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Comment by bane | Hacker News Reader

Anecdata: I recently read a thread in /r/NYC about using the subway. A comment there really rang true that many people would rather use google to figure out which direction a station's trains are heading than simply ask the people coming out of the station. If you assume people who would be savvy enough to do this would skew younger than yes, I can see it as true.

Second anecdata: I manage a fairly large team of millenials, and to the person they generally describe themselves as highly introverted, to the point that it seems radical that when I'm in meetings with customers simple things like asking customers questions for clarification seem crazy to them.

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It’s really a shame how insular people have become. Just today I had very pleasant conversation with a couple from Toronto after I helped them figure out which station the train was stopping at.

I noticed their Blue Jays jersey and asked if they had a game and we chatted about baseball, the sights in New York they’d visited, and Toronto.

I really enjoy my little conversations with strangers and find it hard to imagine a world where immediately upon stepping outside I’ve got headphones in and am totally insulated from the world around me.

No judgement, I get it, not everyone is gregarious, or in the mood for a chat with a stranger at every given moment.

But it sure is a more pleasant and fulfilling world for me when I’m interacting with other people even if it’s just for a few small moments here and there.

Hell, I spent a train ride talking to a man from Newark about all the clothes he stole from JC Penny’s that day. I don’t condone that behavior and I wouldn’t have struck up the conversation with him. But when he talked to me I listened and learned he got some of those clothes for his nephew. Even people you might judge as bad are trying to bring joy to others a lot of time and it’s certainly interesting to hear people’s perspectives. He showed me his food stamp card and told me how he was excited to help his friends have groceries, of course he was really hoping they’d make him a meal with them too!

My wife is the opposite of me in that she's never met a stranger. I like it, because I get to occasionally have these unique experiences that I'd never find myself in on my own.

So we're waiting to catch a train back to Prague and she ends up chatting with this other American who was there with her daughter. They continued talking the whole way back on the train and we ended up having dinner and romping around together for the rest of the night.

As somebody who's definitely an introvert, I feel like this is a skill worth picking up. Small talk was agony for years, but eventually with enough practice I got the knack. It has made my world a lot bigger.

> A comment there really rang true that many people would rather use google to figure out which direction a station's trains are heading than simply ask the people coming out of the station.

Well yeah why would you bother someone else with a question you could easily answer yourself?

Sometimes you get an answer even faster when you ask for help

At the expense of the other person's concentration and time, which is selfish.

Almost everything you do is 'at the expense of the other person's concentration and time'.

This comment, for example.

Humans are a social species. These "interruptions" are close to the only thing we exist to do.

Unlike interrupting somebody on the street, your comment is only taking concentration and time from people who voluntarily choose to read the comments.

If your concentration is that important you can almost always ignore the person asking for your help.

Then my guilt for being rude would disrupt my concentration terribly.

I'm always happy to give directions to someone. It barely takes any time, and it makes me feel useful.

So am I! But I try to be considerate of others by looking things up myself rather than asking questions that could be easily Googled.

Thank you. That's exactly why I avoid bothering people. Sure I might take 5mn to find out on my own, but I don't think it's worth saving 2mn if I'm taking up 3mn of somebody else's time, the total time wasted increases and now I'm involving innocents.

I live in a very congested European capital and I actually do like to give advice to people from outside the city on which tram or bus they should take and from where exactly. Often times I give my advice even if not directly asked, i.e. when I overhear someone in my vicinity asking for directions. We are social creatures and thinking otherwise is the real selfish thing to do.

Sometimes you get stuck in long conversations; sometimes the other person doesn't even know the answer; sometimes the other person can't even understand the question.

Don't forget when someone very confidently gives you the answer that is completely wrong.

This is usually how I view things as a millennial. With the infinite amount of information that's available at ones fingertips it seems almost ignorant sometimes to not seek out information on your own terms instead of asking someone.

However I will say I have had to develop the skill of knowing when to stop searching my own and just ask someone

But go to a neighborhood bar in New York City or a tech Meetup or an arts event or anything else and you'll find plenty of millennials mingling with strangers.

In the subway, people are rushing to leave and get where they're going, lots of people have headphones on and those who don't are wary of scammers and muggers. There have been jokes about strangers not talking in the subway system for decades.

many people would rather use google to figure out which direction a station's trains are heading than simply ask the people coming out of the station

I don't think this is a Millennial quirk, I'm at the tail end of the Baby Boomer generation, and I do the same, I just got back from a trip to Europe and used my phone the whole time to navigate the London underground and Paris Metro.

My perception of that story was that people that are actively in need of additional assistance are taking a possibly less direct route to that information (unlocking phone, opening google, inputting query, waiting for results) simply to avoid interacting with a stranger.

A stranger is much more likely to give you incorrect information or simply not know the answer to your question. Why bother, in the most literal sense of the word?

Why do you think it's to avoid interacting with a stranger? I have fast, accurate information at my fingertips (and it literally only takes a few seconds to take out my phone, unlock with my finger, squeeze to activate Google Assistant and say "directions to Westminster Abbey").

My phone will tell me which train to take (and which destination sign to look for), how many stops to travel, the names of the stops, as well as how long until the next train.

The OP question isn't about explaining complicated directions, just literally which way the train is heading, by the people who just hopped off that same train. "Hey does this side head towards x?" "Yep." Faster than Siri.

> many people would rather use google to figure out which direction a station's trains are heading than simply ask the people coming out of the station

That's still not ok. When you get directions it tells you the end of the line it's going towards. If you aren't sure, you have to ask someone.

I'm also in this camp. While I'm waiting for the train, I'll spend the time staring at subway maps and timetables. After a few days, I can start giving directions to other tourists even though I'm not a local either.

One of my favorite things about riding the New York subway was asking people for help (this was in 2011). I was completely unable to navigate using the maps in the stations so I had to ask for help. Riding the subway that way turned out to be remarkably easy.

To be fair, talking with customers seemed terrifying to me when I was a new developer. But eventually I realized that the job was only done really when they were happy, so the best thing to do was to learn to talk with them.

> anecdata

I am curious as to about when this word started to be used in favor against "anecdotal data".

On a related but side note: must every phrase be shortened?

> must every phrase be shortened?

YMMV, but IMHO yes.

I find it unfortunate the apparently real prospect of having "a full and complete in-person conversation using only acronyms" a la that scene from MASH [irony realized] has moved from aware comedy to ridiculous in-person reality.

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