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Going home today on the metro I was doing what I'm usually doing on the train-- reading and listening to music.
On the seats next to me, two guys were having a quite animated discussion, loud enough to be heard through my isolated headphones. At first it was ok, but then it started getting to me. Fortunately for me, they jumped off way before my stop, so I got to spend the rest of the way home in blissful "silence".
However, shortly after they jumped off, I started thinking about how absurd it was that I got annoyed by people talking on the train.
Looking around I realised that everyone on the train were listening to music, reading or messing around with their androids. This level of isolation in crowds must really be something completely new to the urban human. I mean, it wasn't long ago that trains were noisy, walkmans were big and impractical and social interaction happened face to face.
Now we have this whole society which is revelling in the fact that we don't have to utter a word and still be able to track everyone in our lives to a way bigger extent than we ever could've managed before. And I wonder if this is a good or a bad thing?
I mean, on the one hand, a society of millions who barely see or hear eachother sounds like a bleak future indeed. There's plenty of thoughts regarding our desensitisement from TV and other media, but this feels like it goes way beyond that. With all these advancements in technology people for the first time have the choice of not speaking, of interacting soley through digital media with the world. Where does that leave the feeling of community? The nuances of having to deal with more than what we want to deal with.
I feel that alot of the things that are so great with people being different get lost when everything is centered around catering our information input to our most immediate interests.
On the other hand, all that I have said can also be turned to something positive. Now that community isn't a thing that is thrust upon us, people have the chance to actually create true relationships. True in the sense that they are derived soley from our passion about whatever we choose to gather around, not forced as a means of identifying ourselves against other communities. For the first time there is a way for everyone to taste both sides of things, and not have to get processed through the machinery of the reigning zeitgeist. Real, diverse and individualistic people could be the result!
Maybe I'm reading too much into it.
P.S If you love fantasy and are on the lookout for something meaty to sink your teeth into, check out Steven Eriksson's The Malazan Book of the Fallen! Awesome stuff! D.S
 
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Baltimore, USA22253 Posts
Good read - for what it's worth, I don't even have a facebook account or use IM because I think people get too lost in the stuff. 
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Yeah I purposely don't listen to music on the bus in order to "train" myself to deal with people who are annoying/loud etc. A good portion of the people I see are using phone or ipod for the entire ride. I'm already quite antisocial and I feel like if I could block people from my sight and hearing even out in public then I'd be totally isolated. Can't speak for other people though, for some I'm sure it's harmless, for others like me it is a complete shutting off from humanity. I suspect that overall it probably lowers peoples tolerance and patience for the faults of others.
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I can't look at my phone for over 2 mins without some irreparable damage to my eyes, I don't like having earphones on either (especially both ears).
So, I entertain myself on bus/train rides by absorbing the stuff around me such as overhearing some weird convo's between 2 girls and saying to myself 'fk your both retarded', or you might hear school kids going 'played a game of sc2 last nite, pwned his ass with carriers' and i say to myself 'lolnoob, bet ur some silver league wannabe pro'. You can also get to see alot of random accidents, such as people tripping over, crashing their car.
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I've been to Sweden a couple of times (2 years ago last time and will come again quite soon) and as I recall riding on the Stockholm city train - there's a decent amount of chatting going on. It was actually me that had headphones on, listening to music, reading the Metro newspaper and not paying attention to anyone for most of the time. When I didn't do so it was usually cause I had a friend with me and the two of us would chat in foreign language (and no one seemed to be bothered). Or I would be exchanging glances and smiles with some cute girl sitting accros from me.
Lets think about all of this for a minute. You're sitting on a train. You don't know anyone there. What should you do? Well you basically have 4 choices: 1) Communicate with people, 2) Observe others, 3) Amuse yourself, 4) Do some thinking. Lets go in that order (I know it's long but it has a point):
1) You Swedes are, culturologically speaking, "distant". You like to have lots of physical space between you and the person you talk to, especially if you don't know them. So I wouldn't count on just striking a conversation with a stranger right then and there. Also, why would you do it anyway? You take a calculated risk, conclude that the probability favors you having a better time and a more constructive conversation talking to one of your friends, so you pick up your phone to call, message or tweet them.
2) You could listen into someone else's conversation, observe people's behaviour or look at pretty girls. It's a viable option.
3) Listening to music, playing with your phone in any way or, my personal favorite in this section, reading on your Kindle.
4) If I spent more time on the train I would fall asleep easier at night cause it's usually thinking about stuff that occupies my mind at that time and keeps me from falling asleep.
