So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[Monte.C]

Being hunched over, glued to your phone while walking in public is a sign of low class, a sign that you're a peasant. I don't want to sound uppity, I don't really talk that way, but I can find no better way to say that. Personally I don't have a hard time avoiding the draw of constant "connectedness". Fortunately I seem to be somehow immune.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Did you ever reclaim a pack of defect household stuff in grocery store and two days later, the same pack again hangs on the shelf?
I think, I will message the owner.

EDIT:
I already messaged the owner.

 

[tonyb]

“We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.”

Frequently attributed (erroneously) to Marshall McLuhan. Those are the words of John Culkin, a Jesuit professor at Fordham, in an essay from 1967 addressing the work of McLuhan.

I’ve long found McLuhan personally annoying. His worthy ideas get all but lost by his stilted prose style. Culkin is far clearer.

I’m not in complete agreement, by the way. Our brains aren’t so easily malleable as these theorists would propose. But I do believe our brains aren’t static, and that the ways in which we gather information affect what we make of that information. And I believe that ready access to information afforded by modern communications technologies contributes in most cases to superficial understandings. This seems true even when that information is reliable, which certainly isn’t always (nor even frequently?) the case, as we must all know by now.

 

[Zombie_61]

That's what always throws me. Both about those who are phone zombies, and those (fewer in number by far than was once the case) who smugly announce their lack of mobile phone ownership as the reason they're not phone zombies. I've never found it difficult to switch off the ringer or ignore texts until later. What is it with so many people who either feel controlled by their device - or are so scared they will be that they refuse to have one?

There are a few people in my relatively small circle of family and friends who at least check their phones when they make noise, and sometimes will excuse themselves to pursue a conversation on those phones. One or two have explained to me that they are required as part of their employment agreement to answer their phones even when they aren't "at work" or "on the clock" simply because their employers demand it, and these people want to keep their jobs. Cell phones weren't nearly as prevalent when my back problems forced me into an early medical retirement so I've never been faced with having to make that decision, but I'm pretty sure the moment someone informed me that a cell phone would run my life that it would be during the very last conversation I'd ever have with that person.

 

[Edward]

There are a few people in my relatively small circle of family and friends who at least check their phones when they make noise, and sometimes will excuse themselves to pursue a conversation on those phones. One or two have explained to me that they are required as part of their employment agreement to answer their phones even when they aren't "at work" or "on the clock" simply because their employers demand it, and these people want to keep their jobs. Cell phones weren't nearly as prevalent when my back problems forced me into an early medical retirement so I've never been faced with having to make that decision, but I'm pretty sure the moment someone informed me that a cell phone would run my life that it would be during the very last conversation I'd ever have with that person.

We're lucky over here that our employment laws are a little stronger, I believe. Still, not as great as France where it's now unlawful for an employer to expect a response out of hours (saved for, as I understand it, legitimate emergency situations). Though it doesn't stop my particular bugbear, which is the university encouraging us to let them colonise our phones by encouraging us to download apps that suit them (attendance monitoring), or demanding 'two factor identification' via phones to sign in to work systems, while contributing nothing to the cost of the phone.

 

[Monte.C]

In the spirit of "So trivial yet it really ticks you off", how about coffee cans. You buy a can of coffee and it comes with a plastic lid. The lid doesn't fit tightly on the can. This is a perishable that wants to be kept in an airtight container. How many decades have they been doing this and they still can't get it right??!

 

[Monte.C]

All the countless overengineered products redesigned for marketing purposes. Flip-top toothpaste tubes, when I was perfectly happy with the screw cap. Think about it - it's a flip top on a screw cap. Are you trying to confuse me? "Sealed for your protection!" Then the upside-down plastic bottles. It used to be you bought a bottle or jar of something it was easy access. Now I have to jump through hoops to get to the product. I buy dish soap and there are so many industrial strength chemicals in it with such an offensive overpowering scent that I throw it out. When I buy soap I just want soap. It cuts grease. That's what soap does. That's what it's for. Not to be a manufactured poison, engineered to kill living creatures (microorganisms). News flash: Bacteria can't live in a soap environment.

I was perfectly happy with regular cardboard milk cartons, before they added a screw cap.

I suppose I'm not a fan of added layers of complication just for complication's sake. More complicated doesn't make it better.

 

[GHT]

That's what always throws me. Both about those who are phone zombies, and those (fewer in number by far than was once the case) who smugly announce their lack of mobile phone ownership as the reason they're not phone zombies. I've never found it difficult to switch off the ringer or ignore texts until later. What is it with so many people who either feel controlled by their device - or are so scared they will be that they refuse to have one?

You make a good point Edward, those of us of a certain age remember life pre-cell phone. When you missed a call on your landline, it didn't bother you, the attitude of most of us was, if it's important they will ring back. Nobody was ever slave to their phones.
Nowadays a missed call or message on the cell phone all but induces apoplexy. Zombie, too, makes a very good point in his post where he says: "I honestly don't understand why so many people can't simply ignore their own phones until a more opportune moment to check them arises." Quite so.

 

[GHT]

I suppose I'm not a fan of added layers of complication just for complication's sake. More complicated doesn't make it better.

If you buy a new car from a showroom today, there's a very high chance it won't have a manual handbrake lever in the middle of the cabin. That's because more than nine in ten new motors are instead equipped with electronic parking brakes. A review of the latest vehicles on sale revealed that only 9 per cent are fitted with a conventional pull-lever handbrake, with the majority switching to button-operated electronic system, which appear to be causing issue for some drivers.

Last week, a motorist hit headlines after their home security camera captured the embarrassing moment they forgot to engage the electronic parking brake on their Audi SUV, which subsequently rolled forwards off the driveway into the road. But not only are electronic brakes easy to forget to engage, they can be very costly to repair, more than three times pricier than fixing a manual handbrake.

Taking Monte's observation. No handbrake, is it technology just for the sake of technology? Adding layers of unnessecary complication.

 

[Monte.C]

If you buy a new car from a showroom today, there's a very high chance it won't have a manual handbrake lever in the middle of the cabin. That's because more than nine in ten new motors are instead equipped with electronic parking brakes. A review of the latest vehicles on sale revealed that only 9 per cent are fitted with a conventional pull-lever handbrake, with the majority switching to button-operated electronic system, which appear to be causing issue for some drivers.

Last week, a motorist hit headlines after their home security camera captured the embarrassing moment they forgot to engage the electronic parking brake on their Audi SUV, which subsequently rolled forwards off the driveway into the road. But not only are electronic brakes easy to forget to engage, they can be very costly to repair, more than three times pricier than fixing a manual handbrake.

Taking Monte's observation. No handbrake, is it technology just for the sake of technology? Adding layers of unnessecary complication.

Thank you GHT. Once upon a time I used to drive cars with manual transmissions and without power steering or even power brakes. I very well remember manual door locks and windows. I don't find manual window levers inconvenient ONE BIT. People seem to be dazzled by the technology, like they think they're living in a Jetson's episode. Now with the whole AI thing. I'm just not impressed.

I seriously don't want a toaster that looks like a spaceship and has 19 settings for over-engineered toast. I want a rectangular chrome box with a lever on it. Or were they polished sheet steel?