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Comment by whywhywhywhy | Hacker News Reader

>rise of smartphones was also the rise of “phubbing”, i.e. when people go on their phones instead of paying attention to the people around them

Got a few tips for this, first obviously if you’re meeting with people never do it yourself, one person doing it always causes chain reactions.

If you’re meeting with one person and they start doing it never use it as an excuse to check your own phone just sit there in silence waiting for them if they’re distracted by it. This works surprisingly well and it’s funny how often people apologize, when if you check your own phone it’s always considered fine you don’t get the apology.

If you’re in a group and talking about something factual like when a movie came out or a directors name and someone reaches for their phone to google because of the compulsion and just desire to stare into their phone is getting too much, just say “it’s not important” and move on or actually I’m going to start just lying I mean it doesn’t really matter we gain nothing from having the exact answer and actually sometimes the conversation is better and the answer comes to you if you don’t check. This one bugs me a lot because like all you get is someone messing around on their phone and then announcing “it was blah blah” then everyone going “oh ok” like the act of checking the phone added nothing to the conversation, we can talk around ideas without knowing exactly who or when what happened. It just made that person addicted to their phone get their fix.

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> If you’re in a group and talking about something factual like when a movie came out or a directors name

Funny, in most my friends groups someone checks their phone and I'm glad they do. Why would we be talking about this if we didn't care about the truth of it?

> we can talk around ideas without knowing exactly who or when what happened

Sure. Then perhaps talk about the ideas and don't mention who/when or just say you're not sure, and then of course people shouldn't check :)

> Funny, in most my friends groups someone checks their phone and I'm glad they do

I hate it, it just completely disrupts the conversation, as OP said.

> Why would we be talking about this if we didn't care about the truth of it?

Because often it doesn't matter. The truth of who plays in a movie really doesn't matter as much as people think it does, even when discussing the movie itself. And if it's not important enough to remember, I say it definitely doesn't matter as much as whatever else was going on in the conversation surrounding it.

> Because often it doesn't matter.

I guess the parent commenter and I don't understand why the specific fact is even mentioned if it doesn't matter. In other words, in what situation would you mention "X acted in that movie" but that detail doesn't matter to the broader point that you're trying to make. If it's important to get right then you should verify and if it's not important then don't specify the detail and instead only say the necessary details which add to your point and that you're confident about.

Good advice for a presentation or debate, but I think this is a terrible approach to casual conversation.

Sometimes to tell a story you add a bunch of extra details, that are not critically relevant to whatever you are trying to say. Maybe you're saying you love Michael Bay movies, and then you list off a bunch of movies. And the other participant in the conversation might be like: actually I don't think Michael Bay did The Notebook. You might engage in the dispute, or move past it. Or if it's a very casual conversation, turn it into a rhetoric exchange where you try to convince it must indeed have been Michael Bay. Point being, just be aware of why you're having the conversation. If for you it is an exchange of facts, fine, do the dive (sometimes, I do this). But often, it doesn't seem to matter for the larger story you are trying to tell - I love boom boom Michael Bay movies, share your favourite boom boom movies.

Last thing is, sometimes people come across as totalizing in text but they're really just saying something broadly. This is good conversational style, kinda like this thread, where you go through a collaborative exposition. Vs someone who nails all the details from the get go, and also manages to capture the relative weightings of each scenario in a way that read lightly.

Okay, maybe I am rambling a bit now...what was Michael Bay's last movie again?

> what was Michael Bay's last movie again?

The Forever Purge

I googled it, but made sure I wasn't phubbing anyone in the process

And yet, this information enriched nobody. Almost certainly, we’ll all forget within 15 minutes of leaving this conversation. And what if everyone walked away thinking it was actually Transformers 12? Well, that’s okay. It doesn’t matter at all. Everyone’s gonna forget in 15 minutes, and for people who care a lot, they probably already know and can tell others.

I completely agree.

I think we tend to like to analyze because it gives us a sense of control. That sounds a little crazy, but the more I break it down (and read the work of intelligent people who had/have similar beliefs), the more I believe it.

A common example is how people examine their feelings and experiences as a means to distance themselves from it and to gain a sense of superiority or power over it. The more we analyze and break it down, the better we think we understand it and have a higher vantage.

In reality all we're doing is constantly separating ourselves further and further from immediate experience at the expense of "knowing" things. Ironically, the more we "know" the less we can actually know because we're so detached from the experiences we're analyzing.

Apologies if that seems totally out there and not founded in anything logical. It's one of those things that makes sense to me, but I haven't yet found practical or concise ways to express the problem.

I definitely do find people, phones, and needing to know everything seems to be in lock-step with this phenomenon. Another good example is the need to put down things (i.e. celebrities, video games, movies, music; typically things we consume as part of cultural expression) which don't actually have much meaning, but might destabilize our identities in some inconsequential way. People do this a tremendous amount, and it means absolutely nothing. Sort of like, oh man that Kim Kardashian, what a loser. I saw her do X and Y on Z tv show and [insert why that's lame you're better]. It's this bizarre need we have to elevate ourselves over experience rather than simply let things be what they are.

