Why Texting and Talking on the Phone Remain Intrusive

Texting and talking on the phone while driving / cycling / having dinner has become a nuisance to our safety and social manners. It’s clear to everyone by now how dangerous (and rude) this has become. But the problem is not going away and interestingly enough, pretty much everyone is guilty of it, regardless of their awareness. Which leads one to believe that there’s more behind this.

It comes down to the fact that we’re very social creatures and we seek connections with other people. Cells phones have enabled us remained connected to those we care for, thus giving us something so important from what is ingrained in us.

This strong force should be kept in mind when approaching policies to prevent texting or driving while talking. It is difficult to stop this behavior because of the incredible strong social force. Still, we can help people make better decisions when using this technology. Like to avoid talking on the phone when on local streets. Or to avoid getting into emotional conversations while on the go. Additionally, creative solutions are appearing for mobile devices to deal with texting and talking on the phone.

I do have one such idea: Consider an app phone combined with Google Voice (which can act as a digital personal secretary). Imagine setting your device to “car mode” (or have it automatically do this via a car dock  or by detecting speed via GPS) or “dinner with family mode”. The mode would trigger Google Voice to intercept your calls with a message to inform your caller that this is a bad time before patching her through. It could send automatic responses to text messages. It could set away messages to your IM services and even shut off notifications. The technology is at hand and there’s quite a lot of potential in it. I expect we’ll see this sort of stuff within a couple of years, if not sooner.

Over time, social etiquette with texting will improve as it has for phone calls. Still, we mustn’t forget that the reason these tools have become such a dominant part of our lives is that it enhances the very human act of being social.

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 26th, 2010 at 12:57 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
  1. Mobile Phones and Social Etiquette « Arnav Shah's Blog - May 19, 2010
    "[...] know this and that’s a big factor cause she may get offended if left unanswered. (Another factor involves our desire for social connection.) The social etiquette has been catching up though. It’s not uncommon for people to just [...]

2 Responses to “Why Texting and Talking on the Phone Remain Intrusive”

  1. tempus says:
    May 6, 2010 at 12:37 am

    Has it ever occurred to you that most of this ‘staying connected’ consists of imbecilic and drivelling messages such as ‘sup, dude’ and ‘I’m like at the mall’? Cell phones and texting are doing nothing to improve social interaction ; they foster nothing but the most selfish, stupid narcissism, expressed in endless and repetitive reiterations of the obvious– and constant observation of things so boring, stupid, and quotidian they should never be mentioned AT ALL. Never has there been so much stupidity made possible for so many morons so much of the time.

    Reply
    • Arnav Shah says:
      May 6, 2010 at 5:50 pm

      Thanks for your comment. You’re absolutely right in that a lot of “staying connected” content appears to be useless crap. This raises an interesting question: why do people do this? Maybe it’s “social lubrication” like small talk. Maybe people are just bored. No matter what though, people are responding to psychological mechanisms that push them to engage in this behavior, productive or not. I agree that it’s stupid that people waste their time and put others in danger because of this. Perhaps in better understanding the root cause of why people do this, we can get people to behave in more positive ways.

      At the same time, this technology has allowed us to progress in certain ways. A couple of people I work with are so incredibly busy, and they’re up at 5:00am every day, that they do teleconferencing while driving. As long as it isn’t emotionally taxing, this is a great way to actually speak with folks who you might not otherwise get to speak with. My own conversations with one of them are typically relaxed and pretty much a stress reducing experience. Both of us are always left feeling better and more on top of things after speaking. I wouldn’t have the chance to speak with my colleague so personally otherwise.

      Lastly, as I’ve stated so many times before, we should always be wary of any technology we use. There will always be advantages and drawbacks. The key is to constantly analyze the balance and manage to keep it on the positive side. And if that isn’t possible, then we should stop using the technology.

      Reply

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