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The Decline of the West
George Packer has a chat with his roofer about why he's so irritable these days. It's not the recession, it turns out:
It turned out that cell phones had become a major headache in his work. Customers called him all the time, expecting him to hear every little complaint even while he was wrestling with a roof hatch. Meanwhile, they were more and more unreliable, not answering their phones, missing scheduled appointments.
....“It’s the technology,” the roofer said. “They don’t know how to deal with a human being. They stand there with that text shrug” — he hunched his shoulders, bent his head down, moved from side to side, looking anywhere but at me — “and they go, ‘Ah, ah, um, um,’ and they just mumble. They can’t talk any more.” This inadequacy with physical space and direct interaction was an affliction of the educated, he said — “the more educated, the worse.”
....This was a completely new phenomenon in the roofer’s world: a mass upper class that was so immersed in symbolic and digital cerebration that it had become incapable of carrying out the most ordinary functions — had become, in effect, like small children with Asperger’s symptoms. It was a ruling class that, out of sheer over-civilization, was quickly losing the ability to hold onto its power.
WTF? These folks call constantly on their cell phones, so it's not that they've lost the ability to carry on a verbal conversation. It's just that they can't do it face-to-face. Do I have that right?
Is anyone else skeptical about this? Obviously I have zero experience with 20-something metrosexuals in New York City, but, seriously? Is this happening? More anecdotes, please.
I think he meant they text messaged him -
Not called his cell phone for a voice conversation.
I'm no fuddy duddy - I text chatted before it was called that. I developed some of the protocols. But I still won't have a cell phone.
A cell phone is nothing but a collar attached to a leash that extends around the world and that anyone can yank.
Oh, you may say, but you don't have to answer calls. Turn it off - use it for outgoing calls only. Use it for text and you won't even have to think about what you are saying.
WRONG! If you have a cell phone then your are expected to answer, or at least respond to, your calls and texts. Maybe not immediately but soon. That is an obligation up with which I will not put.
Maybe it is because I had a beeper for years, and my boss had the other end. I can accept that, if I am paid for it, but really, why should the entire frigging world expect I'll give away my time for free?
And before anyone in the tech world complains, I LOVE text and IM for sending/receiving technical info that is nearly impossible to convey verbally. Things like URLs or hex dumps are tailor made for text transfer. So it has its place. And if other people accept the social expectations that go with having a cell phone more power to them. Well, except while driving. My God you idiots, hang up and drive before someone gets killed!
Tripp
oh yes
try having a conversation with a 23 year old (and in my field, theater in nyc, i keep working with them all the time)... they can't talk for more than a few minutes without checking their phone, if they haven't already checked it and txtd several times while I just there and wait for them to finish. That generation is rapidly changing how they communicate with people (i dont want to be a scold and say for the worse) and I'm being a bit left behind. Prolonged direct eye contact becomes more and more infrequent - not out of nervousness, i don't think, but out of a desire to constantly txt other people while talking to someone in person.
Ah, but
Trippp, the fact that people EXPECT you to answer doesn't mean that you have to fulfill their expectations. Sure, they will fuss and complain for a while. And then, they will adjust their expectations. You will become that terribly difficult person who never answers their cell. It's a little like being the person who won't buy greeting cards for holidays, or the person who never goes to sporting events - people may think you're a little socially inept, but they get over it. And you don't have to change your behavior at all.
As a 20-something
As a 20-something metrosexual new yorker, I can say that I have no idea what a "Text Shrug" is.
Yes and No
I'll offer TWO anecdotes, from both sides of the picture.
As a deliberate latecomer to texting and tweeting and so on, I too find the preoccupation of people who should know better with their digital comm-links -- to the near exclusion of the world around them, such as the people into whom they are bumping on the sidewalk -- profoundly annoying. I've begun to be less careful of watching out for them as they charge down the street not watching where they're going, and if they end up colliding with me and stepping into a soggy planter, well, alas for their shoes. Cranky of me, I know, but arguably good behavioral therapy, and I'm tired of being the sucker in games of moral hazard.
On the flip side, as one who is luckily still employed, and therefore overworked, as a professional, I find the higher speed and greater load of communications almost overwhelming: I'm constantly expected to have a dozen things immediately in mind and to be able to respond concerning them at all times. It leads to what feels like a fugue-state; I can't concentrate on any one thing even if I would like to.