I don't know if you'll see this, but I just stumbled upon Bruno Latour's On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods, and from the Google description it sounds like it has a lot in common with what you're talking about (granted, I've only read the description and not the book itself). Maybe worth looking into!

That said, I completely agree with everything you, and the person ahead of you, have said. It completely ruins the conversation, and detaches us from the actual experiences, which I think is an inherently negative thing (if such wasn't clear from my other comments lol)

I’ve been wanting to read Bruno Latour! Thanks for making that connection, that gives me extra motivation to get around to it.

I feel like it’s a topic I don’t understand well, but seems extremely important to get a grip on and see clearly how it relates to my life and how I live it.

Absolutely. I'd actually love to hear what you think about it when you do get around to it. It's something I've been coming to terms with in general too, especially as it relates to facts and this overarching desire to know everything at all times immediately that has grown out of our modern technology ans being constantly connected. Even when it comes at a loss to the actual human connection taking place.

I've got an essay idea in mind relating this to humanity's desire to get rid of the Night, but still have a lot more reading to do on the various topics. Anyway, that's enough of my rambling. Feel free to send me an email if you want to discuss it more! It's in my profile.

Because conversation doesn't (and shouldn't) work like that. There's plenty of asides, or casual mentions of things that are only slightly relevant or add to the point without being all that important.

Say we're talking about genetic engineering and I say something like 'This reminds me of that one movie where the one like normal guy, I think it was Tom Cruise, is trying to go into space'. It doesn't matter that I'm talking about Gattaca, or that it was Ethan Hawke and not Tom Cruise (a name just pulled out of the hat) and maybe even messing up plot details, and stopping to look it up just completely ruins the flow and break conversation.

I had this happen in person last week when someone mentioned Irish had a word for a three month period, but nobody could remember it. Several people went to their phone dictionaries immediately and it just stopped the conversation (and none were able to find it, either).

So there's lots of times we bring stuff up just as an aside or to add a little more flavour without it being important in conversation. I'd say that's hoe conversation should work not just 'Here's my point and all the facts that back it up.' There's no flow there, it becomes more like a debate or presentation, not a conversation. And if people are curious or it really was important, you can always look it up and send it later, but you'll often find nobody is that curious and it isn't that important.

> Because conversation doesn't (and shouldn't) work like that.

It often does.

Not everyone is like you.

Not everyone wants the same things from a conversation as you.

I agree that a lot of times, the veracity of these details don't matter. I know I'm going to get a lot of hate for this, but: In my experience, there is a strong correlation between those who do not like being fact checked in these social situations, and those who make factually incorrect statements when it clearly matters (e.g. accusing someone of poor behavior, business transactions, etc).

We may be in the minority, but some of us do care to know whether you can be trusted. It's one thing to be up front and speak tentatively, and be open that you've gotten details wrong. It's another to give a fantastic narrative that happens to be full of incorrect details, and then complain when someone points it out.

Many shades of grey here.

If someone is telling you a fantastic story about their background in hopes to con you, obviously fact checking is useful.

If someone is simply weaving an interesting narrative, fact checking is at best a distraction, and often just a way for someone to “well actually” themselves into the spotlight.

Whether that’s justified is a question that has no absolute answers, but for most people the conversation is the fun part. (Not me, but I’m an anti-social loner and I have no interest in making other people more unhappy than is necessary.)

Exactly. And I'd argue that the vast majority of conversations are of the second type, not the first type. And if all you want/have are the first type, I think you need to experience more of the second type.

But using the "true details" (who cares if it's Ethan Hawk or Tom Cruise or whoever in Gattaca when you're discussing the relevance of the genetic engineering aspects of it) as a measure of how trustworthy someone is? That's just ridiculous to me, especially because for most conversations it doesn't matter.

> But using the "true details" (who cares if it's Ethan Hawk or Tom Cruise or whoever in Gattaca when you're discussing the relevance of the genetic engineering aspects of it) as a measure of how trustworthy someone is? That's just ridiculous to me,

It is ridiculous, and not something I was advocating.

The signal is not in whether their story is riddled with inaccuracies, but whether they get upset when questioned about it, and whether they are willing to simply say "Yeah I probably got some of the details wrong."

Of course, if someone questions every detail of the story, it kills the story. The storyteller merely needs to say "Yeah, some of the details are probably off" .

Yeah, I misread. But it is often rude and disrupting the conversation, though it can be done tactfully "Oh, I believe it was Ethan Hawke actually". It can also open up room for more conversation "No, I'm pretty sure it was Tom Cruise", where the debate of it becomes the conversation. Which is fine, and still doesn't say anything to me about the trustworthiness of the person who was telling the story. Nor does it necessarily imply they need to be fact checked on Google right now; again, it's tangential to the overarching part of the conversation. I still think using that single measure as a measure of trustworthiness is ridiculous. Especially in a conversation that's not deep.

> The storyteller merely needs to say "Yeah, some of the details are probably off" .

I feel this is an unwritten rule of conversation in general. It certainly is amongst my friend groups, even recounting stories where we were all present. It obviously wouldn't work for debates, or if you were discussing things like political policy, but most conversations don't fall into those types of things. Just sitting around shooting the shit.

