What do you personally see as the plusses and minuses of modern forms of "instant" communication?

Well, you don’t actually live in the forest, so it’s OK to take a break from technology, but we kind of ‘need’ it in our daily lives for those of us who work.

There are more pros and cons, but I’m not going to list them all because I can’t lol. We can stop texting and driving so much and playing on the internet when we don’t really need to. But when it comes down to it, life is better off with these tools in hand in case we need them for something important.

My Ex-wife poured water on my laptop so it’s fried now. It had all my study material on it. So now I use my G1 to study information off websites when I’m not at work or when I don’t have time to go to the library.

it’s quick.

plus, getting in on things you might otherwise miss (catching the unexpected when you’re not there but someone else is or vice versa) minus, missing what you might have experienced had you been on your own.

I guess it expands and makes available our sphere of insight and knowledge much more widely than we would otherwise have but at the sacrifice of perhaps missing what is right in front of us.

perhaps the key is to learn when to ignore that buzzing little box.

Availability is a definite negative, I tend to screen phone calls yes I am one of THOSE people but I feel like it is me taking control, sometimes I like being difficult to reach It feels freeing!

Also with such mass communication there seems to a somewhat ironic level of miscommunication, the tendancy to misread things that are said to you with out the presence of the person in question is somewhat disaterous at the best of times.

A plus is the ease in which your social life can be organised, something amazing can happen from a single text of ‘would you like to go out tonight?’ or some other such thing.

It’s nice not to be chained to the phone all day, waiting for news or whatever.
Then again, when I go to the house I just got in the mountains, there is no telephone, television, or computer lines, and no cell service. It is most freeing.

I’m a bit of a Luddite myself, and a majority of the time I see cell phones as more of a hassle than a benefit. I really don’t like the idea of being available 24/7, as many people seem to. I constantly screen calls, and rarely take my phone off silent. My time is my time, and I don’t always feel the need to be “reachable”. As you said, you nearly missed the moment of seeing and hearing the woodpecker, all due to having your cell phone. Imagine if your husband hadn’t gotten that call, and the two of you could have shared the moment of seeing the woodpecker together. Instead, he was busy with a call about work. There is most certainly a convenience to having a phone around and always being able to make a call, but I think it comes with more inconveniences. That’s why my cell phone is about as low-tech as they come anymore; it can make and receive calls and texts, that’s it. No pictures, no internet, no apps. I find I’m much more at peace mentally that way.

End rant.

I’m old fashioned. A camera and a telephone are two separate things to me. I carry a cell phone, switched off. I control who contacts me and when. I refuse to allow this technology to rule my life,of course I’m retired and can get away with it.

Most of us do not need this instant communication. Texting and Tweeting are pathetic substitutes for the intimacy of face to face communication.

As a business tool, they may, in some cases, facilitate efficiency but most successful business transactions take place face to face or if impossible by one to one discussion on the telephone.

The technology is impressive. So what! Most of us use it to distance ourselves from others, or to impress others with our technical sophistication or our expensive toys.

I have a cheap tracphone I use for emergencies only!

I can call all over Canada and the US for no additional cost and my house phone.
If you ever feel like talking to me, PM me and I’ll call you back.

I agree with what many of you are saying and rarely had my old cell phone with me or switched on if I did have it. I was the first to glare at my husband when he took a call. But I am loving my iPhone and what it can do while questioning how I want to use it. And texting with one of my sons seems to be a great way of catching up with him on the fly.

I am enjoying the discussion very much.

An interesting thing happened to me the other day. A friend and I went to out to lunch, and as I had paid last time, he agreed to get the bill this time. So after our meals were finished and the check arrived, he grabbed it, and immediately reached for his iPhone. He always uses the tip calculator app when paying, and was going to do the same this time, but the battery on his iPhone had died. He sat there for a while looking at the check like it was an advanced mathematical theorem. He finally handed it over to me and asked if I could help him figure out how much tip to leave. I was stunned! I couldn’t believe someone had grown so dependent on their phone that they couldn’t even figure out how much tip to leave.

Okay, I had a long answer typed and ready and when I clicked Answer! I was immediately logged out. There’s a kink in the communication somewhere, Fluther.

What I said, quickly, was that the pluses are probably the instantaneity, discretion and accessibility with which we can now communicate.

Normally I’d think this is great, because communicating generally enhances relationships, verbal skills, blah blah blah. (Detractors of text messaging claim texting harms literacy in kids, but that’s not true.) But when it reaches the point where we’re just exchanging lol after lol and kk after kk in texts and IMs, it’s not really communication anymore, is it? It’s like we’re saying things just because we can. My friends are paying five cents or whatever is to tell me lol. Why? It happens especially frequently online, at least to me.

I’m afraid – and probably without any real cause, to be honest – that we might enter some weird, hyperbolic situation in which the immediacy and availability of communication only serve to cheapen the language, and that too much of our verbal exchanges will depend on the inadequate stock phrases of text and instant messaging.

Of course that won’t happen. But the new means of communication have already placed great importance on information, and sometimes it feels like that information has become a currency more valuable than paper money (whether that’s because information is valuable or because paper money is valueless: whatever) or other services.

Richard Grossman wrote this in The Book of Lazarus and I thought it was cool:
“Entertainment has already replaced art under the name of art; and soon information will replace entertainment under the name of entertainment.”