The middle road I'm trying to walk -- as alluded to above -- is to simply say no to many communication demands. I'm trying to train those who would jerk my chain that it does no good, and they'd better make their emails count, because I might not be responding to them for a day or more. They might get annoyed by this, but, again, alas for their shoes. Cranky again, I know. But maybe they'll start behaving likewise, and that might not be a bad thing at all.
Moral: there really is too much communication today. Technology has lapped society again, and society needs to exert a little control.
This is about as reliable as
This is about as reliable as one of Tommy Friedman's cab drivers. Not quite sure why the New Yorker thinks George Packer is worthy of publication, to be honest.
I tried....
....to live without a cell phone. I switched to just having a landline for an entire year. No one could deal with the change- friends, family, coworkers. They were completely intolerant of the idea that I wasn't instantly reachable, and that they would have to leave a message and wait their turn. Some of my friends started calling each other's cell phones to see if I were with them so they could talk to me.
Nobody my age (I'm 26) uses voice communication, either. It's all texting. I checked my cell phone bill last month- 90% of my phone calls are from my parents, who are 50. But I got about 3000 text messages.
I finally got a cell phone again when I realized it was hurting me. People in their 20s don't make real plans anymore- they have a vague sense that they're doing something with someone at some point, but all the details are negotiable, right up to the moment that it happens. So if I'm supposed to go to the movies with friends at 7 on Tuesday, I could get a text at 6:59 changing that to 8, or to Wednesday, or cancelling, or anything. When I didn't have a cell phone, I used to waste an enormous amount of time waiting for people who weren't coming, because the plans had changed and they couldn't text and tell me. When I confronted them about it, they would tell me that if I had a phone, things like that wouldn't happen.
Decline, indeed.
I'm with Anonymous - I don't care that it is EXPECTED that I answer my cell at all time. I answer when it is convenient for me and return calls at my convenience. As far as I am concerned, cell phones are a device for MY convenience - not everyone else's. I work with a guy who will stop in the middle of a meeting to answer his cell - it is quite possibly the rudest thing I've ever encountered. The idea that someone on the phone is more important than the one sitting in front of you (emergencies aside) is appalling.
Text messages and IM that requires a response drives me insane. Especially when I'm working on something complicated. I really think you have to make a stand at some point as to how much access you are going to allow the rest of the world to your life. My stand is that I CHOOSE.
That being said, Mr Roofer needs to simply not answer his phone when he's working. Let the calls roll to voice mail and take time out every hour to return calls. I would never expect a contractor working on my house to take every call. Nor would I expect to immediately reach a contractor when calling during the normal business work hours -- I'd expect him to be working.
For what it's worth
There is an attorney whose office is two doors from mine who communicates exclusively by e-mail and PM's. She'll walk by my office to get her coffee and her yogurt from the fridge then back to her office then she'll email me, often about something banal, like "Where's the half and half?"
Roofers
Amazing! Somewhere in this country (though certainly not here) there are roofers (not the supervisors, but the actual workers) who speak English! I suspect Kevin would be hard-pressed to find one in Southern Cal as well.
While this anecdote might be
While this anecdote might be exaggerate, look no further for confirmation of the general point than the anti-voice mail flurry that broke out on a few blogs recently. Scores of people chimed in on how listening to another person's voice was not just annoying, but a burden and even an affront. Heck, just consider what the "I'll answer my cell when I damn well want to" attitude expressed on this thread would be like when transfered to face-to-face communication.
Mike
Packer?
George Packer is a "20-something metrosexual in New York City"?
I thought he was just yet another Ivy-league "liberal"-hawk-clone writer on the NPR, TNR, New Yorker circuit. More serious than silly anti-war liberals when he was supporting the Iraq invasion, then still a Very Serious Foreign Policy person as he criticized the unfortunate execution of the war. Friend of Ahmed Chalabi, etc...
(One might think that these liberal hawks took a hit to their reputation and credibility for cheerleading an invasion and destruction of an Arab country - and their dismissal of war opponents - but you'd be wrong: you will still read and hear these guys, every day and forever, at the NYT, Washington Post, TNR, New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, NPR, etc.)
I've driven kids with no
I've driven kids with no basic social graces. They hop in the car without saying a word, don't speak during the trip, and say nothing when they hop out at the destination. I mean literally not a single word the entire trip unless you wring it out of them. No hello, no goodbye.
I had one guy come to see me on a business errand to pick up some papers. He was talking to someone on one of those earpiece/mike cell phone things on the way in, passed by me without any greeting, totally engrossed in his phone conversation, gathered some papers, did some paperwork, then left still blabbing on the phone without ever talking to me personally.
