

'I wish I'd spent more time on the internet' - nobody, ever. - whatleydude
http://whatleydude.com/2012/12/the-pressure-of-immediacy/
aka 'the pressure of immediacy' - just because all this knowledge at hand, should we be using it interrupt our every waking hour?
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shurane
Heh, I have visited friends in college who spend their entire time "talking"
to each other while being distracted by Twitter, surfing the web, playing
video games, and other activities. It's a bizarre experience and for me, it
didn't result in any engaging conversations. But I've come to just accept it.

From what I know, humans have very short attention spans. Isn't this why
newspapers and magazines are popular? At 25 articles, you get to hit a good
variety of content for the reader. I don't think magazines are as focused as a
novel or textbook. The internet just magnifies that aspect immensely.

I think conversations reflect this short attention span. It's easy to jump
through 10 different topics in the span of minutes, even without distractions
from the internet. The sort of focused conversation doesn't usually happen. At
least, not without some concerted effort. In the classroom, teachers can
moderate the discussion to keep the conversation relevant. This is important
because teachers are trying to teach something.

In a casual ad-hoc conversation, I don't think the people particularly care
about learning something. So you get gossip, stories, all manners of nonsense
(maybe some consider it noise?) in addition to potentially useful information.
But the topics are scattered, the order of topics may be confusing, etc. If
you are looking for a more engaging concentrated conversation, you'll manage
it somehow. By controlling the flow, or talking to only one person, or
something.

The people that spend more time stuck with their phones either don't have
anything to contribute to the conversation or are afraid of doing so. They
just suck at conversation-making, at least within that party.

And I don't think being connected to the internet 24/7 is particularly bad for
most people. Before the internet, you would have couch potatoes that would
spend hours in front of a TV and radio a day. And I'm sure people managed to
be anti-social before the days of TV and radio.

Sure, it's easy to spend all your time with the tube or the internet. But but
I don't think it's anti-social. I think the concept of anti-social reflects
the people around the person more than anything else. If you don't like your
family and thus don't do very much at family gatherings, they'll be bound to
think you're anti-social. Same thing if you go to a high school where you
don't get along with anybody because your tastes and interests differ. Boom,
guidance counselor will call you anti-social, not being able to keep up
relations with friends, etc.

\----

So, the question. Why do I think this? I meet anti-social people on a day to
day basis, because I'd like to bring them out of their shells. I think the
people they tend to be around affect them the most. Especially because even a
normally sociable person can exhibit anti-social tendencies if you take them
out of their comfort zone.

And I've been able to have engrossing hour-long conversations with people that
others consider anti-social, so it doesn't feel like they are anti-social.
Maybe they just get uncomfortable easily. Or not interested in meeting others.

