity in the Era of Digital Distraction

#42

Post by goatinaboat » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 4:13 PM UTC

hurrdurr2 wrote: post #40

bitL wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...just wait until their parents report you to the police for "smiling at kids"

Your sentiment is not too far from the truth... I often use the nextdoor app for my neighborhood, and the amount of paranoia folks on there display to their own neighbors and people just walking down the street/walking their dogs is astonishing.

Indeed. We have a street WhatsApp and the curtain-twitchers report sightings of anyone “foreign looking”.

I say good morning to most people I see, we are friendly here in South Wales, but I don’t risk appearing on anyone’s microaggression blog or outrage twitter.

Re: The Death of Social Reciprocity in the Era of Digital Distraction

#43

Post by Moru » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

dctoedt wrote: post #19

aphextim wrote: post #3

One thing I try to always do is smile and/or wave at babies/young children if they make eye contact with you. In a world where there is a lot of negativity being broadcast on the news 24/7 and click bait headlines, it is good to instill a sense of happiness in the youth of today by being friendly. Walking places a lot of people are distracted by their phones and hardly make eye contact anymore of if they do they make…

That goes for adults (in some settings) too. My wife and I walk our dogs for about two miles in the neighborhood every morning around 5:00 a.m. or thereabouts. Every few minutes we'll encounter someone else running, walking a dog, bicycling, etc. We seldom know the people, but we make it a point to say "[good] morning" to everyone, and we usually get a response. What's especially gratifying is that we've started to s…

When I'm in Germany (Eifel area) everyone greets you when you walk around the neighbourhood, sitting in the garden or walking the nature trails. Sometimes even strike up a conversation. Age does not matter, everyone at least says good morning /day /evening. Very different as soon as you hit a bigger city though. Mabe not only the phones fault?

Re: The Death of Social Reciprocity in the Era of Digital Distraction

#44

Post by hos234 » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 4:26 PM UTC

aphextim wrote: post #3

One thing I try to always do is smile and/or wave at babies/young children if they make eye contact with you. In a world where there is a lot of negativity being broadcast on the news 24/7 and click bait headlines, it is good to instill a sense of happiness in the youth of today by being friendly. Walking places a lot of people are distracted by their phones and hardly make eye contact anymore of if they do they make…

You can also ask for directions, where to buy stuff in the neighborhood, is that take out place good etc. For some mysterious reason, it makes most people feel good, being of use to others.

Re: The Death of Social Reciprocity in the Era of Digital Distraction

#45

Post by rabidrat » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 4:38 PM UTC

cgs wrote: post #41

aphextim wrote: post #3

One thing I try to always do is smile and/or wave at babies/young children if they make eye contact with you. In a world where there is a lot of negativity being broadcast on the news 24/7 and click bait headlines, it is good to instill a sense of happiness in the youth of today by being friendly. Walking places a lot of people are distracted by their phones and hardly make eye contact anymore of if they do they make…

Along the same lines, I try to even just make brief eye contact with strangers after reading that it makes a difference, and recognizing it's something I appreciate when others do. From a recent NPR article [1]: "Kipling Williams, a Purdue University psychologist, studied how people felt when a young woman walked by them and either made eye contact, made eye contact while smiling, or completely ignored them. Even bri…

Interestingly, I wonder how much different the results would be if it were a man making the eye contact and smiling.

Re: The Death of Social Reciprocity in the Era of Digital Distraction

#46

Post by morcutt » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

This article resonates with me. As of late, social media has been a negative for my life. It is terribly distracting. I pay attention to who interacts with my content more than I should. I just deactivated Instagram (user ~#66,000 so I signed up in the first few days) for the first time this week (after deleting the app many times) and it has been very refreshing.

Re: The Death of Social Reciprocity in the Era of Digital Distraction

#47

Post by maxerickson » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

wallflower wrote: post #9

Distractions are our lives now. You can choose to minimize them. Start by turning off “new email” notifications. You may not miss much by not knowing the moment an email arrives. If something is truly important and urgent, they will usually use multiple means to contact you, like calling you. You can also graduate to removing almost all notifications from your phone. I say almost all because the beauty of Slack is th…

"Eliminate distractions" is the command that will accidentally lead the AI to "Kill all humans".

Re: The Death of Social Reciprocity in the Era of Digital Distraction

#48

Post by qwsxyh » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 4:48 PM UTC

asveikau wrote: post #38

bitL wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...just wait until their parents report you to the police for "smiling at kids"

I was thinking about something like this recently. I am a father of two kids. I can be walking on the sidewalk with my kids, and see another parent, maybe a mom, smile and say hello, it's totally fine. Same situation, but maybe my kids are not with me, maybe they're in school. Suddenly I'm a strange man saying hello at a mom and her kids. A real danger situation! Hold onto your bag, hold the kids extra tight, reach f…

This is such an exclusively American problem.

Re: The Death of Social Reciprocity in the Era of Digital Distraction

#49

Post by byko3y » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

sak5sk wrote: post #18

It's worse than that. It is all baked into our daily tools. Even HN as a community and a forum aids in distraction. Pretty much any community that lets you form an echo chamber around yourself (all social networks, and communities including HN)commands your attention by making you interact with people who think like you. If this were done in real life it would be much different, but the online medium of it falls shor…

Could it be the information bombardment made you impenetrable to the real information? For example, since I found really important information and sources I value, no bullshit sources distract my attention. I don't watch TV, I don't visit popular news websites (including HN, made an exception today), I'm not captured by any social net service.

I feel like I'm still half-blind and thus see no clear way out of the prison, just like you. I'm a really honest man and the fight for the real world requires an advanced pretentiousness skill which I lack.

Re: The Death of Social Reciprocity in the Era of Digital Distraction

#50

Post by fffernan » Thu, Aug 08, 2019, 4:57 PM UTC

qwsxyh wrote: post #48

asveikau wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking about something like this recently. I am a father of two kids. I can be walking on the sidewalk with my kids, and see another parent, maybe a mom, smile and say hello, it's totally fine. Same situation, but maybe my kids are not with me, maybe they're in school. Suddenly I'm a strange man saying hello at a mom and her kids. A real danger situation! Hold onto your bag, hold the kids extra tight, reach f…

This is such an exclusively American problem.

Disagree. Plenty of perverts in many countries. Do some googling about the guys in trench coats on trains in Japan.