> I feel this is an unwritten rule of conversation in general.

There is a bit of cognitive dissonance that I observe.

It indeed is an unwritten rule. Most people agree with this rule.

Yet wait a while after the conversation, and people who listened treat the story as a lot more factual than what that rule implies, and more than they themselves believed it in the moment. The only antidote I have seen to prevent this transformation is to always be skeptical (without being judgmental):

"It was a fun conversation, and the guy/story is probably full of shit."

It depends. In this example, if the listener says "I don't think it was Tom Cruise in that movie" and the speaker says "Whatevs, that doesn't matter", then sure, it didn't matter.

If the speaker said "No, it WAS Tom Cruise", then obviously it does matter. You can't know whether it matters or not until you express doubt.

Indeed, many shades of grey.

The problematic behavior I speak of is not of someone trying to con me, but of someone who simply is not reliable with details when it does matter. I'm not implying any malicious intent.

I love a fantastic narrative, and am quite OK with it being riddled with inaccuracies. I just treat the whole story as fiction, and that should be fine. What worries me is that I have observed most of the other listeners do not treat it as fiction. Almost every week I get a story retold to me as if it is fact. Do people not understand the "telephone" game? Almost every week someone comes to me and says "John told me last week that ..." and treat it as factual.

So, in your example of the Irish word, that's exactly how misinformation gets spread so easily. I doubt anyone is in danger from thinking a certain Irish word exists which doesn't actually exists. But the exact same scenario can be used when people drop a "Did you know <group I don't like> is doing <bad thing>? They're so awful." And then that gets carried to the next conversation each person has.

I think we do benefit a little bit from curiosity to know the truth behind the bullshit people say to us.

And there's a compromise, too. It's actually possible to finish a train of thought or conversation and then look up the facts, keeping everybody on the same page. It's even more fun that way.

> It's actually possible to finish a train of thought or conversation and then look up the facts, keeping everybody on the same page. It's even more fun that way.

I'd be careful about "keeping everybody on the same page". If you know they'd appreciate it, then sure. But a significant portion of the population do not like being fact checked. They assume malicious intent (not realizing you factcheck everyone and not just them).

Below is an email I once got. The context: A bunch of us were having a social conversation after an event. A professor made a claim about how hot it would get in his country. It struck me and another one as off because the number was a bit higher than the world record. We hinted at it but he insisted we were wrong.

Some hours later, at home, my friend fact checked and sent a polite email pointing out that the highest ever recorded temperature in his country was a few degrees lower than his claim. His response:

"If I were you i would not have spent a minute doing that unless you want to prove a point: I was a liar. ... At last, that's why I do not hang around with you guys."

People will jump to conclusions about your motives.

Sending an email several hours later to fact check someone is not even in the same ballpark as pulling out your phone at the end of a discussion and looking up the fact together. Honestly, I think most people would consider that malicious or at best kind of arrogant.

Take a poll to see what people think. IME, the majority do not want to check it during the conversation - they usual flow is they'll move on to other topics.

I'm not sure why the email thing is malicious or arrogant. It's the equivalent of saying it in person the next time you all meet: "Hey, remember we were talking about X last time? I looked into it and ..."

But your reaction emphasizes the point: People will jump to conclusions about your motives.

Yes! Most conversation is not about fact-finding, but about the conversation itself.

Comparing a situation where facts serve as a conduit for further discussion, and people weighing in to try to establish something, versus a situation where someone looks at their phone, finds the answer, and effectively ends this conversation topic, I vastly prefer the former.

It's similar to experiencing a movie and being surprised by the twist, versus reading what the twist is. The journey is more important than the result.

> Because often it doesn't matter.

Well, it matters to me that I be corrected sooner rather than later.

We're sitting in a conversation and someone says "well, that actor also played $CHARACTER in $OTHERFRANCHISE", and I think that it was actually $OTHERACTOR, I'd rather know for certain whether I have misconceptions or not.

Obviously, if we're actually talking about it, it does matter to the participants.

To you actors may not matter, but I guarantee you're not sitting around idly having conversations where the topic doesn't matter to you.

Just because we all realize that we can't remember the name of the director of the movie we were talking about doesn't mean somebody has to stop and look it up. But somebody will, and they'll miss out on the first minute+ of the conversation, possibly strangling it in its crib.

> Why would we be talking about this if we didn't care about the truth of it?

Mentioning something in passing doesn't make it either the subject or the point of a discussion.

  > Funny, in most my friends groups someone checks their phone and I'm glad they do. Why would we be talking about this if we didn't care about the truth of it?

Interestingly enough, I miss the days where people would go back and forth trying to make their case on why their memory on something is right.

This was especially great for ultimately meaningless things like who hit the most homeruns in the 1980's. I could Google it, or me and a few friends could brainstorm it in conversation and agree on a set of facts, hammer out disagreements on some other details based on what we remember from our baseball card collections and going to games as a kid, which then leads to more conversation about other things and on and on. Ultimately the answer wasn't important but the connection you make talking as humans is what matters.

