Get off my lawn!

[icepixie]

Dear God. Apparently Google wants to be the next Facebook. Their campaign appears to be based on, "We have all the features of Facebook, but unlike those fools, we have PRIVACY. Sooo much privacy! You know who's got privacy? We do! Look at all this privacy up in here!" Plus features that I didn't pay much attention to because I don't have a smart phone.*

I truly believe that one day, we will wake up to find that Google has taken over the governments of every nation on Earth, and has a unified world government in beta.



* One day in not too many years, a cell phone that's more computer than voice-transmission device is going to be required to join modern society, much in the way landlines were in the middle of the twentieth century and computers with internet access are becoming now, aren't they? Ugh. I don't deny they're handy, but I reject the notion of being accessible at all times on principle. I might be doing nothing more than staring at a wall in my free time, but it's still mine, and not to be infringed upon. As well, I've really grown to dislike the experience of trying to talk someone when they're interrupted by texts every twenty seconds. It's so rude! I just want to slap the phone out of people's hands when they do that.

...I have officially turned into an old lady.

Comments

[kungfuwaynewho.livejournal.com]

I've felt like an old lady for a couple years now, with the huge rise in social media (and how you're a PARIAH if you're not a part of it!) and smart phones and all of that. I totally agree - no one needs to get in contact with me at all times. It reminds me of when I was an undergrad and didn't have a cell phone, and one of my professors was so shocked that she couldn't even formulate words for about ten seconds. "But how will I get a hold of you?" "My land line?" "But what if you're not home?" "...Leave a message?" Like, it was just inconceivable!

One of the things I love about my job is if someone is on their cell phone, I can tell them to leave and go to the lobby and come back when their call is over; if they insist on talking, or texting, I just ignore them and go do something else. And not only is this allowed, it's encouraged. Amazing.

[rowdycamels.livejournal.com]

This (http://xkcd.com/918/) is all I know about Google+: "On the one hand, you'll never be able to convince your parents to switch. On the other hand, you'll never be able to convince your parents to switch!"

I'll get a smart phone when they're the bare-bones standard, like basic cameraphones are today. Until then, eh. My current phone is a resurrected version of the model I got maybe four years ago, and that's ancient by cellphone standards, but I hate the wastefulness of "throw away your old dinosaur phone every six months or rot in uncool obsolescence!!11!!!!" [ps phones with dinosaurs? I would get that.]

I don't think it's smart phones that cause hyperconnectedness - it's just phones in general. And yes, I HATE people who check out of live conversations to talk to their phones. I was out to dinner with people a while back, and after we ordered, somebody got out a smart phone, then somebody else, then somebody else, and within two minutes I was sitting at a table surrounded by people staring at their phones in silence, and I was like, "Okay, I'll just be over here rearranging the salt shakers, then." So rude! And then they apologize and acknowledge their rudeness AND THEN THEY GO BACK TO STARING AT THEIR PHONES.

Phone-Slapping: my new favorite sport?

[serendipityxxi.livejournal.com]

If you're an old lady then so am I. I think it's incredibly rude of people to interrupt your conversation to answer a text or their cell phone or whatever if it's not an emergency. UGH! *shakes cane at them*

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

...I have officially turned into an old lady.

This is how I feel, too. It's actually a little genuinely uncomfortable sometimes, because I feel like in the past few years the pace of change in technology--and particularly social technology--has increased exponentially. And for a variety of reasons, I haven't really bothered to keep up on it, so where five years ago I felt pretty Internet-age savvy,* now... I honestly feel a bit like my parents felt back then. :/ I neither read nor use Twitter; I don't regularly read blogs; I get on Facebook maybe once every few months; I only just figured out what Tumblr is, and forget anything more recent than that; all I know about my phone is that I can call people on it and the service is Verizon; I couldn't define "smartphone" if I tried; I barely know what tablets and iPads are; I still think DVR is the most mind-blowing and magical thing in TV ever, and I get the feeling that by now it's been around, like, a looong time; and it's not that I hate ALL of those things or look down on people who use them, but... I don't even really want to get up to speed. And sometimes that makes me feel like, Man, I'm kind of going to get screwed by The Future, I'm going to be totally out of the loop, when did I become a Luddite?

