buzzbishop
- edited
It's a much more fluid form of interaction. The links are more valuable. You can populate your stream with interesting sources as opposed to flooding it with follow backs because it's "polite".
It shouldnt be a shock we prefer Twitter, really. A new study has found that the pull of the social web is stronger than alcohol, cigarettes or sex.
"Desires for media may be comparatively harder to resist because of their high availability and also because it feels like it does not 'cost much' to engage in these activities, even though one wants to resist," Hofmann told the Guardian.
The study was primarily focused on willpower as opposed to addiction, and the moments when people were forced to resist urges to partake in an activity or deal with conflicting urges, such as the urge to sleep and the urge to stay out socializing. Sleep and sex generally trumped other urges, but checking media and work were generally put ahead of socializing and shopping urges.
"Modern life is a welter of assorted desires marked by frequent conflict and resistance, the latter with uneven success," Hofmann said.
The study found that resistance to all urges declined as the day wore on, and that people seem to do a better job of resisting the urge to smoke or drink than many may have thought, given the addictive nature of both.
"With cigarettes and alcohol there are more costs - long-term as well as monetary - and the opportunity may not always be the right one," Hofmann said. "So, even though giving in to media desires is certainly less consequential, the frequent use may still 'steal' a lot of people's time."
You just have go out to a restaurant to see the pull this social web has on us. Any party of 4 or more will easily have one person with their face in a phone. Is Foursquaring more important than the people you're with? Do you really need to Yelp your review in between courses? If the people you're out to dinner with are so important, why are you texting, tweeting, facebooking other people?
When I go out, I put my phone face down on the table. I never have my ringer on. If there is a problem with my wife or kids, the table will vibrate and I can quickly check. Each Notification Centre ping or Words with Friends move, however, will not glow with a beckoning smirk to get me to touch the phone.
Phone face down. It's a way of saying who I'm with is important.
TechCrunch is proposing an even more extreme stunt. They call it The Phone Stacking Game. All dinner guests must put their phones face down in the middle of the table at the start of the night. They will beep, vibrate, ring and glow - but you can't touch.
First to flinch gets the bill for the table.
It's brilliant. Let's get back to the old school. Talking to friends, having a laugh, looking them in the eye and living in the moment.
