Socializing with a Sidearm

Love in the '00s from someone who's been desperate since 2002.

When I first returned to college after a two-year hiatus, I was ready and raring to go in the social scene. I was in a relationship pretty quickly after I came back, and neither of us had a cell phone. There were hours spent in the kitchen waiting for the phone to ring, and, living with other guys, nothing important was ever discussed on the line. There were a lot of missed connections, and a lot of late night walks-and-talks. I remember calling this girl on my class break from a courtesy phone on campus. We never conversed using email. We both had email addresses, sure, but neither of us even considered that as an avenue of real communication.

Some of my friends started getting cellphones around this time (summer of '02), but it still wasn't really the norm. (It wasn't odd either, though.) I moved to a more "with it" apartment complex--one with keycodes on the doors--and it seemed that it was way more important to have a cellphone there. I was finally convinced to join the Sprint network in the fall of '03 because a (mega-)crush was PCSing it up.

By now, I'm texting and emailing and google-talking with women. Those of us who fate has determined should remain ready, willing, and single, but who remember the halcyon days when one could finish a real conversation without a call or text interruption, the curve is steep: what communication is appropriate? How often can one use the cell, or text? Is it okay to friend someone on facebook after the first date? As far as this relative geezer can tell, there are only two generally accepted rules regarding technology and dating (and again, this may vary according to your region of residence), and they are:

1. Dates can only be requested using voice technology. Skype = okay. SMS = bad. Email = worse. Facebook = double plus ungood. Voicemail = sketchy. However, it is okay to propose using Twitter.

2. It is traditional for the person asked on the date to engage in the "Post-Date Text" (or PDT) immediately after the activities, as a way of circumventing the difficult doorstep line "we should do this again some time". The text may contain those words, or other gratitudes. It is not to be done if there is no interest in a next encounter.

Technically, the third is: "You should never take a phone call or respond to a text message while on a date unless it's an emergency", but that I think should be generalized rule about any preplanned conversation. Maybe some of you whippersnappers out there can help me out with any other rules.

Unfortunately for Gen X/Y border-dwellers like us, we're being put through what our parents are going through with web tech, and what our grandparents are doing with computers in general: flailing (and sometimes failing) to understand the cultural ramifications of technology. Funny how a little tech can pare a 27-year-old out of "30 is the new 20" young adulthood.

Plan Z

What's really going to happen when gas is priced out of the consumer market? The Omnibus!

With gas prices revving up to ride off in to the sunset of consumer intangibility, automotive engineers have unfortunately proven that economic forces are insufficient to produce the necessary product change on time. Despite the existence of hybrid and natural gas cars, as well as a handful of other alt-fuel models, and despite mileage-hoarding "hypermiler" techniques, we have failed to plan in time for this to affect us before we (or, those of us who haven't already) cross the threshold of "I can't buy gas anymore". City bus systems even in moderate-sized cities (I'm extrapolating this from my experience with (sub)urban Utah's UTA system) have been steadily growing.


You know where I'm going now, and I bet you're all so excited. We all get to ride the bus! Bus tickets will go up in price, sure, but I bet that after a short period of time, most major cities will privatize their fleets, creating competition, and bringing our little part of North America more in line with our Southern neighbors. This exciting transitional phase in American economic history will doubtless bring hearty tales of the everyman to otherwise calloused and naive suburbians, like the one I heard the other day: "All I do all day is smoke pot and watch TV with my dog." It'll be awesome.

Also, there are still bicycles.

I'm going to contribute to those alt-fuel groups, if I have anything left over after gas station tomorrow.

Plugged In

How multitasking actually reduces efficiency.



I stepped into a crosswalk yesterday only to nearly be run over by a car. The driver wasn't paying attention when the light turned green and assumed she could make a right turn without checking the crosswalk. She saw us and hit the brakes, but decided to plow along anyway. I caught a glimpse of her as she drove by and noticed she was - you guessed it - talking on a cell phone.

This isn't an uncommon story these days. Drivers talking on the phone are a dime a dozen. Rants against cell phone drivers are every bit as common. While evidence of the dangers of driving while talking on the phone is ubiquitous - a study done by the University of Utah shows that drivers on cell phones are as dangerous as drunk drivers, and 48 countries have partial or total bans on cell phone usage while driving - many cell phone users, when confronted with the issue, will tell you that they can drive "just fine" while on the phone.

This should be cause for alarm for every driver on the road. I don't know about you, but when I'm on the road, I'd prefer to be surrounded by drivers giving all of their attention to the task at hand rather than sixty or seventy percent. And lest you think that this is another crusade against cell phones, I assert that any distraction in the car is dangerous. This includes putting on makeup, flipping through CD booklets, shaving, or even changing your clothes in the car. (I wish I was making that last one up.) We have a motivation to accomplish as many things as possible in the smallest amount of time in our society, all in the name of "efficiency." When you stop and break it down, though, you find that quicker isn't always better.

Multitasking started as a corporate buzzword some time ago, but has since entered the common parlance. Younger people especially tend to fall into this trend with the advent of handheld electronics. It's not unheard of to see a high school student reading a textbook while listening to an iPod, watching TV, and texting a friend on their phone. When scolded for not doing their homework, the teen will insist, "I am doing my homework. Just because you can't do more than one thing at once doesn't mean I can't." Yet that same student will find that it takes them two hours to finish reading a ten page section of text. (You'll also go on to find that they'll complain that they never have enough time to finish their homework.) While multitasking may make a person feel as though they are getting more done, studies have shown that their efficiency drops substantially. Simply put, you might be able to get more tasks finished, but you might only do them seventy percent as well as you would have normally.

The shock is that this level of efficiency is acceptable in society. We find ourselves sacrificing quality of work in favor of convenience. This isn't limited to the corporate world. We find people insisting that they are listening to their spouse talk about their day while reading the newspaper or watching TV. We find children say they are listening to their parents while chatting with their friends online. It's the great irony of the information age that gadgets designed to increase our capability actually limit them.