I prefer talking about things that are important to me. It does not matter to me who hit the most homeruns in the 1980s and I can't well imagine making a connection talking about it.

OK so in your case replace baseball with pokemon or anime or whatever your thing is.

If my thing is pokemon or anime, then I want to know the right answer, and it is not a meaningless thing anymore!

The "ultimately the answer wasn't important" part of your comment mystifies me. If the answer is not important, why even talk about it?

If you re-read my original comment and still don't understand the importance of leisurely bullshitting with friends, then I probably can't help explain it better.

There’s probably a point where too much analysis makes the conversation worse off, right?

> Why would we be talking about this if we didn't care about the truth of it?

Because it is fun! Don't you miss having friendly back-and-forths on whether it was Mark Wahlberg vs. Matt Damon who starred in some movie from years ago? Mobile phones can ruin that, if you let them- so the trick is to have the discussion to exhaustion, place bets, and then look up IMDb on your phone.

> Don't you miss having friendly back-and-forths on whether it was Mark Wahlberg vs. Matt Damon who starred in some movie from years ago?

I most definitely don't and never have. And I even know who Matt Damon is!

Opening your phone with a purpose, like looking something up, is drastically different from mindlessly scrolling. We shouldn’t conflate the two.

> If you’re in a group and talking about something factual

A good rule of thumb for this that a few of my circles use: you can check, but only after 10 minutes have passed. Of course, 95% of the time by then no-one cares, as you say. Occasionally it's still relevant after 10 minutes, and so checking makes sense.

> just say “it’s not important” and move on or actually I’m going to start just lying I mean it doesn’t really matter we gain nothing from having the exact answer

This reminds me of some relatives who like to bring up political topics, they bring it up so I participate. By the time I'm ready to Google search something factual (most recently it was how much the US spends on defense), they're shutting down. Their political interest is one of their main interests in life but doesn't extend to actual facts. You probably know the type. I find it frustrating.

Well, for most people politics is about tribal affiliation, not about facts.

See https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/9weLK2AJ9JEt2Tt8f/politics-i...

Google is just as capable of providing misinformation as it is of providing facts. Maybe some people shut down when confronted with political opinion being stated as fact. Even something as seemingly objective as the percentage of the federal government's budget spending on the military becomes tribal when one side wants the percentage to be based on the budget that includes entitlements and other side insists that's not allowed because those are non-discretionary funds.

And if that was a point someone wanted to make, then they're free to be specific about what they think should be included - which is also widely and publicly available information because the US budget is in fact not secret in it's volume of spending by category, it's annually published information by law.

That's about knowing the conversation you're having. When I'm talking with my gooner friends there is a tenor to the conversation. In addition to the fun of the games, we're tribal bonding.

Often you'll find new fans on /r/soccer who don't know what conversation they're having.

"I'm an Arsenal fan, too, but I don't think Henry was better than Ronaldo."

You moron. What are you doing. False chenzeme. We're bannering our colours here you idiot. Out with you.

Anyway, it's not about whether the police have been defunded or not or whether The Handmaid's Tale has come to America or not. It's about waving the appropriate flag and feeling the tribe strength wash over you and the energy of pure unity lift you skyward.

lol I'm English and have lived amongst football fans my whole life. Yet I have always felt that even if I spent a year studying football, learning the history, the techniques of the players, I would never be able to hold a convincing conversation with a football fan and be accepted.

It's almost as if the football is merely a vehicle for a kind of unspoken, shared mindset that is never articulated, but always keenly enforced. My whole life I've never felt like I had a way in with the football fans I know.

Thanks for helping me understand the mindset better.

> It's about waving the appropriate flag and feeling the tribe strength wash over you and the energy of pure unity lift you skyward.

Like opiates. And, also like opiates, once you get hooked, it's very difficult to get off even when you realize that it's not actually good for you.

It's tricky. I agree thay phones are phenomenal distraction, but, they can be used for good or evil.

Until fairly recently, I got extremely dirty looks or even a talk from my boss, for bringing a laptop into a meeting. It was of course fine to bring your notepad and pen, but I type about 10 times faster than I write, and I can actually read it later. It ends up just being Luddite discrimination.

A few times I tried taking notes on a phone. It's always with me, the notes are electronically connected, but prejudice of me "not paying attention" was too strong to overcome (even though I'd send structured and summarized notes to everyone).

So in turn I've developed this weird distaste of notebooks and their (over-)privileged status in our society :-D

90% of the time people will use their laptops to look at instant messaging, forums, emails, or event try to get some work done. So your boss is not wrong.

You might wanna get an iPad as it is, at least for the moment, socially acceptable in meetings, even with the keyboard cover :)

You're not wrong that it's more socially acceptable.

It's insane though. IPad is fundamentally a media consumption device. I'm a touchless, fast, organized typer on my laptop (I used to be primary screensharer when I was ops manager). All that socially acceptable iPad would do is handicap me severely :-/

If you can type touchless, try putting the laptop off to the side, and typing your notes without looking at the screen. The presenter might feel much less ignored if he still has your eye contact.

