From the fevered minds of a loose grouping of self-appointed cultural commentators comes a weekly side-swipe at the issues of the day, providing a pithy and often heated debate on pop culture as they see it.
This is The Hot Topic.
Burning it up this week: Technology
From: Mat Brewster
To: The Hot Topic Team
Re: Technology
At my place of employment we have a strict rule about not using the internet for personal use at your desk. We have set up several computers in the break room for personal use. Last week all of these computers had to be taken out for repair. It was as if the second-coming had happened all over again. Employees were furious, literally and physically angry. Like we had intentionally taken the computers away from them as punishment, and not because they needed repair.
The other day I was standing in line at the local eatery. A young man is standing before the cashier, chatting on his cell phone. The girl behind the counter attempts several times to inquire as to what the customer's order might be. Cell phone guy gives her an impatient - what does this simpleton want - look and continue to phone conversate. The girl persists, and the man angrily tells the person on the other side of the phone line to hold, and then orders.
When I think upon these things, and others like them, I wonder when our lives became that important. It's not like most of us are kings and queens, presidents of the free world. Lives are not at stake here. Yet more and more we behave as if reading the newest e-mail and answering our cell phones are all important tasks that simply must be done. NOW!
Ever been on the losing end of the battle between you and a friend's ringing cell phone? There you are chatting about Arabian policies, the meaning of jacket's in Tolstoy's poetry, or the fine art of dancing with tuna fish and suddenly you are forced to sit politely - if awkwardly - while your friend laughs it up with his cell phone?
Where did courtesy go?
Now, I don't want to sound like a technophobe. I'm no hater of the new, the technological, the lights and beeps of today's age. Cell phones are a marvel. They have helped mankind over and over again. From asking the wife which of the six different types of pesto sauce she wants when sending the husband to the grocery store; to getting on the spot directions while in the car, and even saving lives cell phones can more than justify their existence.
Article comments
1 - DJRadiohead
10 Points for me for managing to work last week's HT into this week's HT. We are going to become our own version of Seinfeld what with all the self-referentialness. Saleski is Newman.
2 - Nancy
I have to agree with Mark: just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD. Most people (myself included) can't be trusted to walk & chew gum at the same time, let alone drive & talk on a cell phone at the same time. The difference is, a few of us recognize that. Also, some of us were brought up to believe that we are not Pavlov's dogs when it comes to answering the demanding summons of a phone, thereby ignoring persons actually in our presence in favor of those calling on said phone.
I spent Thanksgiving at a very nice restaurant with another person; but I swear to God, it's the last time, because this fool got a call on the cell phone, answered it, and then spent the next 20 minutes chatting away & ignoring everyone else at the same table. I wish I had given in to my impulse to pick the goddamned thing out of her hand & fling it into her gravy. The rudeness was (to me) appalling & unimaginable. Since when are we at the beck & call of machines!?
3 - Bennett
Right on Nancy! You should have tossed her phone. This is a social problem, and the sooner we set the standards for accceptable behavior, the better.
11th Commandment - Thou shall not talk on the cell phone in other people's presence.
4 - Nancy
Yeah, but as Ms. Natalie keeps admonishing me, that would put me down at her level. But I WILL say something to her about it, nicely the first time, and less so the next, if there is a next.
5 - Mat Brewster
It really is a problem. When did we forget common courtesy? And I'm guessing that this person's cell conversation wasn't all that important. That's probably what drives me even more crazy. It is bad enough that you are rude enough to answer the dang phone, but then to sit there and talk about absolutely nothing, that's just too much.
My wife, who teaches at university has told me some of her students will chat on the phone during her lectures!
6 - Greg Smyth
Nice work guys!
Technology has certainly advanced communication exponentially in the recent past and there's a whole ream of stuff that's good about it but let's accentuate the negative for a change.
More communication doesn't mean better communication. In fact, the easier it is to text/email/call the more likely that you'll be smothered in an avalanche of increasingly pointless and bothersome communication. And to the point where the signal to noise ratio of these new modes of communication could render them almost useless.
Time was, you'd get a letter. That involved some degree of forethought. Even if you responded immediately, the medium had an in-built timelag so that it'd easily be a week before you got a response to your reply.
Now it's instantaneous. That means people don't even necessarily have time to figure out what they want to say.
More communication means less useful communication.
As for the internet, as Sir Fleming quite rightly says, it's a thoroughly effective procrastination tool and, personally, I don't need any more reasons to do less.
7 - Mark Saleski
newman?!!!! gees, thanks a lot.
i'd have more to say, but i'm on my to michigan with a truckload of recyclables.
8 - Mat Brewster
That's a good point, Greg. In high school I used to write and receive a letter or two a day. It was a lot of work to do so too. I took a lot of time thinking about what to write, and being creative with them. But it was such a joy to receive a letter back in the mail too.
Now e-mails are zapped back and forth without much thought. I get over a hundred e-mails a day and I never get excited about them. But to get a real letter is a lovely thing.
9 - Mat Brewster
If Saleski is Newman, I wanna be George and emsconce myself in velvet.
10 - Aaron Fleming
Haha, can I be David Putty?
"You got a question...you ask the eight ball!"
"That's right."
11 - Mary K. Williams
OH I am SO with you guys on this stuff. I have written about Technology in the past, but to re-post it here, might be redundant?
So, there's this whole love/hate thing going on - but like so much other stuff, it's really all relative.
If you all let women in to this mini-cabal, I can do a pretty good Elaine. Got the 'shove' thing down pat. : ) "Get OUT!"