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The Death of Social Reciprocity in the Era of Digital Distraction

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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

#51

Post by ryandrake »

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…

Do Not Disturb mode, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your life will change. No notifications, no vibrations, no dings, no texts, no calls. It's wonderful. You, and only you should be in charge of when you use your phone. Not some random caller or E-mail sender, not some app developer's "growth hacker", not AI running on some service's backend. Take back control of your attention!

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

#52

Post by Ididntdothis »

I think this trend started way before digital media. Since TV a lot of people spend hours every day in front of a screen which is their main source of information about the outside world. Business also has been becoming increasingly impersonal. You are beholden to shareholders you don’t know and shareholders demand things from people they don’t know. You can’t give feedback to job applicants for a vague fear of being sued. We are afraid of strangers talking to children or even us.

I am not sure if this trend will be positive or negative long term but I think social media is just another (accelerated) step in that direction.

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

#53

Post by reggieband »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #7
al_form2000 wrote: post #4

The title giveth, the body takes away. Articles like these have been making the rounds for maybe 6 ears now, and I cannot see how this brings even a moderately non-stale perspective to the fray .I checked the date, it's from today. Must be a slow week at SciAm.

Yes. It's an odd phenomenon. Some messages of this form seem to live and recirculate for years, perpetuated without much analytical thought. I often get preached at about how bad social media is. The irony is that I don't have any, and the people preaching at me do. My best theory: I suspect both online and offline, people "parrot" ideas 90% of the time. They hear an idea, repeat it without much thought, if it resona…

I don't think it is that odd at all. It is a bit like how people brag about how drunk they get, how stupid the things they did while drunk were, how hung over they are. They pretend like they are confessing but they are really bragging. Same with smoking/vaping. Same with people who relish in the toxic drama they invite into their lives.

I believe there is some dark psychology behind all of this. I think we test each other not only on how virtuous we are, but in what ways we are morally deficient. Being addicted to social media is one way we give ourselves permission to indulge in types of negative behavior that existed long before computers existed. These kind of articles are a tacit justification of those behaviors.

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

#54

Post by Ididntdothis »

Moru wrote: post #43
dctoedt wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

As a kid in Germany I was taught to greet every person I met on the street. Back then I really really really hated it but now I see it’s a good way to stay in touch with each other.

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

#55

Post by Bodell »

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #34
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…

Something I've been making an effort to do more is to try to have a softer look on my face when I'm in public. I tend to be pretty intense looking, especially when I'm thinking hard, which I usually am when I'm walking or standing in line. I've noticed that consciously thinking about something that makes me very happy, or something I find funny, will make that happy emotion show on my face. When I project happy into…

This is definitely something I had to work on a lot (and am still working on) as I've gotten older. Some time After 25 it became apparent to me that I was leaving the house with full armor on. This was getting in the way of my being apart of the world and making me into more of a passive observer than active participant. Now, I think it is much better to leave with the defenses down. Which means a "softer face" for sure. I feel as if interactions with strangers makes most of us humans feel vulnerable in general. But that vulnerability is something to be embraced not warded off. In fact, the only thing that really gets warded off when we attempt to protect ourselves in this way is real life "living" and engagement.

That said my interactions with strangers are still hit or miss, but people tend to be very open regardless and now I have a lot of crazy random interaction stories to tell.

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

#56

Post by [deleted] »

Verdex wrote: post #28

Back in my day when you passed someone on the way to buy your morning paper you would say "good day sir" and tip your hat. These kids don't even read the paper anymore. And they're all like, "what is up" and "how is it hanging". What does that even mean? I'm not even convinced they're using proper grammar to say these things. And what the deal with likes on facebook. Too busy posting pictures of what they're eating t…

[deleted]

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

#57

Post by twic »

xoraes wrote: post #24

Is it just me or others also feel that this is only exacerbated by having 'always in ear devices' like AirPods (or any other earbuds for that matter)? Why is it not considered rude to have them on while you're having a discussion with someone?

It is. Is this common behaviour somewhere? Where?

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

#58

Post by duderific »

xoraes wrote: post #24

Is it just me or others also feel that this is only exacerbated by having 'always in ear devices' like AirPods (or any other earbuds for that matter)? Why is it not considered rude to have them on while you're having a discussion with someone?

My favorite one lately, which is kind of the opposite, but at least as rude, is people having conversations on speaker phone as they're walking around in public. I don't really need to hear your conversation with Verizon customer service, bro.

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

#59

Post by duderific »

One thing I've noticed is that people often don't hold the door open anymore when you're following them out of a building or room, because they're looking at their phone.

I thought the article would be focused on these sorts of things, but it seemed to be more of an advice column. Not what I was expecting.

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

#60

Post by marmaduke »

vernvandamn wrote: post #6
marmaduke wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't that make it a replication of previous articles? Authenticity doesn't oblige originality You otoh offer nothing of substance

I think stating the article is unoriginal is a valid critique. The article is saying digital distraction is affecting society. We know that. Telling people they shouldn't be so distracted isn't a original thought and therefore reading the article is a waste of time. Despite the authenticity of a publication I wouldn't want to read 10 articles saying the same thing. There is some expectation of originality. Right?

> Despite the authenticity of a publication I wouldn't want to read 10 articles saying the same thing

I agree in a mundane sense, repetition is not exciting, but the sorts of large scale messages such as this one, need to be repeated across many sources of information (has Sci Am ever run an article in this before? Not the same as if Huff Post does) before it's taken seriously enough, by enough people, for something to change.

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