If they can type touchless their laptop doesn’t even need to be within arms length.

Bluetooth keyboard and leave your laptop on your desk.

Yup; it's what I do now that I'm remote - I look directly into the camera while I type :). Alternatively, I screenshare so everybody sees / benefits from the notes.

> even try to get some work done.

The horror of trying to do something productive at work…

My guess is most of the gains in productivity during COVID are people not paying attention in pointless meetings and doing real work instead of placating socialites’ ego-driven meglomania.

> 90% of the time people will use their laptops to look at instant messaging, forums, emails, or even try to get some work done. So your boss is not wrong.

> even try to get some work done

I assume it's not what you meant, but it's interesting nonetheless: if being in this meeting does not mean getting work done, maybe the real problem mandatory attendance?

I think a well-known problem with meetings is that most of the time, no meaningful work can be done during them.

It has me wishing the TRS-80 Model 100/Dynabook form factor had caught on more.

Honestly, yes, I can understand this. A laptop screen pointed towards you feels like a private space, since other people can't easily see it. And indeed, I've definitely gotten work done in meetings for this reason. A device with a screen easily visible to everyone at the table I don't think would have this temptation.

I sometimes use a Model 100 when I need to take notes without distractions, actually.

A Clockworkpi DevTerm [1] is a modern equivalent of TRS-80 Model 100 and could work for this. Should try bringing mine next time I have to go to an onsite.

Could also use a proper one with a serial/wifi modem and telnet into a remote system to take notes [2].

1. https://www.clockworkpi.com/product-page/devterm-kit-r01

2. https://www.buildon.aws/posts/i-deployed-kubernetes-with-a-1...

I wish Clockwork Pi would release the DevTerm with a full-size keyboard. Same internals, same everything (even the screen could stay the same size). Without a full-size keyboard it's not really a solid replacement for the Model 100 for writing/notetaking.

Holy shit I’ve been dreaming of something like this. Might order one. Thanks!!

Consider getting a blue-tooth keyboard attached to your phone face-up on the desk and typing away. No-one will argue that you're doing anything but taking notes because you can see it.

This, it helps a lot to visibly communicate what you're doing.

Still relies on writing, but have you considered ReMarkable or something along those lines? At least you'd still have sync. And not to judge, but I wonder about your concern for writing / typing speed: are you really just taking notes, or transcribing? If the former, I would imagine writing quick glyphs might suffice.

FWIW I don't use a ReMarkable or tablet. I'll use a text editor on my laptop, or a paper notebook, and it also troubles me I don't have effortless translation of the latter over to the former. But I have observed there is much less knee jerk to the ReMarkable form factor in meeting rooms, at least in my org.

Yes, I use a Supernote (competitor to ReMarkable) and it's socially way better than using a laptop.

The laptop has a screen turned to its user, meaning other people don't see their screen and it visually creates a "wall" between the user and the rest of the group.

A tablet doesn't have this problem, it lays on the table.

>>are you really just taking notes, or transcribing

Good point - both :). Sometimes it depends on meeting, sometimes I take turns - i.e. I'll "transcribe" (mindlessly type as I listen/pay attention), and then in a lull or after we covered an "atomic unit" of idea/thought/topic, I'll revise and summarize (convert it into "notes").

My mind works extremely hierarchically, which is why laptop is my preference over any digital paper, with its ability to rearrange - bullet points are my note-taking weapon of choice, and indentations are my friend.

Many people say that they don't need to take a look at their written notes, they get benefit just from writing it down, and it works similarly for me I think - if I end a meeting with a structurally-indented bullet-list, it helped me structure topics/ideas/priorities/actions in my mind, and I'm good to go :)

(many meetings I do both simultaneously - I'll be transcribing mindlessly on private monitor, and screensharing a second monitor where I periodically organize key points and actions for everybody. Like driving manual gearshift, it's a skill that seems distracting initially but develops and becomes automated/reflexive with practice. Usually the transcribing part can be thrown out at the end - it's just there to support the organizing/summarizing/"hierarchizing" action:)

Maybe you can turn this into something positive by taking notes for everyone in the room.

In a lot of offices you can stream to a tv (via apple-tv or what-not).

By people seeing what you as typing and correcting any discrepancies, everyone will benefit. Win-win.. maybe?

I'm fascinated by the concept of "phubbing" as a new and negative phenomenon. People would previously read/scan the newspaper in most situations that people scroll on their phone today: at the table, on public transit, and in casual group settings. But, importantly, it was considered a highly interruptible task.

If you were in a group setting but nobody was talking, somebody would probably start to look for interesting things in the paper to prompt discussion (as one might today on a phone). Rarely did anybody take that to mean they shouldn't talk to the person. If something more interesting or urgent came up, or even if somebody just felt like talking about a new topic, they'd just... bring it up. They'd have no qualms about interrupting the newspaper-holder, who also took no offense to being interrupted.

> Rarely did anybody take that to mean they shouldn't talk to the person.

I've always taken that sort of thing as a social cue that the person doesn't want social interaction.