What's my point? I know you used the train story as an intro to something else, but I just wanted to point out how diverse things are and that it's not just a choice between tech and non-tech, between teh internet and afk ("there is no rl, only afk"  ).
With every new invetion some sociologists make a fuss about how it's detrimental to human contact (they even talked that way about landline telephone when it became a household item) but it never is. It's actually just the opposite, a "global village" is forming where everyone know everything about everyone. It's not only that the community is thrust upon us, it's actually something you can't get away from anymore. If you don't want to be on a popular social network - you don't exist. So while it may be true that by sticking our heads in our smartphones we "talk" less than before, we certainly do communicate more than ever and in a much efficient way.
Where does individuality come in all this? Well, it suffers. A lot. Evolutionarily speaking, togetherness inside of a community is much more important than random individualism and in a large scale community that we have now, the feeling of "having to fit in" is larger than ever among most. So what to do if your personality feels cramped? Well you could go completely in the other way which is easiest (dark, emo, vamp, hipster, substance abuse, gambling etc.), you could just stop caring about what people think and do what you like without fear of social stigma (it's quite liberating I must admit although it has it's consequences and is not for everyone) and in the end, you could lift yourself above the very community you're a part of and become it's leader (but that's the hardest and you better have a bucket load of charisma) but it still has it's problems about lack of privacy.
Well those are my two cents. They're quite different than yours I'd say. I hope to have some positive experiences when I come to Sweden soon.
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+ Show Spoiler +On October 24 2011 10:07 Mothra wrote:
Yeah I purposely don't listen to music on the bus in order to "train" myself to deal with people who are annoying/loud etc. A good portion of the people I see are using phone or ipod for the entire ride. I'm already quite antisocial and I feel like if I could block people from my sight and hearing even out in public then I'd be totally isolated. Can't speak for other people though, for some I'm sure it's harmless, for others like me it is a complete shutting off from humanity. I suspect that overall it probably lowers peoples tolerance and patience for the faults of others.
I do this too, sometimes! If I feel I get to bottled up in my own world, I try to practice by hanging out in crowded places and actively not shut everything out. It can be quite rewarding on good days
+ Show Spoiler +On October 24 2011 11:00 Luftmensch wrote:I've been to Sweden a couple of times (2 years ago last time and will come again quite soon) and as I recall riding on the Stockholm city train - there's a decent amount of chatting going on. It was actually me that had headphones on, listening to music, reading the Metro newspaper and not paying attention to anyone for most of the time. When I didn't do so it was usually cause I had a friend with me and the two of us would chat in foreign language (and no one seemed to be bothered). Or I would be exchanging glances and smiles with some cute girl sitting accros from me. Lets think about all of this for a minute. You're sitting on a train. You don't know anyone there. What should you do? Well you basically have 4 choices: 1) Communicate with people, 2) Observe others, 3) Amuse yourself, 4) Do some thinking. Lets go in that order (I know it's long but it has a point): 1) You Swedes are, culturologically speaking, "distant". You like to have lots of physical space between you and the person you talk to, especially if you don't know them. So I wouldn't count on just striking a conversation with a stranger right then and there. Also, why would you do it anyway? You take a calculated risk, conclude that the probability favors you having a better time and a more constructive conversation talking to one of your friends, so you pick up your phone to call, message or tweet them. 2) You could listen into someone else's conversation, observe people's behaviour or look at pretty girls. It's a viable option. 3) Listening to music, playing with your phone in any way or, my personal favorite in this section, reading on your Kindle. 4) If I spent more time on the train I would fall asleep easier at night cause it's usually thinking about stuff that occupies my mind at that time and keeps me from falling asleep. What's my point? I know you used the train story as an intro to something else, but I just wanted to point out how diverse things are and that it's not just a choice between tech and non-tech, between teh internet and afk ("there is no rl, only afk" ). With every new invetion some sociologists make a fuss about how it's detrimental to human contact (they even talked that way about landline telephone when it became a household item) but it never is. It's actually just the opposite, a "global village" is forming where everyone know everything about everyone. It's not only that the community is thrust upon us, it's actually something you can't get away from anymore. If you don't want to be on a popular social network - you don't exist. So while it may be true that by sticking our heads in our smartphones we "talk" less than before, we certainly do communicate more than ever and in a much efficient way. Where does individuality come in all this? Well, it suffers. A lot. Evolutionarily speaking, togetherness inside of a community is much more important than random individualism and in a large scale community that we have now, the feeling of "having to fit in" is larger than ever among most. So what to do if your personality feels cramped? Well you could go completely in the other way which is easiest (dark, emo, vamp, hipster, substance abuse, gambling etc.), you could just stop caring about what people think and do what you like without fear of social stigma (it's quite liberating I must admit although it has it's consequences and is not for everyone) and in the end, you could lift yourself above the very community you're a part of and become it's leader (but that's the hardest and you better have a bucket load of charisma) but it still has it's problems about lack of privacy. Well those are my two cents. They're quite different than yours I'd say. I hope to have some positive experiences when I come to Sweden soon.
