Anyone else feel terribly sad when they go out in public and see everyone looking down at their phone?

[Ambivalent1]

I can't stand it. It makes me want to die just watching people live like this and knowing that 20 yrs ago it wasn't like this.

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

Not really because I'm usually one of them. I prefer it this way since I'd rather not be bothered.

Twenty years ago I was mostly the same except I would purposely carry around books or magazines or my Gameboy to not be bothered in public.

 

[carac]

Yep, it's why I purposely refuse to get a smart phone. I would always carry around a gameboy or something and avoid social interaction but it's so sad to see people on their phones all the time

Personally I look at it like phones used to be something we used the same as a game device or a book but now phones are becoming something that use us or control us.

 

[QueerMelancholy]

It used to bother me but I realized that people now still feel as strange being outside and around people as they did when they had nothing to look down at. Was it newspapers then? A magazine? Did people stand around looking at their hands? Did they fidget in line and stare at the ground when they walked anywhere?

I feel like cell phones allow people to feel strange and awkward and to escape those feelings. Like they have a pocket filled with a placebo and it makes them feel a little better here and there. I don't blame them for wanting to feel a little better.

The world is strange and it's awkward and so many people are just trying to spend time and get through the seconds and the minutes and the hours day to day. Let them feel joy in something. It's funny to think that so many people were lonely at home before the radio and then the TV became a normal part of their lives.

Cell phones are just the radios and TVs that ease that loneliness. Times change but people? Not really.

 

[untothedepths]

If its outside in public, it doesn't bother me. I don't care. But it really sucks to see it in restaurants, movie theatres, ect. I have people constantly on them when I go out to eat...which has been years now. Just on their fucking phone, won't even bother to talk to me. Makes me wish I was off this planet again, thanks.

 

[Forveleth]

I love watching them walk into things or trip.

 

[Pluto]

 

[Ambivalent1]

It used to bother me but I realized that people now still feel as strange being outside and around people as they did when they had nothing to look down at. Was it newspapers then? A magazine? Did people stand around looking at their hands? Did they fidget in line and stare at the ground when they walked anywhere?

I feel like cell phones allow people to feel strange and awkward and to escape those feelings. Like they have a pocket filled with a placebo and it makes them feel a little better here and there. I don't blame them for wanting to feel a little better.

The world is strange and it's awkward and so many people are just trying to spend time and get through the seconds and the minutes and the hours day to day. Let them feel joy in something. It's funny to think that so many people were lonely at home before the radio and then the TV became a normal part of their lives.

Cell phones are just the radios and TVs that ease that loneliness. Times change but people? Not really.

I don't remember the before. I was a kid. I had a Gameboy but I don't remember what adults did.

 

[Sprite_Geist]

No I do not have an issue with people using their smartphone in public; they can do whatever they want in this situation. I only have an issue when a person using their smartphone loses all situational awareness, and walks into other people, and then proceeds to act offended as if the other person is wrong.