When did it become acceptable to.......

[Berk on a Bike]

...And to be reading your phone whilst walking down the street really slowly, holding hands with your child...

The one thing I really dislike in our connected society: parents engrossed in their phones or fondle slabs instead of talking to the child(ren) at their side. Grrr!

 

[John the Monkey]

My god, many of you really are blind to the peril presented by the novel, aren't you?

Such books, however pernicious in their tendency, are the most easily attained. The prudence of their publishers suggests the expediency of making them conveniently portable. Every corner of the kingdom is abundantly supplied with them. In vain is youth secluded from the corruptions of the living world. Books are commonly allowed them with little restriction, as innocent amusements; yet these often pollute the heart in the recesses of the closet, inflame the passions at a distance from temptation, and teach all the malignity of vice in solitude.

There is another evil arising from a too early attention to Novels. They fix attention so deeply, and afford so lively a pleasure, that the mind, once accustomed to them, cannot submit to the painful task of serious study. Authentic history becomes insipid. The reserved graces of the chaste matron Truth pass unobserved admist the gaudy and painted decorations of fiction. The boy who can procure a variety of books like Gil Blas, and the Devil upon Two Sticks, will no longer think his Livy, his Sallust, his Homer, or his Virgil pleasing. He will not study old Lilly, while he can read Pamela and Tom Jones, and a thousand inferior and more dangerous novels.

Let us tackle the threat of modernity together, my friends!

 

[Cush]

Why is it that something as useful as a mobile phone has become so abused that it is now a nuisance. My pet hates with them is them (1)Young mothers (fathers,granny's etc.) wheeling a pram with one hand, phone to ear in the other hand letting every one know their triviality's (2) Motorists of any sort with one stuck to the ear or even having one switched on while driving.

 

[jonny jeez]

Hold up everybody in the queue in the shop because you are having some banal conversation on your mobile phone rather than paying attention to the assistant trying to serve you!
And to be reading your phone whilst walking down the stairs in the station getting slower and slower holding up the 200 people behind that just want to get home.
And to be reading your phone whilst walking down the street really slowly holding hands with your child who is also holding hands with a woman (presuming it's Mum) on the other side so you are 3 abreast taking up the whole pavement near Liverpool Street Station at 5.30 on a Tuesday evening.... We aren't there for fun and wanted to get past!
Low life feckers the lot of them. Rant over
Sorry

Frustrating and annoying as all this is, they are not really rude...just distracted.

I am sat in a busy coffee shop right now that is full of excited people and I am typing into my phone...blissfully unaware of the hubbub that is going on around me. I am sure if someone tried to talk to me they would think me rude for not replying.

What I do find odd about all of this is the way in which interactions are becomming blurred. When we didn't have so much connectivity, we used to meet, talk, spend time and then say goodbye. To move into the next interaction. Now we are spinning plates continuing the initial interactions as well as all of the subsequent ones. Untill eventually we are so involved in all the ongoing stuff that we see the real people in the room as a distraction.

At home, It got to a point that I would feel that I needed to join a virtual queue to talk to the family. We have solved that now but I assume that, outside the home...we act the same way and start to ignore those around us too readily.

 

[BrumJim]

At a shop I use regularly the man behind the till rarely stops using his mobile phone whilst he serves me.
Which means that I have to explain several times that I DON'T want a bag.

 

[Tanis8472]

thats also rude.

 

[John the Monkey]

More book danger!

http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/2015/04/02/biblio-bully/

BAN THIS SICK FILTH

 

[Drago]

Bloody smartphones should be banned. At the very least one should have an iq of at least 140 before being allowed to buy one, and any functions other than the telephone should be on a timer that operates for only 10 minutes a day.

 

[Mark1978]

I just clip their heels.... well they are moving extremely slowly.

 

[mybike]

Hold up everybody in the queue in the shop because you are having some banal conversation on your mobile phone rather than paying attention to the assistant trying to serve you!
And to be reading your phone whilst walking down the stairs in the station getting slower and slower holding up the 200 people behind that just want to get home.
And to be reading your phone whilst walking down the street really slowly holding hands with your child who is also holding hands with a woman (presuming it's Mum) on the other side so you are 3 abreast taking up the whole pavement near Liverpool Street Station at 5.30 on a Tuesday evening.... We aren't there for fun and wanted to get past!
Low life feckers the lot of them. Rant over
Sorry

Absolutely agree.

 

[Fubar]

Hold up everybody in the queue in the shop because you are having some banal conversation on your mobile phone rather than paying attention to the assistant trying to serve you!
And to be reading your phone whilst walking down the stairs in the station getting slower and slower holding up the 200 people behind that just want to get home.
And to be reading your phone whilst walking down the street really slowly holding hands with your child who is also holding hands with a woman (presuming it's Mum) on the other side so you are 3 abreast taking up the whole pavement near Liverpool Street Station at 5.30 on a Tuesday evening.... We aren't there for fun and wanted to get past!
Low life feckers the lot of them. Rant over
Sorry

I feel your pain... working in the centre of Edinburgh you have to dodge all the people looking down at their phones whilst walking, and it's not just tourists. I was walking up the Bridges a few weeks back and a woman was walking towards me looking at her smartphone whilst pushing a pram with child in it - she walked the pram straight into a bus information pole! Poor child started screaming, she just yelled at it to shut up and kept walking whilst looking back at her phone...

 

[vernon]

Bloody smartphones should be banned. At the very least one should have an iq of at least 140 before being allowed to buy one, and any functions other than the telephone should be on a timer that operates for only 10 minutes a day.

Bloody guns should be banned. At the very least one should have an IQ of 160 before being allowed to apply for a license to own one and all functions other than the operation of the sights should be on a timer that allows the firing of one round per decade.

 

[luckyfox]

Hold up everybody in the queue in the shop because you are having some banal conversation on your mobile phone rather than paying attention to the assistant trying to serve you!
And to be reading your phone whilst walking down the stairs in the station getting slower and slower holding up the 200 people behind that just want to get home.
And to be reading your phone whilst walking down the street really slowly holding hands with your child who is also holding hands with a woman (presuming it's Mum) on the other side so you are 3 abreast taking up the whole pavement near Liverpool Street Station at 5.30 on a Tuesday evening.... We aren't there for fun and wanted to get past!
Low life feckers the lot of them. Rant over
Sorry

Someones wearing his 'angry eyes' today

I get it, but isn't it a blessing to know these people exist in the world who are the polar opposite to you and therefore validating your superiority. Just like Kanye West...come on people lets thank all the tools of the world for making us look good