Connected on the digital leash!
Yesterday we had a seminar session organized for the newbies in the team. They had to present their perspective on user experience, incidentally that’s the practice that I work for. This was organized for a small group of around 15 people. The presentation was quite interesting especially with a bunch of eager souls trying to give some alternative perspectives on this term which I have been hearing over and over again for the last 1.5 years. Everything was going great for the first ten minutes. After which I noticed that people around me began receiving calls on their mobile. Receiving a call on the mobile is something unavoidable but taking it during a formal session or a meeting is definitely unacceptable to me. Call me old fashioned, but isn’t it bad etiquette to engage in a private conversation during a formal session? No offense meant, to people who were taking the calls, probably they were trying to save the world through these calls. And I don’t want to classify and hold only few responsible in this. Even I have done this before and I am not happy about my bad etiquette.
The other disturbing factor, is taking others time for granted and calling them at any time comfortable for our “own selves”. We expect people to always respond to our calls. People do not think twice before contacting us for some official work even if we are in a vacation. Just imagine, you are spending an intimate moment with your partner and the phone starts ringing. Trust me, that is a huge turn off. I would probably dump my guy if he did. I cant blame him either, can I? We don’t turn off our mobile phones even in most private times because we feel we will get completely disconnected from the rest of the world. What if there is an emergency! What if my parents or my friends are in some grave danger and they are trying to contact me. These are the questions, which come up in my mind whenever I try to turn off my mobile phone. In the last 5 years, I have probably switched off my phone at the maximum for 10 to 15 minutes. I often wonder, “How did we manage when we did not live in the world of these techno devices?”
This is now become a universal phenomena. I find this common trait amongst my colleagues, my friends, strangers, people who can afford mobile phones and even who cannot. Being constantly connected on mobile phones, those annoying ring tones and this list is definitely going to grow. Clearly, people seem to have forgotten that they are always stepping on others digital boundary, sometimes grossly uninvited. What I see is a change in human behavior. Ok! That’s a huge term. Can I say that technology is actually turning us into this ill-mannered, less tolerant weirdoes? Actually a “weirdo” who is always connected on a digital leash.
I agree with the view that a mobile intrudes on to your private space. but dont blame it all on the mobile. Probably if we ask our grand parents they will say that before the TV came in they used to spend more time speaking to each other. Our parents would probably have the same thing to say about the internet. Probably we are the third or “xth” generation of weirdoes just that the type of leash has changed!
I am definitely not blaming on the mobile, its my opinion that we are evolving into these weirdoes and technology can be called as an accelerant.