Smartphones

This is a post which goes hand-in-hand with yesterday's post and it is basically an expansion on one of the points I made in yesterday's post. If you have not read this post, click here. Yesterday I mentioned how socialising had updated to meet the current world standards of technology and how this has impacted us both negatively and positively. I made a point about smartphones and their impact on socialising and so today I am going to expand on this point as well as discuss some other areas of our lives that smartphones are affecting. As I said yesterday, they are limiting our face-to-face interactions while also stimulating our world-wide connectivity. Even on a local scale people text more to each other than they would talk about face-to-face as they do not have to face the social awkwardness that a topic or question would bring up.

Source: http://urbantimes.co/2013/09/this-restaurants-policy-put-your-phone-down-and-socialise/

Smartphones, in fact most phones, have made it easier for the rise of the global community. People are now easily able to instantly communicate to someone on the other side of the world and receive an instant reply. In this respect, smartphones have made great headway in this respect by making it even easier to communicate quickly through video-calling and texting which saves individual conversations. They have also limited our world-view. If you go to a concert today you will most likely be seeing the majority of people (probably including yourself) using their phones to record the concert, take photos/selfies, check Facebook and do everything but enjoy what they paid so much to see. It has become socially accepted and if you go to a concert, expect to be watching it through someone's smartphone camera. Even when on dates you see both people on their phones texting other people. Sometimes you even walk past a group of people texting each other! As I said yesterday, it can make for less socially awkward moments but it can also leave people with very little social skills and manners which you can only gain through experience. Even when you go out with family and friends you seem some people living on their phones. My brother is an annoying culprit for this. No matter where you go, be at a restaurant or someone's home, he is always on his phone for the majority of the night. Not only is it rude, it is incredibly annoying. Especially when you need to repeat yourself several times before he understands what you are going on about. It is really frustrating.

Smartphones are both an improvement and a hindrance in our modern society, see you tomorrow!

WATCH the video that sparked these posts:

Social Interactions 2.0

Before I begin I just want to take a moment to explain to you that this post goes hand-in-hand with tomorrow's post which I am also writing straight after this one. You may notice some points in here that will lead on to tomorrow's post but tomorrow's post is not going to be entirely the same as today as it will focus on just one aspect of what I am going to talk about and discuss the wider impacts it has. But, you will just have to wait until tomorrow night (at 6pm AEST) to see what I am talking about. Social Interaction has updated in our modern society. What was once considered social a few decades ago is completely different to the modern conception of the idea. Technology like smartphones and sites like Facebook and Twitter have been some of the main causes for this update. Social interaction is adapting and we have just got to get with the times.

Source: http://instagram.heroku.com/users/gekkolife#p535214164077054847_490341153

No longer is the nightly phone call to friends normal, in fact it is nearly unheard of. I know a few people who find it weird when their friends call them. They find it easier to talk on Facebook or texting using their smartphones. This new age of technology has created a generation of people with social anxiety. There are more people now than ever before who find it easier to talk to people using Facebook or texting as they do not have to deal with any social awkwardness that can come with a face-to-face conversation. Of course, I am not saying this is an entirely bad thing, in fact it is improving social interaction in some ways. For one, people find it easier than ever before to communicate with people from far away and receive near-instant responses. It has also made it easier for people with social anxiety to communicate with others. It has also made it so much easier to catch up with people as people's lives are basically on sites like Facebook and Twitter. One look at a person's "wall" on Facebook can tell you so much about them and what they have been doing recently. You can see their likes, statuses, friends, information and relationship status. Of course, with nearly every positive there is a negative and this is no exception. People are losing their ability to communicate with people in person and so when it comes to times where they need to talk to someone face-to-face they lack the basic manners that you gain from experience. They miss out on all the social cues as they spend their lives in the digital world where you need to say what you are feeling as, unless you are Face-Timing, you cannot see the other person's face. Social interactions have indeed changed over the years, we have updated to version 2.0.

Check out tomorrow's post for a further look at one of my points and the inspiration behind these posts. See you tomorrow!

Categories

The world we live in today is one in which we categorise everything, even each other. It has come to a point where we have to look at ourselves and ask why? Why do we categorise everything? Why does everyone have to have a label? Why can't we just let things be as they are without the need to tell someone they are something or other. Sometimes these categories can take over and we do not see a person for who they really are, just what category they fall into.

Image Source: http://storeystyle.com/labels/

Categories can be hurtful as well as hard to break out of. Basically, categorising someone or a group of people is stereotyping. Basically, that is what we do when we categorise someone. This is especially annoying when you know you do not fit into that category but everyone looks at you as if you do belong there. This is annoying for me as I am a teenager and whenever I go somewhere alone, even if this is just coming home from school, I can see people look at me or they will say something incredibly rude. There are so many times I have been going my own way home from school and people just tell you to stop loitering or doing something bad when you know you have never done that in your whole life. This is incredibly infuriating and just shows how judgmental people can be sometimes. It really annoys me when that happens because the truth is far from it. It really is horrible when someone makes judgments about someone just because they belong to a certain category (like Teenager or Rebel) when the truth can be far from the stereotypes. Just stop people, just stop.

Image Source: http://www.lessonsfromfantasy.com/2012/02/people-are-too-complicated-to-have.html

Categories can take over who a person is and it becomes all we see in them. That one thing we see in them can become all they are to the people around them. Someone who is intelligent has more to them than just intelligence, they may be funny, a good cook or quirky. Yet all a person sees once they categorise them is the brains, nothing else. It really is horrible because once you get that label it is hard to break out of it. Everyone comes to you for help with work instead of anything else. Also, some people may be blonde but also smart. However, the first thing we see is blonde and first impressions are hard to change. Sometimes we have to realise that people are a lot more complicated than it first appears.

May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow!