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The Information Age

post #1 of 16
12/19/06 at 5:18pm
Thread Starter 
Tonight my troubles for logging into a web site lead me to this.

I want to find out my grade for one class as there is going to be a discussion between my director and the dean in charge of that class.

I've been waiting all day to get home so that I can find the piece of paper with my login information. I get home and now have been trying to log in for an hour.

My question is: Do you think we are becoming more anxious mentally since we can receive information in almost an instant?

Or is society just able to recognize anxiety because of the advancement of medicine (Psychology/Social Work/Therapy)?
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post #2 of 16
12/19/06 at 6:03pm
I do think that there is an overload of information which is stressing a lot of people out.

Also, I think we are losing the idea of solitude. Many kids these days are CONSTANTLY in touch with someone else, either on the cell phone or texting. Sometimes, it is amazing what you can learn when you are alone with your thoughts.

Edit: Forgot to mention. How many people can just let the phone ring and go to voice mail? Or do they interrupt their live conversations and then tell the person on the phone to say "I'll call you back"
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post #3 of 16
12/19/06 at 9:09pm
Too much overload... think of life prior to the industrial age ... you worked only durning the daylight made and pick food daily but life was much slower
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post #4 of 16
12/19/06 at 9:36pm
I'm old enough to know days of rotary phones and no voicemail. My cell phone battery died 2 weeks ago and due to a number of reasons, I went cell phone less for about a week. The only way I made it thru the ordeal was to keep reminding myself of the days without cell phones.

We are overloaded with instant information and it sometimes detracts from the quality of life.
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post #5 of 16
12/20/06 at 6:17am
I agree! Information overload. But now when our internet is down here at work or something I go crazy! I have to have the instant access to the news, TCS, e-mail, everything. Don't give me dial up! It makes me mad!
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post #6 of 16
12/20/06 at 6:53am
Thread Starter 
Yes I find that I'm an internet/email addict. In college I had a lot of friends that were this way too, so we would ALWAYS being emailing each other.

After leaving and losing touch with many of them, I have a hard time grasping WHY it takes people half a day or more to respond to an email. I finally learned that not everyone checks their email 10 times a day like I do.

Plus the whole "not being able to log into a server" was making me crazy last night and this morning. I was to the point that I was giving my monitor the finger.
I had a hard understanding why I couldn't connect, DESPITE being in computers. I just expect computers to work fast and when they're slow I go crazy.
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post #7 of 16
12/20/06 at 7:30am
I've always been an introvert. I prefer reading an actual book, curled up in front of the fireplace, snuggled in the corner of the couch with a blanket and my meezer right next to me... Maybe a cup of hot chocolate or, if its late and a weekend, a hot toddy.

Now that everyone has warm fuzzy feelings, , I do have an addiction to the internet. I also check my e-mail 10 times a day (if not a whole lot more). And I actually have a slight phobia about just surfing aimlessly on the net because I'd be glued to my monitor for hours! Whats even more funny is that my husband and I both have laptops (as well as a destop in my office and one in his office) and we'll sit on the couch, together, and play poker or checkers or IM each other, all online while sitting right in front of each other! He'll sometimes pull up an article and instead of just turning his laptop to face me, he'll IM me the link! He also used to own a cellphone store, so we have about four cellphones, plus a landline that we never use...

