Do you think cells phones have ruined the art of conversation?

[MoseySusan]

28 minutes ago, ChrisL said:

No a smart phone can’t cook your meals but

I can use it to turn on the oven to preheat when I’m still 15 minutes from home. 

[shootingstar]

20 minutes ago, MoseySusan said:

I’ve watched high school students composing essays, oratory transcripts, debate cases on their iPhones. They are amazingly nimble with the tiny keyboard. 

As said earlier or maybe in another thread, I have an in-person close friend here in my city:  she has hand injuries and carpal tunnel from texting way too much on her iphone.  She can't ride her bike, golf and she took several months medical leave from work.  She's had to take painkillers and have physio, acupuncture.  Her experience is an enormous lesson to all.  There was a point she drove us around while texting on iPhone occasionally. I asked her not to. It's just scary to actually see this as a passenger.

Post-partial recovery, she's gone back to work and actually goes into the office FTE to work on her office desktop computer because of  better ergonomics for her. So she's been like this for past 12 months. She doesn't desktop at home because she doesn't want to be reminded of work.  Our employer does not require office workers to work FTE or PTE right now at the office.

When a person physically grows bigger, the whole posture hunched over an iphone for over an hr. and more is unnatural to the body...and micro-movements of hands.  For instance, a keyword width should approx. shoulder-width not super cramped..

And my friend is over  50 yrs...really loves technology. No luddite. Well she's a computer science grad.

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

Companies have designed their phones - along with the associated software and websites - to make it easy to keep their phone in your face.  The 'convenience' the phone offers becomes habit. 

For the user the transition from convenience to habit often occurs without thought.

And then the phone becomes a significant part of your life as you depend up on it more.

 

Try a little experiment the next time you're in a room with someone you know.  Out of the blue sent them a text message and wait for the phone ping.  See if they can resist picking up the phone and looking at it, or if the habits are so strong they need to look at the phone. 

I make no judgments about being so tied into a phone - everybody's situation is different.  I wonder just how many people actually recognize how subtly they were slowly drawn into creating the habits that tie their lives so closely into their phones.

Several years ago Mrs. TK and I were at a restaurant and a group of ladies sat at table near us.  It was clear they were all friends.  But when they sat down the conversation gradually died as one after another - except for one lady - got out their phones and started searching, posting, or texting.  Eventually the entire table went quiet.  The one lady who did not have her phone out looked rather uncomfortable and didn't seem to be enjoying herself.

 

[ChrisL]

19 minutes ago, shootingstar said:

As said earlier or maybe in another thread, I have an in-person close friend here in my city:  she has hand injuries and carpal tunnel from texting way too much on her iphone.  She can't ride her bike, golf and she took several months medical leave from work.  She's had to take painkillers and have physio, acupuncture.  Her experience is an enormous lesson to all.  There was a point she drove us around while texting on iPhone occasionally. I asked her not to. It's just scary to actually see this as a passenger.

Post-partial recovery, she's gone back to work and actually goes into the office FTE to work on her office desktop computer because of  better ergonomics for her. So she's been like this for past 12 months. She doesn't desktop at home because she doesn't want to be reminded of work.  Our employer does not require office workers to work FTE or PTE right now at the office.

When a person physically grows bigger, the whole posture hunched over an iphone for over an hr. and more is unnatural to the body...and micro-movements of hands.  For instance, a keyword width should approx. shoulder-width not super cramped..

And my friend is over  50 yrs...really loves technology. No luddite. Well she's a computer science grad.

Remember women working in typing pools back in the day got carpel tunnel. I got a bad case of it and still suffer from it by sorting paper time sheets weekly for years.   It’s not just the smart phone causing carpel tunnel, antiquated systems did as well. 
 

[shootingstar]

35 minutes ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

Eventually the entire table went quiet.  The one lady who did not have her phone out looked rather uncomfortable and didn't seem to be enjoying herself.

 

That would be me.

I would like to stress:  I have career where the job role for past 25 yrs. is electronic...80% of my job is in front of computer. 

My job isn't just pumping out stuff on MS Office  software, it is expressly to help /train employee users how to use specialized software, usually corporate-wide systems where the organization bought an expensive license.  For some employers, my job included knowing well, and targeting my support for 10 different vendor software platforms I had to know well plus the content.

Part of my career is: information literacy (specific to the business environment) and how  to find right information, which is a blend of  software search features and knowing content scope. So I am someone who in my personal life ...doesn't spend time searching but go to favourite /good quality sites for info. 

So my powerful need/draw to the Internet /information ...is a bit different.  It has been central to my paid career.