It disappointed them that I do not use WhatsApp. I don't because of a simple reason: I already suffer from a messaging overload:
Three functional email addressesIf people cannot reach me via any of these, not to speak of the good old snail-mail, then maybe the message is not that important to begin with!
My Iphone
This blog, of course.
Of course, I am not the only one who suffers from this "tyranny of messaging":
These days, messages come at me from so many directions that it’s incredibly distracting and even harder to deal with. Friends, co-workers, business acquaintances and strangers contact me on multiple siloed services, which can signal subtle shades of immediacy or weight.Exactly. It will only get worse:
And this weird, mixed-up communications structure is about to get more complex, because U.S. tech companies — following a strong trend in Asia — are turning messaging from a service into a platform, with supposedly intelligent bots and assistants and apps built into them. Apple is beefing up iMessage. Facebook is beefing up Messenger. Google, which has been behind in messaging, is launching two new platforms: Allo for text and images and emojis, and Duo for videos.
Maybe these bots and assistants and apps will be a means to controlling and focusing your messaging and communications, but that would be a hard, tricky job. More likely, I fear, they will just spew more messages and notifications they think — wrongly — you care about.
Stop, stop, stop!
I systematically refuse to use any of the new messaging platforms for the same reason that I have intentionally scaled back my Facebook presence, where I have pruned my friends list to a manageable number (I'm sure there are "friends" who wonder why I am no longer their "friend"!):
The rabbit holes are everywhere, and it’s too easy to fall down them.
Every one of these messaging platforms is one major attention-sucker and, before I know it, I would have wasted hours with nothing but trivia, which is what I want to avoid!
In any of those platforms that I already use, I have always made sure that nothing is ever "pushed" across to me--I have to physically act to pull down the latest messages if I really cared. I cannot imagine how people function if they are constantly pinged by the latest message on the gazillion platforms that they use. I shudder to think about the constant interruptions; no wonder that people are all the more stressed out now.
One of the reasons that people sign up for every messaging platform: The fear of missing out, or FOMO as it is often referred to. FOMO apparently is so overwhelming that people feel the urge to reach for their smartphones even when they are socializing in the real world with fellow humans:
According to a new study in Computers in Human Behavior, “phubbing” — snubbing someone in a social setting in favor of a phone — has evolved from a psychological habit and sign of technological maladjustment to an acceptable social norm.
FOMO leads to phubbing, of course.
3 comments:
Yes, I'm there. No distractions from the smartphone, thank you. My entire attention is devoted to how I can chastise you for crazy ideas or crazy spelling :):)
The pox on every messaging platform. They have completely corrupted every human interaction.
Yes, this abominable habit of fiddling with an electronic device has become an acceptable social norm. So much so that even in that bastion of tradition, the House of Commons, it has become a right awful nuisance. Pip Pip. Toodle oo .
Watch this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLIIipEvDGU
I am one of the odd ones when it comes to my generation. I'm not on Twitter, don't know what "Whatsapp" is and actually talked with some of my friends in a restaurant yesterday. My phone never left my pocket, and we talked for close to 4 hours!
Across the table, however, phones came out every few minutes. Other tables had phones on them, with people putting down their food to take pictures of what they were eating, to respond to comments and God knows what else. Human interaction scares people.
Methinks that Ramesh's Anglophile behavior has crossed into dangerously mentally unstable obsession with all things British ;)
Yes, the fiddling with devices is abominable. What makes it even worse, if that is even possible, is that it is accepted as normal, instead of people complaining that it is a rude behavior. Oh well ...
Good for you, Mike, that you and your friends didn't bother to check your phones while engaging with each other ... as your comment notes, that is increasingly a rarity. Not only human interaction but even momentary silence and/or solitude apparently scares people!
Post a Comment