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!

Songs in my Playlist

Okay, so here is the big deal. I spent the last thirty minutes doing basically nothing except daydream about what this post should be about when it was right in front of me the whole time. See people, sometimes I do not even know what I am going to write about until right before I do (hell, sometimes I do not know what I am writing about when I finish my introduction). My wonderful source of inspiration this time around is my phone (so thank you for that Samsung [not sponsored]) which I was using to listen to music. I decided that I would like to go through some of my favourite songs that I am listening to right now that are on my phone. Of course, this is not all of them (I mean, seriously, who but a stalker (or your LOTE teacher) wants to know all the music you listen to?) but just a few of my favourites. I will embed a YouTube video of each song.

Source: http://wall.alphacoders.com/big.php?i=73967

1. Rise Above 2 from Spider Man: Turn off the Dark

This hard-hitting song from the ambitious Broadway musical is always on my playlist when I am having a shower. I prefer the cast recording version over the one Bon Jovi sings [Rise Above 1] (Bon Jovi and The Edge the creators of this musical). Here is a snippet of the song as performed on Broadway.

2. Applause by Lady Gaga

I'll confess I find myself a fan of Lady Gaga. I like her songs and have a majority of them. Her most recent song, Applause, is another one of the songs I like of hers. I have embedded the lyric video rather than the music video as it is a bit, uh, artistic shall we say and I want this blog to remain open to all ages.

3. Wrecking Ball by Miley Cyrus

I actually like this controversial artist's new song. I may not agree with her previous song "We Can't Stop" which just seemed to over-leap the mark (I have read too much Macbeth). Here is the official music video.

4. Roar by Katy Perry

I am yet another fan of many of Katy Perry's song and I am happy to say that I include her new song, Roar, as one of them. Below is the official music video of this great song (as judged by me).

I live for the applause, applause, applause. See you tomorrow!

#BloggerProblems

As this is the 152nd post on this blog (I know, can you believe it?) I have encountered a number of recurring issues regarding daily blogging. I guessed that today was about time I shared some of these. Before I continue I just have to say that what I am writing about is not from just recently and some have been problems since the very beginning. So do not fall under the impression that daily blogging is easy. At times it can seem so, even to the blogger, but it is only afterwards that you realise how much time you spend each night just writing a post. Let alone finding inspiration, thinking about what you are going to write and sharing it out via Twitter and Facebook. So let's get started with Blogger Problems!

Source: http://socialmediamagic.com/blog/tag/blog-interaction/

The first major blogger problem is finding inspiration. I know I say this a lot but good inspiration is sometimes not so easy to find. Sometimes I write posts about events that took place a long time before I actually posted about it. Often if I have something to write about and come across some more inspiration then I will save that extra inspiration for a time where I have none. For instance, at the moment I have a number of post ideas ready to go should the need arise. This comes especially handy when I need to schedule posts if I am going to be absent but still, it is so hard when I have a long spell of a boring life. This boring life of mine does ruin my blog-writing from time to time. Repetition is also a big problem with Blogging. You know that post I wrote earlier this week about Repetition? I wrote the whole introduction for that post about competition. Then I realised that I had already written a post about competition so I continued the post as if I had already known that. Yeah, if you did not pick that up then well I have nothing to say to you because it was a really bad cover up, even for me. Another blogger issue is time constraints. I am going to let you in on a little secret that everyone should know by now. The posts that come out late at night without any pictures and much context are done on my phone. This is mainly because during the day I am too busy with homework and all the other stuff I have going on so yeah, that is a big issue for many bloggers. 

Life as a blogger is not always an easy one, see you tomorrow!