You really have to predate television to recall the "lively art of conversation," as Irv Kupcinet used to call it. Before Howdy Doody and Milton Berle became the focus of our lives, people talked to neighbors, women had coffee klatsches, and so forth.
Back when I picked up
hitch-hikers more often, if they didn't say thank you within 10-seconds I said "Do you want to say thank you or would you rather get a ride from someone else?" It amazed me how many took offense, suggested an unlikely act and tried to slam the truck door or scratch the side as they realized they'd have to walk the 100-meters back to the sign saying "No pedestrians beyond this sign". I tried snarky variations like "Do you belong to a cult that doesn't believe in acknowledging a favor from someone that owns a motor vehicle?" Finally I stopped picking up anyone under 35.
"Obligation of Availability"
tagged as:- solution
TEDtalks has a good talk on the way social media is making antisocial creatures of us all: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/renny_gleeson_on_antisocial_phone_tricks.html
Gotta love it- anon at 10.45
Gotta love it- anon at 10.45 AM is entirely comfortable with the fact that nobody he knows can be relied on to do anything.
That pretty much answers the question Kevin was asking- "Why, yes, we do talk on our phones. We talk so much that we're meaningless- we may say one thing and mean another, or we may mean one thing and say another, but don't worry, we'll call you back and say the opposite soon."
However, I can't say the phenom is limited to the young or the cell phone user. I imagine it's more related to the general rot of a society that has swilled far more cheap oil and world power than is good for it. Living life as part of a flash mob is probably just an adaptive response to an employment environment of temp jobs and a housing market of expensive rentals.
2 anecdotes
1. my wife is a rural letter carrier for the usps. her previous substitute carrier was in his mid-20s. he refused to carry on a verbal conversation by cell phone. he would text my wife who is in her mid-50s and not a happy texter and when she would call back he would not answer his cell, she would leave a voice-mail and then 10 minutes later he would send another text. when she pinned him down he said that he didn't like talking and didn't think he needed to. btw, the postmaster at the office finally made him choose between keeping his job and answering the phone when he called. he chose to leave.
i refuse to have a cell phone. my wife needs one because she delivers an 82 mile-long rural route on bad roads and needs to be able to get help. i don't need one and choose not to have one.
2. my principal is in his mid-30s. he is pretty good as far as middle-school principals go but calls and texts on his cell phone get priority on anyone physically present in front of him and he gets called a lot.
George Packer is a tool and
George Packer is a tool and if I could comment without registration I would tell him so.
This seemed like a good time
This seemed like a good time to drop in my favorite Thoreau quote:
“We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. An improved means to an unimproved end . . . We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.”
New technology, same crankiness....
I have cell, landline, and four different email addresses and I agree with anonymous and Art Electric. I answer them when I want to, but I am clear on outgoing messages that any message left will get returned at my earliest convenience. Then again I don't have children and I don't have a profession that requires constant contact.
I have always owned a cell
I have always owned a cell for one of two reasons:
1) order pizza-to-go on the way home from a long road trip
2) call for help if the the car breaks down
I can't decide which of the two is more of an emergency.
Crutches are for invalids
Cell phones are crutches and tools, depending on how they are used.
I've found that interacting effectively in a face to face conversation with someone is a useful skill to have. Granted not everyone needs this skill all the time, but it certainly comes in handy. I expect the utility to continue.
Personally I think accepting unsolicited communications and relying on crutches is giving away some of a person's power, but maybe that is just me.
Tripp
Not skeptical at all...
Look, one he isn't talking about 20-somethings. If they can't carry a conversation, they already couldn't. But many of the younger aren't taught how to deal with business situations.
Two, he's right, but it's mostly older people who haven't learned to deal with technology, escaping from the shell of interacting with people on a business level to one dealing with computers or third parties for business and only face to face with friends. It's a different layer of communications.
And I hate the cell phones, too, people yak on them constantly, while driving, I see as many as last year, driving aimlessly and only reacting to things around them on a base level; the cel phone ban seems to have only reduced the talkers for a short while. They're all back. And the people who take the cel phones outside - yes, you just walked out of your private home, so that everyone on the block can hear your private conversation. Augh!
On the other hand, I had this appliance guy with two cel phones repair my washer - taking official calls on one line, personal on the other, handing off the personal ones while a customer was around... It was a real pleasure to see someone so able to use technology that they'd put it into their work seamlessly, making sure he had jobs lined up all the time. No one else would even call me back - even though he wasn't familiar with the type of washer I had. And he fixed it right.
