Thread: Have we, as a society, lost our ability to communicate face-to-face

I know it's not just here or in Australia or the US or anywhere there is enough wealth to have a smart-phone . . . but if we turn time back to when we were kids, we weren't allowed to read books at a dining table . . . (in Peter's case stone tablets ) and our parents didn't either.
There was communication, however simplistic or basic.

Our kids have their smart phones (everyone has a Nokia and I'm the black sheep with the iPhone) but they don't use it when it isn't appropriate to do so.

Surely the parents are the ones to 'blame' for this . . . no?

Having lunch today and the restaurant across the aisle . . .

The parent is sitting there doing here phone as well. I have a simple rule: No phones at the dinner table.

It's been a downhill slide ever since the first person opened a newspaper at the breakfast table....

Originally Posted by nidhogg

The parent is sitting there doing here phone as well.

Err..think that's kinda part of the op's point.

I think it's an exaggeration to say that the ability to communicate face to face has been lost, but certainly the immersion of travelling has been badly affected.

I don't think I would have got half as much out of travelling in my younger days if I'd spent so much of my time fucking around on facebook as people do these days. In fact the whole living overseas experience would have been an almost tangential one.

You people are quick to pick up on this...

It has given stupid a much safer, if overwhelming outlet. Stupid people can be more safely ignored, yet remain oblivious to the fact they are being scrupulously ignored.

Say the people with 100,000 posts on internet forums.


but yes, I agree, society today is fuked and common social interactions, as we know them, fading quickly.

I hate to say it but if I'm off line for too long, I mean Days, I'm wanting to at least check my Emails.

I do all my business on line, banking, communicating with friends back home, monitoring the Australian and Thai news, paying bills and much more .

Having no Internet would be like going back to the stone age for me.

Don't mind admitting it.

Wow.


Deep.

Originally Posted by Luigi

Wow.


Deep.

All apart of the systematic dumbing down of the last couple of generations, Mao.

Seems to be a success.

It's a good photo, and someone should try to capture a single image that tops 4 people online.

However, in mitigation of the four people depicted - at least they are probably using their own identities in their online social media world, rather than noms de plume.

Originally Posted by chassamui

Stupid people can be more safely ignored,

The only reason some people are still alive today is it is illegal to kill them.

Originally Posted by Luigi

I agree, society today is fuked and common social interactions, as we know them, fading quickly

This has been my heartburn for the last 5 years or more. People do not know how to talk to people in person anymore. As a society we are all becoming lost in social media BS and messaging to people that you should just talk to. Its all emotionless which people seem to want. People go hide in a corner and "Chat" to all their friends that they don't see or do things with anymore. Its really quite odd. It explains a lot of the obese children now. The only thing they exercise is their thumbs. Most do not even use their brains, everything is a shortcut app.

I am thankful to say I will be long gone and burnt before the coming generations turn into surrogates.

To give 'em the benefit of doubt, they could be trying to trace papa on 'find my iPhone'.

Originally Posted by JPPR2

Originally Posted by chassamui

Stupid people can be more safely ignored,

The only reason some people are still alive today is it is illegal to kill them.

Originally Posted by Luigi

I agree, society today is fuked and common social interactions, as we know them, fading quickly

This has been my heartburn for the last 5 years or more. People do not know how to talk to people in person anymore. As a society we are all becoming lost in social media BS and messaging to people that you should just talk to. Its all emotionless which people seem to want. People go hide in a corner and "Chat" to all their friends that they don't see or do things with anymore. Its really quite odd. It explains a lot of the obese children now. The only thing they exercise is their thumbs. Most do not even use their brains, everything is a shortcut app.

I am thankful to say I will be long gone and burnt before the coming generations turn into surrogates.

Originally Posted by cyrille

I think it's an exaggeration to say that the ability to communicate face to face has been lost

Perhaps, but it has certainly been affected negatively by the use of smartphones. I see it at work as well - people are loathe to actually make phone-calls, instead opting for sms or whatsapp communication.

Originally Posted by JPPR2

As a society we are all becoming lost in social media BS and messaging to people that you should just talk to. Its all emotionless which people seem to want. People go hide in a corner and "Chat" to all their friends that they don't see or do things with anymore. Its really quite odd.

Every now and then I'll sit down at Starbucks and down a coffee, tables filled with people all on their phones and I wonder how many of them are 'communicating' with their table-mates via their phone.

Consider the upside. The chronically shy and introverted can now hide in public without fear of being noticed.

You're a 'glass-half-full' man, Chas!

Originally Posted by OckerRocker

I wonder how many of them are 'communicating' with their table-mates via their phone.

It is a very high percentage Ocker making it just that much more pathetic.

Catweazle predicted the demise of face to face communication when he derrided the use of "the telling bone".

Originally Posted by JPPR2

The only thing they exercise is their thumbs.

When I was a lad...

I had fook all besides old Christmas cards ( open them up and hey presto, a blank canvas) and a pencil.

A vivid imagination and an arm that would have put Arnold Schwarzenniger to shame!

Nice photo series about the 'madness' of daily life with screens:

"A World Transfixed by Screens"

Intro by Alan Taylor: The continued massive growth of connected mobile devices is shaping not only how we communicate with each other, but how we look, behave, and experience the world around us. Smartphones and other handheld devices have become indispensable tools, appendages held at arm's length to record a scene or to snap a selfie. Recent news photos show refugees fleeing war-torn regions holding up their phones as prized possessions to be saved, and relatives of victims lost to a disaster holding up their smartphones to show images of their loved ones to the press. Celebrity selfies, people alone in a crowd with their phones, events obscured by the very devices used to record that event, the brightly lit faces of those bent over their small screens, these are some of the scenes depicted below.

Originally Posted by withnallstoke

Catweazle predicted the demise of face to face communication when he derrided the use of "the telling bone".

Originally Posted by chassamui

can now hide in public

Originally Posted by charleyboy

Originally Posted by JPPR2

The only thing they exercise is their thumbs.

When I was a lad...

I had fook all besides old Christmas cards ( open them up and hey presto, a blank canvas) and a pencil.

A vivid imagination and an arm that would have put Arnold Schwarzenniger to shame!

holy shit thats what my 9yr old does. piece of scrap paper and pencils, shes happy