Interesting. People on BART ten years ago would read over my shoulder or borrow a section. Or talk to me about the book I'm reading. I like holding books up at eye level rather than looking down at them in my lap just for neck strain. That makes the cover more visible for sure, but I don't think it's a significant factor in the interrupting. Just in the noticing.

I never minded.

How strange. I wonder if this is a SF thing? Or a recent development (10 years ago counts as "recent" to me)?

In my part of the country, anyway, that sort of behavior has always been considered extremely rude (or at least over my entire lifetime). I wouldn't even consider doing it, and the few times it happened to me, it was exceedingly irritating.

Fascinating. I've only been in the Bay Area for 10 years or so, but I recall this would very rarely happen to me on East Midlands trains before that. Certainly never on the Tube. But I've also changed in that time and it is possible some aspect of my demeanour invites this. All for the best, I suppose, that people treat us both as we wish to be treated.

I can't recall anyone ever bringing a newspaper to a dinner table. I know what you're talking about but that was when you were informally hanging out and popping in and out of the room. The TV served the same purpose at times.

From my experience, I used to always have a stack of newspapers on the dining table as a kid (in the 90's). We'd clear it off for dinner, but for breakfast or lunch I would read the comics section as I ate.

A similar issue: finding a photo relevant to the discussion.

Photo searching has come a long way but it's often not fast enough to keep up a discussion. It really blunts the flow.

I just say "I'll send it later", and often I forget because it was unimportant.

> just say “it’s not important” and move on

Admittedly I'm a bit older, but with my friends I explicitly say lets argue it out. That's part of the fun of debating when something came out or who was in what movie. But, I didn't have a cell phone growing up so wondering about something and trying to reason it out was normal.

I'm so sorry but this one is nails on a chalkboard for me.

My family collected reference books but they would still do this. I would spend entire holidays sitting there and listening to them debate whether Mack the Knife was still #1 on the charts on January 1st, 1960. I never heard anyone listen to Bobby Darin ever, but his career was discussed ad nauseam.

Just look it up or move on! It's the conversation equivalent of a rain delay.

Oof, this makes me sad. Sure it's always good to have the facts at hand if actually necessary, but open discussion is great and sorely missing from a lot of modern interactions.

It's not open discussion though. All avenues are closed except ones that can lead to figuring out a piece of trivia about someone who isn't there!

I guess it works if everyone is equally into a subject but that's pretty rare and by this point I've been put out by it so many times even if I am interested, I'm not interested.

The unknown isn't something to be scared of. It's alright if something isn't settled in stone, you don't need to resolve every little question. You don't even need to resolve the big ones!

> you don't need to resolve every little question.

Then why do you want to argue about it?

I just don't want conversations to grind to a halt to figure out a piece of trivia, moving on is fine as is looking it up.

Eh, the fact a phone can resolve the question of whether Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs was released first doesn't stop us discussing which is the better film.

I'm sorry but this is fantastically funny. I really enjoyed your comment and the way it is written.

I'm the sort of person to argue about which sportsperson was better than which other. The stats are just the stats.

Definitely more fun just someone throwing a date out there and someone else debating it than just staring at a person googling.

> If you’re in a group and talking about something factual like when a movie came out or a directors name

Check your phone, but lay the phone flat on the table or hold it so everyone can see the screen—this makes it about the group doing a fact check, instead of about one person diving into their phone away from the group.

I just don't think it adds anything to the conversation and the fact never needed to be checked anyway, its just a compulsion.

At this point I actually would rather not know than have to have someone googling it for me.

Also I now believe by googling it you're denying someone the pleasure of remembering it.

> If you’re meeting with one person and they start doing it [...] just sit there in silence waiting for them if they’re distracted by it. This works surprisingly well and it’s funny how often people apologize

I've tried everything to get people off phones when we meet, this included. It works for the first couple of times but then they get desensitized to any form of feedback and go back on their phones. Which causes the chain reaction you mentioned and more people go on their phones.

So now I simply don't meet people who do this. Fool me once and so forth. I tried to be understandable about it, I tried to not to feel bad when they do and not take it personally. But this is draining and I always end up feeling uncomfortable and having negative thoughts. So now I only meet with people who are interested in interacting with me. Problem solved.

I'm too old to waste time, so I just ask them to stop. And, if we're 1:1 that's just really rude.

But that's not a real conversation between a group of actual humans. Nobody talks about easily checkable facts.

An actual group conversation I had last week:

- Remember early 2000s when that team had that insane defense?

- Yeah, what was that other team they lost against one time for that other tournament?

- X team. Yeah back when PlayerX was still playing. Remember that guy?

- Ah yeah. Lol, remember that time that dude posted a picture of his fridge with his pictures on the beach printed on the panels?

- What? I need to see that.

*checks phone* *shows it around*

[conversation goes on for another hour about the logistics of getting your pictures printed on the panels of a refrigerator]

just checking something gives you something to keep the chat going.

I think the scenario you describe is the least of smartphone problems. You already are meeting physically with a friend. That's a good place to be in.

