Discussion: Real Life

[asterroc]

"Real life should take priority over the virtual, such as cellphones, social networking, and video games."

Discuss!

Comments

[blahblahboy.livejournal.com]

If you were doing all three of those things (ftf, phone, online) at the same time, shame on you. :) Face to face is most important. Putting someone on hold when they're in front of you is rude. Putting someone on the phone on hold is slightly less rude. Putting someone on hold when you're chatting with them is least rude. And I think it's got to do with the number of senses you've got someone else tied up focusing on you. With FTF, it's all the senses. With phone, it's one (and a half?). With online, the expected number of senses is less than one (think shared?).

Unrelated, but I try to be as succinct as possible with my work email. I usually wind up rereading it five times or so and deleting words with no value. It increases the probability of someone reading the entire email. There's plenty of time to be friendly when interacting in person.

Also unrelated, I find that online is the easiest way of the three to say rude, crude, and ranty things. I think this is because it's so impersonal, and raw. All the rest of the online universe has already desensitized you from shocking comments. Maybe.