Comments on: Texting at funerals

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 14:28:45 +0000

🙂

By: Carolyn Thomas

Carolyn Thomas — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 13:27:01 +0000

Thanks for your perspective, Andrew. In our house, we have always had a house rule similar to your mother’s wise one (which sounds positively foreign to many people): ‘Don’t answer the phone just because it’s ringing.’ We are puzzled, for example, by movie scenes in which even the most intensely romantic moment onscreen can be instantly interrupted by a telephone – which of course would be answered. I’ve visited friends who leaped up (sometimes several times during the visit) to answer a ringing phone only to take messages for their teenage children. Isn’t this what answering machines were invented for? Personally, I like email these days because I’m awake by 5 a.m. or earlier and very few of the people I contact want me to call them at that ungodly hour!

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By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 11:40:14 +0000

Nice piece. I think the occasion determines the etiquette (and we have a similar rule at our dinner table, a carry over from when I was growing up that we would not answer the telephone at dinner. My mother used to say – and this was well before voicemail – if it is important, they will call back).

On the other hand, email, when used correctly, or comments on a blog, can be very meaningful and authentic communication. Certainly my experience with cancer treatment, and email was less intrusive and energy draining than phone calls asking about me. But of course, when I was stronger, I wanted the more personal touch of phone calls and walks.

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By: Carolyn Thomas

Carolyn Thomas — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 17:41:04 +0000

Dear Anonymous,
That was quite a curious leap to assume that my online blogging here “by necessity takes time away from the interactions praised in the post”. Hardly, unless I was typing this at the dinner table, or at funerals, or while out for walks with friends or family. Which, of course, I’m not. Please re-read the post, as it appears you’ve missed that point. You’ll just have to take my word for it, as all who know me will attest, I spend plenty of in-person face-time with those I care about discussing exactly the same things Dr. Turkle is warning us about.

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By: Carolyn Thomas

Carolyn Thomas — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 17:24:25 +0000

Ed, you are, of course, quite right. Sigh… Did you catch the recent New York Times piece on ‘device-free zones‘?

Your comments on rotary phones reminded me of a yard sale our family hosted a few summers ago in which I was selling an old rotary phone (we’d been moving it from house to house long after all our phones were touch-tone). A woman and her young-teenage daughter stopped by to check out the phone on our sale table; the young girl asked: “But Mum, how does it WORK?!” The mother had to carefully demonstrate inserting her pointer finger into a numbered hole and pushing the rotary dial to the right. The girl was thunderstruck! I decided right on the spot that I had a real collector’s item on my hands – and removed the phone from the table. Maybe I’ll bequeath it to my heirs someday – in case your ro-Tweeting idea doesn’t catch on . . .

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By: bunsen68

bunsen68 — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 05:54:33 +0000

Carolyn,

I share your sentiments, but I don’t think either of us (or Sherry Turkle) matters very much.

Technology has *always* been changing, and will continue to change (at least I hope it will; the alternative seems more dire). Today it’s the rudeness of texting at funerals or on dates or during meetings (something that people in my office thankfully don’t do, and not because we have a rule against it). Most young people don’t find these behaviors bothersome. At some point other technologies will come along that *they* find bothersome: staring far away into the augmented reality of tricked-out contact lenses with a heads-up display; or talking silently to someone far away via neural implant; or bio-synthesizing the morning’s coffee on the hovering nano-molecular coffee press with interactive AI. Who knows? Whatever it is, they’ll hate it or worry about the fate of civilization. And then *they’ll* die. And more technologies will emerge. Rinse and repeat.

I’m not belittling the very real concerns that accompany new technologies. The best thing we can all do is to learn to use these technologies mindfully, with intention and attention. Because they aren’t going away.

My personal approach: Turn everything retro. Keep the Twitter, but make everyone use rotary phones* to input their 140 characters. We can call it “ro-Tweeting.” The hipsters will love it.

–Ed

* Because my mother was frugal, we had rotary phones until 1984! I nearly broke a foot several times when I yanked the base off the phone table (remember those?) while trying to talk in another room. I don’t really miss them, but there was something tremendously satisfying about the clicking and spinning of the dials.

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By: Annonymous

Annonymous — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 04:38:40 +0000

This does NOT invalidate some of the important points you’re making, but I am surprised you don’t seem to acknowledge at all that there is some level of cognitive dissonance in posting this particular argument on a blog and then engaging in discussion with others about it in a comments section.

I realize that you are mainly arguing that some real life interactions should be somewhat sacrosanct (e.g. Dinner with family, funerals, …etc) and that being fully present in some activities is very important. However, you are choosing to devote some portion of your existence to an online life that by necessity takes time away from the interactions you praise in the post. And, some would consider that already part of drinking the kool aid.

What are you doing in the non-digital world to promote the interactions you laud? Describing that in more detail might be of even greater value than blogging/commenting in the digital world about how important it is to not be overtaken by interacting in the digital world.

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By: Carolyn Thomas

Carolyn Thomas — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 21:46:54 +0000

My point exactly.

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By: Ray's Mom

Ray's Mom — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 15:16:32 +0000

There comes a time when common sense and moral judgement must prevail. Texting at funerals? Why bother to show up if you can’t turn that thing OFF for just a few minutes?

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By: Carolyn Thomas

Carolyn Thomas — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 14:22:38 +0000

The world of technology is indeed changing, Dr. Joe – and as Dr. Zilberberg writes, it will “continue its break-neck pace regardless of my opinions”. I find it both alarming and very, very sad.

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By: Dr. Joe Kosterich

Dr. Joe Kosterich — Sat, 15 Dec 2012 14:08:24 +0000

I sympathise with the sentiments. However the world changes and what is and is not “acceptable” behaviour changes. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. And the pendulum can swing back too.

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