But I do try to force myself to make quiet time...
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post #8 of 16
12/20/06 at 8:18am
Definitely!!! I am amazed at how few people send letters via old-fashioned mail anymore. I have a box of letters that my aunts and I exchanged when I was a child in the '60s and '70s - I save them for future generations to read. But I forget to print and save emails
And, this is a vent - it's amazing how many requests that I get from clients asking me to scan and email court documents, letters, etc. that I normally copy and forward. Actually, it might make more sense - it would save my paper and the cost of a postage stamp . BUT they want it done immediately, regardless of my work load, and I have found out the hard way that clients can get spoiled easier than cats with Thanksgiving turkey If I do a "rush job" for a true emergency, it gets expected that I should do a "rush job" for ALL the events in the case, no matter how mundane
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post #9 of 16
12/20/06 at 9:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by catsknowme View Post
Definitely!!! I am amazed at how few people send letters via old-fashioned mail anymore. I have a box of letters that my aunts and I exchanged when I was a child in the '60s and '70s - I save them for future generations to read. But I forget to print and save emails
And, this is a vent - it's amazing how many requests that I get from clients asking me to scan and email court documents, letters, etc. that I normally copy and forward. Actually, it might make more sense - it would save my paper and the cost of a postage stamp . BUT they want it done immediately, regardless of my work load, and I have found out the hard way that clients can get spoiled easier than cats with Thanksgiving turkey If I do a "rush job" for a true emergency, it gets expected that I should do a "rush job" for ALL the events in the case, no matter how mundane
I wonder how historians will view our period. So much of our knowledge about previous generations was gleaned from letters and diaries on paper.
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post #10 of 16
12/20/06 at 11:34am
Quote:
Originally Posted by katachtig View Post
I wonder how historians will view our period. So much of our knowledge about previous generations was gleaned from letters and diaries on paper.
I think, if they find any documents at all, they'll conclude that we were functionally illiterate: "LOL do u luv cats? i think cats r da bomb. btw, my dbf is totally hawt. ;-) can u c ppl readin this 100 yrs from now?!? rotflmao" Being an active online gamer, I'm often appalled at the language abuse I see, and I don't even mean the swearing (because in City of Heroes/City of Villains, there's an option to censor language, so I never see actual swear words unless people get really creative with the spelling). Because it isn't quick and easy to capitalize, or punctuate, or fully spell words (or follow the basic conventions of grammar), I think the constant use of IM, in-game chat and text-messaging is causing our language to devolve, rather than evolve, with time. In a way, it seems like we're developing our own pigdin (pidgin?) language, a sort of "trade speak" that crosses cultural and national boundaries, and that's kind of neat; at the same time, though, did we really need "words" like "d'oh," "TomKat" and "truthiness" to enter into common usage?
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post #11 of 16
12/20/06 at 11:55am
Thread Starter 
Unless we get to the point where everything is spelled out like a MENSA test is:

W T TCS!
(Welcome to The Cat Site)

Cause right now EVERYTHING seems to have an acronym!
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post #12 of 16
12/20/06 at 12:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lunasmom View Post
Unless we get to the point where everything is spelled out like a MENSA test is:

W T TCS!
(Welcome to The Cat Site)

Cause right now EVERYTHING seems to have an acronym!
Acronym Abuse (AA) is HUGE in the engineering community! I worked as a consultant for the Illinois Tollway's (ISTHA) engineering department and I made a very popular Acronym Dictionary for use there. The best was the acronym for the Congestion Relief Plan... (*hint - its missing a bowel... I mean 'Vowel')
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post #13 of 16
12/20/06 at 12:14pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by tiffanyjbt View Post
Acronym Abuse (AA) is HUGE in the engineering community! I worked as a consultant for the Illinois Tollway's (ISTHA) engineering department and I made a very popular Acronym Dictionary for use there. The best was the acronym for the Congestion Relief Plan... (*hint - its missing a bowel... I mean 'Vowel')
Corporate people over do it to. It is bad when you have people from two different groups using acronyms that don't mean the same thing.
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post #14 of 16
12/20/06 at 12:43pm
A couple of weeks ago I read a newspaper article that said abbreviations/acronyms commonly used in text messages were to be accepted in schoolwork/tests in New Zealand. While I don't have problems with students using ASAP, B/L, L/C, which have been used for decades, I really can't see myself allowing L8 or cu in a dictation/translation/business letter.
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post #15 of 16
12/20/06 at 6:12pm
Thread Starter 
Hmmm..maybe we need an acronym IMO thread I do agree though, being in the computer industry I touch on so many different branches that sometimes acronyms/initialisms cross over...it's nuts
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post #16 of 16
12/20/06 at 6:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by katachtig View Post
How many people can just let the phone ring and go to voice mail? Or do they interrupt their live conversations and then tell the person on the phone to say "I'll call you back"
Me! I rarely actually answer the phone. I do call people back usually the same day, but I like to be able to concentrate on the conversation and have time to actually talk to the person, so I probably only answer my phone 25% of the time it rings. I don't look to see who it is or anything, I usually check it the next time I walk by it. My parents trained me well. We had family dinners (and lunch and breakfast for years) and were absolutely not allowed to answer the phone, just had to listen to it ring. It is silly to watch people trip over themselves trying to get to their phone. I spend all day at work answering the phone, I don't feel like it when I'm home.

I am just old-fashioned I guess... I don't have a panic attack when the power goes out, I can leave the house without my cell, I actually listen to records and don't really understand what an MP3 is, heck, my friends even make fun of me for using punctuation, capitalization, and whole words in my text messages. Things that are done on-line or through e-mail just seem totally unreal, like they don't count. They don't really exist, do they? All that's really there is strings of numbers.
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