The far more impactful issue is that meeting simply not happening at all and contact being almost exclusively digital. And in the rare case when people go out in the physical world, to still be on their phone. To experience nothing of it and to be unapproachable by others.

Smart watches are perfect for this. You can activate the voice assistant and ask "What year did The Godfather come out?" without pulling out your phone and perhaps without breaking eye contact with your friends.

Lol I think you are missing the point. It could even be better to not know and argue about it for the purpose of conversation.

Exactly. It's like that quote about being angry: if it's not something you'll be mad about 6 weeks / 6 months / 6 years from now, why be mad?

Unless it's the point of the conversation, like you're discussing dev salaries and you want to pull up levels.fyi or layoffs.fyi to compare, who cares? Will anyone be better off if they knew which actor you were talking about 6 weeks from now? Meanwhile once I heard about levels.fyi I've been checking it compulsively every month since then...

> It could even be better to not know and argue about it for the purpose of conversation.

This very concept is foreign to me, and having been in too many of these "conversations", I would rather leave entirely than sit through one. Figure out the answer to the question and switch topics.

There's billions of topics to talk about (and that's without getting into polarizing topics like religion, sex, and politics), so why do we waste time arguing over trivia that doesn't matter and could be answered in seconds?

Why talk about anything then if you can just google it and move on?

Because not all conversations revolve around easily researched facts. They can include things like feelings, anecdotes, opinions, and so forth.

The art of conversation includes moving between each, and pulling a phone out every few minutes stunts that normal conversational flow.

There is also the problem of what is a fact (Alaska is part of the United States) and what is a "fact" (e.g. Covid came from bat soup in a wet market, Russia's invasion of Ukraine was "totally unprovoked" etc.) Discussion is the entire point in those cases, since we can't trust our entire set of "facts" anymore thanks to censorship.

> what is a "fact" (e.g. Covid came from bat soup in a wet market, Russia's invasion of Ukraine was "totally unprovoked" etc.)

Neither of those are statements of fact, though. The first is speculation, the second is opinion.

But it does appear to be true that many people don't understand what a "fact" actually is. I don't think "censorship" really plays into this much.

I think you're missing my point. They were both presented as facts and discussion online was (and still is in the case if Ukraine) presented as such. The only way to move past those types of bottlenecks is through discussion. "Looking it up" will likely give you an answer that doesn't pass the sniff test in a normal discussion.

Basically the point is to be funny about it or use it as a generator for a new topic. Skill at conversation is almost topic agnostic. Entertaining people can be entertaining about almost anything.

> Basically the point is to be funny about it or use it as a generator for a new topic.

Again, this does not make sense. The point of an argument over trivia is... being funny? Maybe tell jokes or funny anecdotes instead?

> a generator for a new topic.

"Hey Reilly, (what did you do this weekend|how did the trip to Yellowstone go|how's your kid doing in school)?"

> why do we waste time arguing over trivia that doesn't matter and could be answered in seconds?

Because it's not about getting answers or determining facts. It's about the social interaction.

In my own personal opinion, spending time arguing over who is right is a pretty damned poor form of social interaction.

I never thought of it as arguing over who is right, honestly, because nobody cares who is right. It's more like a puzzle-solving exercise used as grist for the conversational mill.

When i was a witness of such conversations, pretty much everybody tries hard to show that they were right.

Interesting. I guess it just goes to show that not all social groups are the same.

>so why do we waste time arguing over trivia that doesn't matter and could be answered in seconds?

If its a waste of time talking about it why waste time looking it up.

This also ties into the suggestion that our memories are getting worse because of smartphone use. A discussion of who played in a particular role in a movie exercises the neural connections we make between things. They were in that other movie, someone remembers something about an interview they were in with something else, etc.

If you google for things you could not possibly know, fine. But for things you should remember, like "what was this actor's name?", you are actually detroying the ability of your memory.

For a second I wanted to argue with your claim that looking up stuff destroys the ability to remember, but then I realized that since Google Maps exists, I can't reliably circle a block without my phone and not get lost in the process.

Why should I remember it?

> You can activate the voice assistant and ask "What year did The Godfather come out?"

Honestly, I'd really rather they pull out their phone and break eye contact than do this. I find when people use their voice assistants like this during a conversation it's even more derailing. It's pretty much the same as them making a phone call in the middle of a conversation and having it on speakerphone.

My friends and I have a system: each person is allowed 2 googles per gathering. Or something like that; the "rules" are always changing but the point is to acknowledge the tension between not wanting to phub and wanting to be able to bring information into our banter.

My friends and I have no formal, agreed-to system about this. But what we actually do is never use our phones during a conversation, even to search for things -- unless, as sometimes happens, the group collectively decides an authoritative answer is actually needed. Then we select someone who is the official "searcher" and they look it up.

This isn't a conscious thing, it's just the pattern of behavior that has naturally emerged.

shame is a powerful emotion that can even break some addiction

I don't think so. You should check out Brenee Brown's research/books on shame. Her claim is that guilt can be a useful emotion, but shame is pretty ineffective at everything.

I tend to agree with the take and I think it's useful to differentiate between the two.

