'I Forgot My Phone'

If Interacting With People™ was so great and fulfilling, we wouldn't pump hundreds of billions of dollars annually into things that distract us from it.

 

Dick Whitman, I am concerned about your reading decisions on the Internet. Reading trash like TheAtlantic.com and Forbes.com will lead you further into intellectual trolldom. Consuming New York Times trend stories as gospel will lead to serious misconceptions about culture. You're a smart man surrounded by bad influences.

 

The birthday celebration scene rings especially true. Every time I've ever seen a Happy Birthday rendition, it's accompanied by multiple people filming and/or taking pictures. Never once have I seen the videos on playback.

 

We went to a baseball game over the weekend. My wife got up to get some bottles of water, and would've missed an RBI double had I not recorded it on my phone. We also took a selfie.

I'll have to inform her later that we didn't actually have fun at the game because we were too caught up in playing with our technology. She'll be crushed.

 

You've seen people holding up cameras while blowing out the candles on their own birthday cakes?

 

Not that literally. Talking more about the moms who have to catch every single one of their child's moments as Dick is saying.

You're a salty and pedantic one today.

 

I'm a salty and pedantic one every day. But that was an actual question. You're just thin-skinned from the amount of yelling that goes on here.

I had no problem with the video or The New York Times' article (aside from my regular issue with Times trend stories).

I do find it obnoxious when friends play on their phones all the time, though most of my friends are pretty good about it. I generally don't even take out my phone when with friends, instead checking it on my own and their trips to the bathroom.

 

It boggles my mind that someone would get upset at parents taking a lot of pictures of their kids.

Actually, no, it doesn't. It's funny in its own pathetic way.

 

Nah, my point is that they're missing the actual celebration, and not in fact making any use of the pictures they take. (At least no use I've ever seen.)

Birthdays, beach, baseball games ... there is a lot more devotion to cataloguing the event for the archives than there is to enjoying the event. And when it comes down to it, a lot of those moments are "you have to be there" kind of moments.

 

You should look at Facebook more closely. Today is a perfect example. For as many people who are posting back-to-school pictures of their kids, there are as many, if not more, people complaining incessantly about how their newsfeed is nothing but people posting back-to-school pictures of their kids.

It's a massive, hate-filled circlejerk.

 

The implication being they must not be enjoying "the moment" as much as they should? Or, that they take enjoyment away from everyone else?

I'd say if you're that easily distracted that someone else's phone could ruin "the moment," it probably wasn't that captivating in the first place.

 

OK. Good talk.