Culture: The iGeneration: Text Me, Tweet Me, If You Wanna (Maybe) Reach Me

Today’s Mood Ingredients: Mobile, Multitasking, Connected, Disconnected.

This post isn’t about anything novel and it isn’t written as well as the thousands of other posts about it, but I like having an opinion on most things, so here you go. I’m one of those individuals that is lucky enough to have been part of two eras of technology; the one where I used a pencil to wind an audio &/or video cassette, blew on Nintendo games to make them work, had a Walkman, had to just wait it out if someone wasn’t someplace at some time, and had dial-up America Online (“10,000 FREE HOURS!”) with a parentally mandated 1 hour of internet a day and the current “iGeneration” era where you Snapchat a photo of yourself to put on Instagram to simultaneously share on Facebook & Twitter while making sure none of it ever gets on your LinkedIn page and never having to get off of your iPhone to do any of it.

I’m on my phone pretty much most of the day. I watch TV on it, I pay bills on it, I check statements on it, I take pictures on it, I converse with people on it, I use both personal & company social media on it; hell, it even has a name (Pablo, btw). Strangely enough, I rarely take calls on it though. I don’t even use my laptop for weeks at a time, because it doesn’t fit in my pocket. I sometimes literally feel an urge to tweet something just for the sake of not having done so in a few hours. But alright, let’s say for the sake of being devil’s advocate (and using it as a fabulous excuse), that social media is a networking tool & I need it for my fashion brand, and in order to bring awareness to my fashion brand, I also have to utilize my personal network (this is great, I just convinced myself in that one sentence that I should be on all of my social networks at all times, I need an intervention). What about all the rest of it?  Texting other people while at dinner with a completely different group of people? Forgetting to eat the food on your plate because you’re busy rearranging it so it makes for a pretty Instagram or Foodspotting picture?  Making a completely unnecessary ridiculous face into your “selfie” (I’ll go into my rage at that becoming Webster’s word of the year in another, possibly beer-induced post) camera for the sole reason of captioning it with “OMG SO AWK!” and Snapchatting someone with it? TEXTING AT THE MOVIES WITH YOUR BRIGHTNESS ON MAX!? I’m a little concerned for my two & a half year old nephew’s generation because this will be the norm to them. He has already known for over a year how to maneuver iPads and iPhones and iLaptops. He accidentally uses the regular TV as a touch screen sometimes! iPad was probably his 4th word after vacuum, mommy, and daddy. WHEN IS IT ALL TOO MUCH!?!?

In case you haven’t noticed by now, recently I’ve been experiencing world wide webxaustion. I think it partially hit when I went to the AT&T kiosk and the employee showed his colleagues with awe (& I’m pretty sure, a little disgust) that I’m the first person that he had ever met who actually made full use of the unlimited data plan with the fact that I use 12GB a month (the silver medal of the iPhone Olympics was awarded to my brother with a close but no cigar 10GB a month). Then it hit when I noticed my family & friends, including me, all on our phones at the same time while supposedly spending time with each other! I’m guilty of all of the annoying things I mentioned earlier (except I refused to ever succumb to Snapchat & I stopped the movie one, I swear), but lately I’m okay with not being attached to Pablo palm to case. Sometimes I purposely leave my phone in another room so that I’m not even tempted to see what my faves are tweeting about or who had the perfect tiny portion of the perfect tiny dessert at the perfect [tiny] overpriced restaurant (but also, a lot of my posts are of martinis at Applebee’s & I could just be slightly envious of those other people). And I’ve become more aggravated at others who are constantly on their phones when with me. I haven’t 100% succeeded yet, but I’ve begun to make a concerted effort to not be distracted when I’m with company or when I’m out with people for a meal or a get together. I’m slowly realizing that the quality of time being spent with my loved ones has been significantly less in quality & more just sitting near each other while talking to others via data plans, and I’m not okay with that. Last Sunday, I told my brother to get off of his phone (while he was playing whatever the newest “____ Bird” game out there is, I’m sure) because I wanted to “connect.” Besides the fact that he was a little creeped out, he still had to finish his game first. I MEAN, WTH! CONNECT WITH ME, MAN!

There are of course positives like being able to call my 90 year old grandma in Bombay on her cute little Nokia phone, stay in touch with my amazing family in India and friends in other countries all the time via What’s App (until Facebook ruins it), being able to Google anything on the go like doctors’ info, nearby restaurants & gas stations, the option to use pharmacy apps to refill prescriptions immediately, etcetera (I’m still on the fence about Siri, though), but I’d like to know how my brother’s day was at work, what my sister taught my nephew that day, what my little sister ate for lunch (trust me, that one is always interesting) via conversation; not pictures, not texts, not Facebook posts (also, someone please stage a Solitaire intervention for my mom and an Indian radio app intervention for my dad). By the way, I typed this post on my laptop & only looked at Pablo twice with no social media checks in between!!! Ah, progress is such sweet sorrow.

Anyway, I’m going to go tweet & Facebook this post now so..text me, tweet me, if you wanna (maybe) reach me!

P.S. You can follow me here & here. 😉

P.P.S. Most importantly, seriously, PLEASE DON’T TEXT/TWEET/POKE/SNAP/BLOG & DRIVE. 

Today’s Interlude: The Kim Possible Theme Song

Photo credit: ashisaggarwal122.wordpress.com