Re:How not to be alone
by irremediable on Sunday June 09, 2013 @07:00AM
(#5848403)
I've often noticed the same thing, but to the extent that if I excused myself from each such conversation, I'd have no more conversations.
As regards my own behaviour: I keep a smartphone, but I have no notifications for email or SMS. I'll receive an interrupt for a phone call (something my relatives only tend to make in emergency situations) and that's it.
I think that, for me, this is the ideal balance between giving my full attention to conversations and being contactable.
When I say "excuse myself" I guess I really mean from any significant conversation. I may continue to spend time with people who behave like this, but I back out of any serious discussions if they are conducted with interruptions from personal devices.
Smalltalk is easy and requires very little thought or concentration anyway, but I no longer give my full attention if it is not reciprocated.
I don't make a point of doing it, but if I am left hanging mid-word while someone checks their phone, and they subsequently attempt to pick up the thread again, I just change the topic to a bullshit one (How 'bout that game on the w'end?).
Over the last few years my attitudes have changes considerably to the point where I no longer carry a personal smart phone around with me.
I started to notice that many, if not most conversations, I was having with real people were being interrupted by texts, emails, and other notifications, sometimes for only a second or two, but often to the point where the spoken topic of conversation was forgotten by the person i was talking with.
This included colleagues but also family members and friends.
I once tried to explain this to my own father during a lunch, but he took a ph call while I talking to him.
I have a zero tolerance policy toward this now. I don't get rude about it, but if someone will break a real life conversation with me to look a a notification, I usually excuse myself from the conversation.