Some very interesting points here. Thanks for taking the time to make such an extensive comment.
Yeah, I think that my cultural background plays into it as well. How much different are things in Serbia(going to assume that's where you're from since it says that next to you name ^^)?
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Well the main difference is regarding the "closeness" between people. As I said in Sweden people are "distant" while Serbia is a complete opposite, it's called Mediteranian or "contact" culture (America is a middle-ground between those two). What it means is that people don't feel uncomfortable standing closer to each other while talking and/or making physical contact as part of the conversation (like touching the arm as a method of making a point, emphasis or just renewing the conversational contact). I could continue talking about this particular issue but it would get too long. This cultural difference is one of the main concerns I have about going/moving to Sweden as I fear would "feel" the lack of general intimacy between people.
Moving onto behaviour in public transportation, it's really hectic in Belgrade since very often buses are so full you can't find a place to sit. People do talk quite a lot in there, however rarely one stranger to another. It's not too unusal though for a stranger to join the conversation if one of the participants ask a question that the other doesn't know the answer to and that stranger does. My friend even got a date once in that kind of a situation. As for listening to music, it's pretty widespread, also playing on the phones, however they are rarely smartphones since we don't really have all that much money.
I just wanted to add something someone has mentioned before: I also like to "feel" my surroundings and that is why I don't have any noise canceling headphones, I like hearing a bit of the ambient behind my music.
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I just get a feeling of disorientation if I have headphones on in a crowd. Same happens when I use a hoodie's cover thingie and lose peripheral vision. Plus city noise is good for focus.
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A great deal of that is the result of how individualism is so central to western life.
Many other countries that are more socially structured (be it around the family, the clan, the state) tend to have more interaction in public spaces. Then again most of those countries are also often not as advanced as western countries so the case can be made that since they don't have ipads and iphones and macbooks that they couldn't be so distant even if they wanted to be.
I personally think it's a great thing. I think it's a result of individualism and i think that is one of the cornerstones for a succesfull society.
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On October 24 2011 20:49 Luftmensch wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Well the main difference is regarding the "closeness" between people. As I said in Sweden people are "distant" while Serbia is a complete opposite, it's called Mediteranian or "contact" culture (America is a middle-ground between those two). What it means is that people don't feel uncomfortable standing closer to each other while talking and/or making physical contact as part of the conversation (like touching the arm as a method of making a point, emphasis or just renewing the conversational contact). I could continue talking about this particular issue but it would get too long. This cultural difference is one of the main concerns I have about going/moving to Sweden as I fear would "feel" the lack of general intimacy between people. Moving onto behaviour in public transportation, it's really hectic in Belgrade since very often buses are so full you can't find a place to sit. People do talk quite a lot in there, however rarely one stranger to another. It's not too unusal though for a stranger to join the conversation if one of the participants ask a question that the other doesn't know the answer to and that stranger does. My friend even got a date once in that kind of a situation. As for listening to music, it's pretty widespread, also playing on the phones, however they are rarely smartphones since we don't really have all that much money. I just wanted to add something someone has mentioned before: I also like to "feel" my surroundings and that is why I don't have any noise canceling headphones, I like hearing a bit of the ambient behind my music.
That's awesome(getting a date at random while communiting)! It happens from time to time over here too. Someone happens to know about the issue you're talking about and suddenly you're having a great conversation with a complete stranger. I guess, in part, I wrote all of this because I feel like it happens too rarely.
I wonder if Swedes have always been this way, or if it is a result from being at the forefront of public IT for so long. I mean, old people in Sweden(I worked with elder care for a few years) tend to speak about the past like a time when people were warmer and there was a greater sense of community in the neighborhood. But that might just be nostalgia, it's hard to tell with memories after all...
It easily turns into a "hen or the egg" kind of question-- but I think it bears considering, since I am technically a "part of the problem"(if we'd view it as such).
Do we become distant and cold because of technology or did we create it and use it as such because we live in cold times?
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Modern technology and conventions are definitely making the world a less sociable place. However, I do often enjoy a bit of alone time during commutes and trips and at work/home to just think/relax/not give a damn about anything. Unfortunately, if and when you are feeling more social, meeting random strangers is more difficult and awkward. (But that's what TL is for, haha)
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EPT
