It’s just SOcially rude
Lately it has really struck me how much technology has begun to interfere with our daily lives, so much so that it has begun to play an overbearing role in our everyday interactions with one another. The number of students I see sitting through class sneaking texts and walking around campus with their noses stuffed in their cell phones has me in awe.
Not just the fact that it has our generation looking like characters out of a Resident Evil game, but the fact it’s become such a strong distraction in our daily lives that it has cultivated a disregard for our fellow man. It’s distracting in the classroom if I’m sitting next to you and your phone’s blowing up with texts, then you pick it up and in your lap, just under the level of the desktop proceed to click clack away.
I feel like its becoming more socially acceptable to pull a stunt like that. It’s seen happening in class and all too often I see professors taking it too lightly. If I was a professor and I caught one of my students texting in class, boy, not only would they leave class crying, but I’d probably lose my job.
That’s just me. I don’t really care if you want to communicate that way as long as it doesn’t interfere with other’s train of thought. Recently though, it kind of struck a nerve. I was talking to a classmate about a class project and we were trying to make an important decision about how the final product would look. It was a back and forth discussion and as I threw the conversation his way with a thought, he started to reply and then his phone vibrated and he stopped talking and pulled out his phone as if to say “you and this conversation are not important enough to keep my attention.”
Now, I can hear you texters developing a defense. “What if it was an emergency like a family death or something?” If this was the case then say just that. Say it’s an important message or something. Don’t just stop mid-conversation and leave me high and dry to watch you respond to someone else.
Not only is it socially rude, but it shows that you just don’t give a damn about anything else going on around you. I was a little bummed out. I’m getting ready to graduate into the professional world and I’m trying to score big in my final weeks academically. I was taking this project seriously and by my fellow student blowing me off by texting during that discussion showed me he wasn’t.