That is one implement that should definitely be banned, too much pollution and noise and waste of precious fossil fuels. -
Are smartphones making us anti-social?
- Thread starter B00Mer
- Start date
That is one implement that should definitely be banned, too much pollution and noise and waste of precious fossil fuels. -
Not for me. I've actually found I'm more social because I'm not relegated to my comp.
It's just when I neg rep someone I meant to give a +1 that it really pisses me off.
It's just when I neg rep someone I meant to give a +1 that it really pisses me off.
I don't think smart phones are making us anti-social, what they're doing is changing how social interactions happen, and as with any major change in how things happen, some of it's good and some of it's bad and in the long run new rules of etiquette will evolve to define what is and is not acceptable. Some people will be jerks with them, like the people who ignore dinner companions to text about trivia with somebody else, or post Instagram photos of what's for dinner (I don't care what you're having for dinner if I'm not there), but those people would be jerks anyway. On the other hand,there's what happened to me last Sunday evening. During a very lively and entertaining conversation with friends, questions over some points of fact arose, the guy sitting next to me whipped out his iPhone and looked things up, we had the answers in seconds and the conversation proceeded with everybody in possession of the same facts without the delay and interruption that looking them up any other way would have caused. That's a smart use of a smart phone.
And then this afternoon I was reading a book that touched on a related matter, the connectivity these devices provide analysed in terms of graphs and spatial dimensions . Consider a house, for instance. It has two neighbouring houses, one on each side, in a one dimensional graph every point is directly connected to two others. There'll also be a house across the street and one behind it, in a two dimensional graph every point is directly connected to four others. Or think of an apartment in a high rise, it'll also have neighbours above and below, in a three dimensional graph every point is directly connected to six others. The number of direct connections is always twice the number of dimensions. In a world with 5 billion cell phone users, we're effectively living in a space of 2.5 billion dimensions in terms of the number of direct connections we can have with others.
The book was about physics, really, the analysis was an analogy used to explain how various attempts to unify quantum theory and general relativity, like certain string theories and loop quantum gravity, attempt to reconceptualize space and time to explain the apparent superluminal information transfer required for quantum entanglement and the non-locality Bell's theorem requires.
Well, *I* thought it was interesting...
And then this afternoon I was reading a book that touched on a related matter, the connectivity these devices provide analysed in terms of graphs and spatial dimensions . Consider a house, for instance. It has two neighbouring houses, one on each side, in a one dimensional graph every point is directly connected to two others. There'll also be a house across the street and one behind it, in a two dimensional graph every point is directly connected to four others. Or think of an apartment in a high rise, it'll also have neighbours above and below, in a three dimensional graph every point is directly connected to six others. The number of direct connections is always twice the number of dimensions. In a world with 5 billion cell phone users, we're effectively living in a space of 2.5 billion dimensions in terms of the number of direct connections we can have with others.
The book was about physics, really, the analysis was an analogy used to explain how various attempts to unify quantum theory and general relativity, like certain string theories and loop quantum gravity, attempt to reconceptualize space and time to explain the apparent superluminal information transfer required for quantum entanglement and the non-locality Bell's theorem requires.
Well, *I* thought it was interesting...
Similar things were said about writing in general. People thought memory would go downhill fast if no one had to remember things and could just go look them up. Its just new technology. It changes things just as it always has. I dont really like this new practice and find the word itself rather odd.
Yes I love that part of it. Comes in great with panhandlers or people pushing things on you while outside going about your business.
If only. If people did that the article would be whining about it instead.
I prefer texting myself. After working about four years in a call centre I have come to hate phones and phone calls regardless of who I am talking to. If I wanted to actually speak to them verbally Id go see them.