Anyway. God, that whole paragraph is simultaneously so old-lady-yelling-at-youngters-from-front-porch AND so old-scifi "but what about when the computers become sentient and ENSLAVE US?" that it's embarrassing. But seriously, dude. I cannot adapt! Darwin would hate me!

(*remember back when some blogs weren't practically part of the mainstream media? remember when most people had no idea what fanfiction was? remember when only geeks wrote on the Internet about anything at all? remember when only "losers" looked for dates online? remember when YouTube was nothing but songvids? [exaggeration; I actually can't remember what was on it back then or even really when I first became aware of it.] remember when THERE WAS NO FACEBOOK? Not gonna lie, I had more fun back then.)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I reject the notion of being accessible at all times on principle.

Not to be all "oooo, but smaaaaart phone" pod-person about it... that's exactly how I feel about cellphones in general, and exactly why I like my smart phone. I am accessible... when I want to be. If I'm meeting with people and something changes at the last minute or someone gets lost, I can see it / talk to them whether they've emailed or phoned. I can still avoid texting almost entirely, but I can check my email or see what's happening online if I'm stuck in a line or at a bus-stop somewhere, and I can use Pandora (awesome online radio) on my phone when I've lost my mp3 player (...for the last year...). And I still miss or ignore my phone half the time when it rings, whether because I've forgotten to charge it or because I'm busy and hate to answer the phone when I'm doing something else.

*Shrugs* Your mileage may vary, as with everything, but my experience is that the cell or smart phone is exactly like anything else - precisely as intrusive as you let it be. Leave it at home, mute it, turn it all the way off, or just ignore whoever the hell you don't want to deal with.

...That said, don't ever allow it access to your work email, if you do get one. That's just asking for trouble.

Oh, and interrupting phone calls or conversations to answer another (or a text, or whatever)? Yeah, hellishly rude. My mother does that, and it drives me up the freaking wall.

[nickless.livejournal.com]

I just tell people sorry, I still have a DumbPhone, 'cause it's essentially true. I don't even have a keypad for texting (*gasp*!) and I'm perfectly okay with that. It takes me forever to tap out a reply on the rare occasion that I do, and no matter how many times I freaking tell people I DON'T HAVE FREE TEXTING, that seems to be inconceivable because merely texting them back to acknowledge I got the message seems to make them think "oooh, I'll just KEEP TEXTING HER!" No, I only texted you because you're at work and can't answer a call. It said "Call me when you're done re: dinner", not "Text me back immediately with more questions I can't/don't want to answer right now!" Aaaargh.

I'm with you - I think my main problem is that because it "allows" me to pay attention to someone at a moment's notice, the attitude seems to be that I MUST pay attention to someone at a moment's notice. (Okay, and the fact that the students seem to think they cannot physically survive without their phone in their hands.) Dear God, how did we EVER survive when you had to find a PAY PHONE to contact someone when you were away from home?

As far as FB vs. Google, I am Wary. FB started out all "oooh, we won't invade your privacy!", too. And like you said, Google is a lot more... far-reaching. I saw this graphic (http://i.imgur.com/OlaR9.png) on Tumblr* tonight and it basically sums up my reluctance to switch (besides the whole bandwagon quality of it all).

*I got a Tumblr account a couple of months ago to follow a few threads. I also created a Twitter account at the same time. So far I've made one total post to each. Basically, I putter around the damn things feeling clueless...

I remember when fandom was mailing lists that weren't through YahooGroups or whatever they were before it. I remember reading 800+ posts per day to the Space: Above & Beyond list on a computer that didn't have a mouse. *sigh*

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

I did recently buy a brand-new smartphone, and I'm be looking forward to playing with my shiny new toy, but I also refuse to be available all the fucking time. Fortunately, my workplace doesn't actually require this.

In private, I'll check my phone when I'm alone, e.g. at lunch or waiting for public transport or on the tube, but I don't text or have random calls in company. If it's something urgent, I might excuse myself and step outside for a brief conversation or ask permission to send a text message and then put the phone away again. Everything else's just so fucking rude.