So I think there's two things going on - people who blend into technology seamlessly, so they don't notice that they're actually doing far more things than their predecessors, and those who don't notice that technology is enabling them to ignore the world around them, a insular shell.
Social Phobia
Face to face communication, especially when it involves negotiation, or a message that one person doesn't want to hear, requires courage. Courage requires practice. The existence of text-based communication allows you to avoid all the situations where, in the past, you would have practiced. So I kinda see where this dynamic might work for a some people. But there are plenty of jobs and hobbies that require and even thrive on face-to-face competition and negotiation, which will develop the skills needed.
Another view of the same phenomenon is that text-based communications allow the socially phobic to actually express themselves. Kind of a strange prosthetic.
Email is the Key
Phone calls and text messaging can be intrusive, and I don't mind if people don't answer their phones. However, I consider it critical to maintain email communications.
In a business environment, email is the perfect communication for most purposes. It provides a record of the exchange and does not interrupt the recipient. Certainly, phone, IM, and face-to-face have their places too, but the phone is unsatisfactory as a first option.
Similarly, more and more in personal life, I'm beginning to appreciate those who respond reliably via email...
Describes my current workplace
> WTF? These folks call constantly on their cell phones, so it's not that
> they've lost the ability to carry on a verbal conversation. It's just
> that they can't do it face-to-face. Do I have that right?
>
> Is anyone else skeptical about this?
Pretty much describes my current workplace. That is, if you can get the people to tear their attention away from their two (!) blackberries, 3 IM clients, and 2 e-mail windows long enough to actually speak verbal words on the phone.
The sad thing is that they think they are being hyper-productive...
Cranky
As a firefighter/EMT with 20
As a firefighter/EMT with 20 years experience working in Big California City, I have to agree to some extent with the roofer. Over my career I think I have seen a decline in the ability of regular people to interact directly, especially in emergency situations. Many more people today seem disinclined to make eye contact or speak in direct terms, than was the case at the start of my career.
I would disagree about the special difficulty of more educated "clients." Academic or professionally disciplined clients are somewhat more likely, in my experience, to keep their heads about them and give useful information in a crisis than the working or indigent might be. That was true back when cell phones were rare $1000 bricks, and remains so today.
But to expand on the comment, I'd say that as people have come to be more "connected," and understood that 911 or the AAA is just a cell phone call away, they have become less likely to resolve their own emergencies. Even as first aid and CPR training and etc becomes more commonplace in schools, reliance on public service seems to grow. From the standpoint of job security I'm not complaining, but as a taxpayer...
roofers
I just had a roof put on our modest little home. Two guys did a bang up job for a killer price and I talked with them several times. They were what I'd charitably call 'salt of the earth types.' I never actually saw either of them in a shirt but they were good ol' boys and did the job right the first time. What's more, when they saw my Obama bumper sticker they told me, without a hint of irony, they were going to vote for the Democrat come election time. I smiled, picked my jaw up off the ground, signed their check and did a little dance up my walk. Mind you, I live in the heart of a Republican stronghold in north Florida, often refferred to as southern Georgia (so that no one gets the wrong idea about where most folks stand on things around here.)
Flip side of the Flynn Effect
Kevin:
This is part of the flip side of the Flynn Effect of rising raw IQ scores. We are getting better at dealing with the kind of things that standardized tests measure, while not improving or possibly getting worse at dealing with physical reality and other people face to face.
For the research, see:
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/070903_flynn.htm
I have to think that all
I have to think that all this stuff is reducing attention spans and deep thinking.
also, some folks have this need to be constantly "connected." They must feel very uncomfortable with themselves in their own skins.
Can you imagine...
...a nuclear missile launch warning comes in to the White House. The POTUS picks up his handy Blackberry and begins texting the Russian Premier.
Scares the crap out of me! We're breeding a generation who can't speak to each other. What's that going to do to people skills? Foreign relations? Love at first sight?
The human brain has a finite information bandwidth. What happens to us when the flow of critical information exceeds that capacity?
While the article may
While the article may exaggerate, I notice at work that the younger set (20's to early 30's) absolutely HATE to speak on the phone. They will email incredibly long statements/questions that practically beg for a face to face or telephone conversation and the give and take such provides. Call them: you get their voice mail. Email them suggesting that they call you, and you get another email rephrasing the questions.
So I think there's something there....