Fact from fiction, truth from diction. Instant access or not instant access?

The pros to instant access is as you said, you seen something great and was able to share it with your son moments after you seen it. The husband was able to receive info maybe important info he would have missed had he not had the cell. As for me I can and have contacted people all over the world and learned things about them, their people, and where they lived I never could have learned from a book, movie etc. If I remember one has a b-day I can send an ecard right then and there knowing they will have it in moments and not days or weeks it would take if I used a stamp and snail mail. I can find out ticket prices, weather, movie schedules etc all by going online. I can gain lots of information without having to run around to locating it.

The bad is that it is rather impersonal. Some of my online friends if they can be called that I have never heard their voice, if they called me on the phone until they said their name I would never know who they were. There is no face to face interaction, so what you say can be twisted or misunderstood as happens to me here OFTEN LOL because my facial expressions, mannerisms etc, cannot be seen. You can be fooled more easily because you can’t see who you are contacting so you have to be more trusting. You are expected to answer whenever the phone rings because it is supposing on your hip, in the pocket or purse always at the ready.

Those are just a few examples but there are many more. When I think back I wonder how we ever did with out cell phones and email.

About a week ago I was exiting the highway onto a city street. I noticed to my left a young guy who was surrounded by 6 or 7 tough-looking men. They circled around him until two or three of them started punching him, and another guy ripped off the victim’s backpack and threw it over a fence, where another guy was waiting.

Thanks to my cell phone, I was able to call 911 that moment rather than waiting until I got home. While I was giving the information to the operator she said several other people were calling in at the same time, and the police were on their way.

Similarly, a few years ago, I moved to a bad neighborhood in a new city. Three weeks in, a guy followed me into my lobby and demanded that I give him my purse. Once again, I was able to call the police immediately from my cell phone. They were there in 5 minutes flat, took my statement, and by some miracle caught the guy. (And I got my stuff back!)

So there’s safety. And there’s convenience: I can call up a friend from the farmer’s market and ask what I need to get to make that beet salad we had for dinner last week. Or if I’m lost I can call a friend for directions. I can even text google to get the address of a restaurant I can’t quite find.

The last plus I would mention is connection. It would be nice to have face time with everyone I love, but they are scattered all over the world. Thanks to instant communication, I can text, call, or even skype people who are 15,000 miles away.

So I’m all for instant communication.

Great modern times question. It sure makes some things better, but my idea of a long, quite walk in nature with someone I love wouldn’t be one of them.

This form of communication allows autistic types like myself to communicate on an equal basis with “normals”. No body language, facial expressions or eye contact to interpret or confuse. Strictly the written word; level playing field, especially on Fluther. Communicating with polite people of similar intelligence opens a social window for me, however tiny, that would otherwise be impossible or too painful to deal with.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land Though I may misunderstand you because of your unique mannerisms I believe if I had the chance, I would engage you face to face. Us so-call “normal” and some act anything but normal are not always easiest to read even here, and people are usually missing me in understanding here if people in the real are not getting you or understanding I say they are not trying hard enough or they are not listening well enough.

@Hypocrisy_Central I’ve long ago given up attempting to engage people F2F. Professionally I was able to put on a role with the uniform, mimicking the formalized behavior of those around me, now retired. I could only truly communicate with one person, now gone. I can communicate here. On Fluther, I’m another jelly, among equals, not an autistic freak. Actually I’m the one who is no longer “trying” in the non-cyber world.

@stranger_in_a_strange_land “Freak” is a pretty nubulous term, depending where you are standing and what direction you are looking at anyone can be a freak. I am seen as a freak by some maybe many because my fiancee is more than 210 years younger than me. Some people I know believe the Gay lifestyle is freaky, others then again think those Goth kids are freaks. One man’s freak is another man’s unique. ;-)

@Hypocrisy_Central I’m a square peg in a world full of round holes, functioning from one day to the next. I have no problem with anyones lifestyle, I just don’t fit into any of them.I was 20 years older than my wife, the only problem was being complimented on my lovely “daughter”

@stranger_in_a_strange_land Too bad you could not find people who had the capacity to square off their holes. At least I never get the daughter thing as you can tell by the avatar pic.

@Hypocrisy_Central I’m so happy for both of you!!!

Balance is the key. Yes the technology enables us to do more faster. But there is a great big world out there and the people who use it constantly or even in some cases compulsively miss a lot. I’m a nature lover. I don’t want to be around any of the constant user when out in the woods or mountians. And if you rely solely on a cell or other piece of equipment, you’re relying on equipment and equipment always breaks down or doesn’t work at some point.There was a husband and wife that lost control of their car a few Winters ago on a section of the Northway where it runs thru the Adirondacks. There wasn’t any cell coverage where they crash and he froze to death. They did not take any additional precautions everyone should take if you venture into that area. So I think the technology is useful and make’s it easier to get some things done it really is just one more tool that can be used or abused.

@Adirondackwannabe You are so right. Up here in the north woods you don’t leave the house without a basic survival kit. I carry enough gear in my vehicle to live for two weeks if necessary and deal with most medical emergencies. It took a tour at Ft. Wainwright (Faibanks, AK) to teach me that.

@janbb the answer is in your question, I can add nothing to it. I admire your thinking and your writing skillls.

@flo Thank you!