> "Guilt is cognitive dissonance. Guilt says, I've done something or failed to do something that is aligned with my values. And it feels awful. I need to make amends, make a change and hold myself accountable. I need to fix it."

> Shame, however, is a lot more damaging according to Brown, as it says "you are a bad person", and as a social species, "shame is death".

From: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-02/brene-brown-ted-talk-...

TBH I think our political system and most of our OpEd pages could benefit from an infusion of shame. Many of them are bad people and continue having prominent roles due to their complete lack of shame. Maybe in psychologically healthy people it’s ineffective, but we do live in a world stalked by psychopaths and I have to believe the shame response evolved to put a check on them.

I feel that the big mid-2015s transition was that shaming reached such critical levels that a whole chunk of public figures flipped to shamelessness, like antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

"Oh you're pointing out something I've done that doesn't align with my stated value system or common decency? Who cares, and I'll do it again"

The Last Psychiatrist blog was obsessed with narcissism, their model of it was that people have a self-image such as "I am a great man", "I am a good mother", "I am a proper Christian", "I am a success with a nice house and sports car and attractive blonde partner" and their main priority is making sure that everyone else has the same image of them as they have. That things which damage the image anger narcissists more than anything else.

In that model, shame is "I wish you hadn't caught me doing that because you will think less of me and I can't accept that". Guilt is "I wish I hadn't done that because it harmed other people and other people matter" which extreme narcissists don't feel. That is, the child who has torn clothes and one parent worries that the child might be hurt under their watch, compared to the parent who punishes the child for making them look like a worse parent to all the bystanders.

And that pattern is something to see everywhere, from internet arguments to international news.

i.e. guilt is [1] "Greek transport minister Kostas Karamanlis has resigned following a rail crash which killed at least 38 people; Mr Karamanlis said he felt it was his “duty” to step down “as a basic indication of respect for the memory of the people who died so unfairly”"

Shame is [2] Turkey blocking social media immediately after the recent earthquake and arresting people who posted things which made the government look bad. Instead of first thought being to the injured or the corruption, it was trying to control how the government looks and punishing those who hurt that image.

Guilt is not something social media can encourage - the other people are names on a screen, far away.

But a focus on your image, the image you present to the world, the perfect life you live, the perfect friends you have, the beautiful places you go, the clever knowledge you have, the busy Github commit log, the witty Twitter stream, those kinds of things are what social media promotes uncomfortably well.

When someone sees you crying or without makeup, that's not the macho or beautiful Instagram image you've cultivated, harm done - to you, to your image - shame shame shame emergency response damage control, post something which puts it in context and explains it, attack back. When you call someone an unfunny moron on Twitter, no harm done but when someone calls you an unfunny moron, damage control - the world must think of me as witty and inciteful because that's all I have on Twitter and if I lose that, I'm nobody, attack back.

i.e. the phones are a proxy, reading a book with other people around instead of talking to them can still feel sociable. Seeing beautiful people on a billboard advert has been a thing for decades. The projection of yourself to the world, text, pictures, videos, blogs, streams, to an internet where all there is is a projection of you which you have to control, seems like more of a problem.

[1] https://www.wandsworthguardian.co.uk/news/national/23356731....

[2] https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/twitter-down-in-tu...

Give it a bit more time and you'll see people settling arguments with ChatGPT and acting like its the final authority in any matter.

> when a movie came out or a directors name and someone reaches for their phone to google

(realizing I've cut off some context, this isn't necessarily contradicting you)

My friend group seems to have adopted a habit of someone suggesting someone else look something up. For example if I think looking up something about a director would add something to the conversation, I point to someone who I think is also interested, and who isn't the person primarily speaking, and say "ooh, you wanna look it up?"

This makes it feel like a group activity, a defined task that's approved by more than one person and the result is meant for the whole group. Sometimes the other person says "nah" or someone says "it's not important" like you said, and sometimes the conversation continues and then there's a natural point for the person to interject with what they found

I actively shame people when they reach for the phone to answer those questions. If the conversation hits a point where the exact answer is actually important, then we can relent. But I would rather settle a bet by tapping a stranger on the shoulder and asking them to guess, Family Feud style, than check IMDB or whatever.

This also applies to all screens in a work environment. They hypnotize, they distract, they give an easy way out, all of it.

Some of the best and most influential work I have ever done in my brief career as a PM was that one time we had a power outage.

> >rise of smartphones was also the rise of “phubbing”, i.e. when people go on their phones instead of paying attention to the people around them

I remember when there werent just a few dominant phone manufacturers, so down the pub people used to show off their phone simply by placing it on the bar or table bench in the beer garden. As there were so many different phone's it was harder to steal because you might have been one of only a few in your town with the same type of phone.

Today, nearly other person has an iphone so there's nothing to show off about, and because there are so many, stealing them to order and then reverse engineering and hacking them has got cheaper, in order to get people's data for further criminal exploits.

I did a two week experiment where I carried a small notebook and a phone with almost every app disabled. Whenever I would find myself wanting the answer to some question and couldn't just look it I would write it down in my notebook and then look the answers up later, if at all. It was sort of fun, maybe I should revisit it.

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