Times are changing
When I was a young man in the 70s', my friends and I would walk together on the way to the bars, we would cracked on each other, talked about the girls in our clases, basically we enjoyed each other company on nice night. A week ago, I was doing my daily walk and ran across five young men walking together, all talking on their cell phones. I just shook my head and laughed. So much for bonding with the ones you are with. I just don't see how we need to be able to connect with others over the phone while we sharing the same time and space with friends and love ones (outside the home). It's like some cell users have a "Open 24/7" sign on their back, irregardless if they are visiting someone, with group of friends, driving a car, on the job or the john. Maybe, I'm just behind the times and lucky my boss don't demand I carry a cell.
in the roofers case it could
in the roofers case it could just be snobbery - why am i wasting time talking to this guy
more generally, the millennials are not accustomed to failure or being corrected
they often use text/email as some type of psychological buffer
they young professionals I supervise are excellent when things are going well but if their work product is not satisfactory or they have committed some error or blunder it is 1)very difficult to get them on the phone or in a face to face conversation 2)during the conversation if often feels like i am having a "talk" with a sullen 13 year old 3)I am never convinced they understood/accepted there was a problem to begin with
Anon @ 10:46 is spot-on:
Anon @ 10:46 is spot-on: While 20-somethings still make plans to meet at a certain place and certain time, the understanding is usually that this is negotiable, as work, other social plans, other phone calls, etc. may run late. Speaking of running late, I (a technologically old-fashioned 27-year-old who does not text or tweet and doesn't mind leaving or listening to voice mail) find that when a party invitation says 9, it really means 9:30 to 10:00, or, at least, that's when everyone shows up. When I had several people over for dinner for 6:45, the earliest person came at 7, and the rest trickled in in the next fifteen minutes, some texting that they were a little late, others not. Is this a generational thing? I remember when my parents had people over or took me to a social event, 6:45 meant 6:45--people were even (gasp!) early now and then.
In related news, what
In related news, what bothers the hell out of me is when I'm having a meal or drinks with someone (or someones) and they pull their phone out and set it on the table. The phone, of course, always has priority over the actual human beings at the table. Maybe I should be passive-aggressive about this and carry around a magazine, and if someone answers his or her phone for a non-emergency call, I should patiently wait through it, then continue the conversation, and then just pause and read an article or two and then pick up the conversation as if nothing happened.
I guess I have little to add
I guess I have little to add except to say I totally agree with the roofer and most of the comments above. Not to sound like the cranky old man yelling at kids on his lawn, but people under 30 (most especially including my teenage sons) cannot focus on the human in front of them ever, they are so itchy to deal with their blackberries and text messages on cell phones. What is lost is not the art of communication but the art of focused, sustained communication.
The Roofer
It's possible the Roofer, and Packer for that matter, have confused correlation with causation with respect to the phone use.
Over the past 20 years, the education premium has increased significantly - particularly for those adept with technology. Some "brainy" people aren't socially adept, particularly when dealing with a gruff, intimidating regular-guy roofer type. They can, however function perfectly well on the phone which takes the physical intimidation out of oral communication. It's not the phone that's made them socially awkward - they were that way to begin with. If anything, technology has enabled them to communicate better than they would have been able to do otherwise.
That said, many people over a certain age, like me, enjoy using technology but treat it like old fashioned hand-written communications. Send an e-mail, treat it like a typewriter written memo; send a text, treat it like a routing slip; and so forth. Most people, of all ages, aren't very good at conveying proper tone in e-mails and text messages. So it's also possible that The Roofer's clients were lousy with conveying tone in their messages and ended up sounding shrill.
Lastly, for what it's worth, perhaps The Roofer should consider the possibility that he relates to these people with a mixture of anti-intellectual disdain and Neanderthal physicality. Basically he sounds like a real jerk. So it's unsurprising they hired someone to deal with this guy if they could afford to do so.
Bob
Roofing is expensive, and
Roofing is expensive, and people have a right to answers to their questions, even those that may seem trivial to the pros. Maybe this guy needs to convey a more personal and patient attitude himself. There is nothing worse than trying to deal with a trades person who treats you like a number, and dances around your concerns. Having said all that, however, I do think some people are being changed by this technology.
Jason L.'s comment
reminds me that sometimes, when I'm with the phone-obsessed, when they take a call, I'll pull out my PDA and read some of one of the novels I keep on it. When they hang up, I finish the paragraph I'm reading and go back to the conversation. I don't know if they take away a point from my behavior, but it sure helps my own blood pressure. -jb