Welcome to General Chat - GAW Community Area
This General Chat area started off as a place for people to talk about things that are off topic, however it has quickly evolved into a community and has become an integral part of the GAW experience for many of us.
Based on its evolving needs and plenty of user feedback, we are trying to bring some order and institute some rules. Please make sure you read these rules and participate in the spirit of this community.
Rules for General Chat
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Be respectful to each other. This is of utmost importance, and comments may be removed if deemed not respectful.
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Avoid long drawn out arguments. This should be a place to relax, not to waste your time needlessly.
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Personal anecdotes, puzzles, cute pics/clips - everything welcome
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Please do not spam at the top level. If you have a lot to post each day, try and post them all together in one top level comment
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Try keep things light. If you are bringing in deep stuff, try not to go overboard.
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Things that are clearly on-topic for this board should be posted as a separate post and not here (except if you are new and still getting the feel of this place)
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If you find people violating these rules, deport them rather than start a argument here.
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Feel free to give feedback as these rules are expected to keep evoloving
In short, imagine this thread to be a local community hall where we all gather and chat daily. Please be respectful to others in the same way
I went to Tokyo over the weekend. I hadn't been there in many years. I haven't ridden a train in just as long. Pretty much everyone had their eyes glued to their smartphones, swiping their fingers across the screens like Gollum stroking his Precious. And there I was, just reading a SF paperback, "Fall of Hyperion" by Dan Simmons. I just have a flip phone. When I first came to Japan in '98, people were reading books and manga on trains. Now everyone is addicted to their smartphones.
This is why I don't want a smartphone. Even ignoring the whole aspect of those things able to listen to you and such, I don't want to end up like these people, dependent on an electronic device to pass my time. Addicted. Kids especially can't understand why I do not want a smartphone.
I always carry something to read, as a matter of fact, I make a point, if I am in a waiting room or at the laundromat, to comment to a person who is reading, about how nice that is to see (being "elderly" allows me to make random comments to people without alarming them). Should I be embarrassed to admit I have nothing but a landline? I have a good laptop, I can take it with me when I travel, to use away from home, in a hotel or visiting overnight somewhere, and even this device pulls me away from other activities. It is terribly addicting, I have to make myself remember how I used to fill my time, mostly it was reading, I have shelves of books at home, so I do download a lot of reading to my laptop, but, it is not the same, as if I turn it on to read, I am inevitably browsing other things. I tried to stop it for Lent one year and ended up making it almost a week. And let me tell you, in that week I had more energy, I noticed it the minute I "picked up" again, I got the "lazies". I love having it, but it does nothing for a lifelong problem with ADHD, it exacerbates it.
I squirreled into this comment 🤣
Had an elderly gentleman comment in the waiting room at my doctor about everyone staring at their phones. I commented to him that there was once a wise man who suggested that there was no such thing as conspiracy theory in a widely read book in our state, but it was conspiracy fact & that my phone is a great way to research & share truth.
He laughed & thanked me IIRC. We had a quick conversation before I was called up. Thanked him again for the opportunity to share that we should be using these tools for our benefit & growth while others were around.
Going out into the wider world, especially into another country as a guest, and protecting ones ego by tabulating and quantifying the ways one is morally superior to the locals is pretty dope shit.
He's lived there 25 years.
Funny, I remember back in the day when smartphones first reared their heads, a lot of the news media fascinated on the novelty of the Japaneses' relationship with the devices. They were not commonplace in the states, I feel like it was early 2000s. I personally didn't even get a flip cell until mid late 00s, and I thought the coverage out of Japan was completely "alien" to me. Always felt really weird, and it's strange just how endemic cellphone addiction is, worldwide, these days.
Anywhere people have to wait these days, one can be assured the majority are absorbed in their devices. It's not good, wherever it happens.
I'm around a lot of parents and young kids, I see some gross stuff. 😐
This guy is making assumptions that I am looking at this situation as me as an American reading a book vs Japanese people glued to their devices. That assumption would imply that I choose to read a book because I am American, whereas they choose to caress their touch screens because they are Japanese. I made no such qualitative assertion and was commenting on people in general in mass transit. I am sure that a similar scene in a NY subway wouldn't be any different. (The difference is that in America, people bother each other on the train and talk loudly to each other. Seeing foreigners on trains here with zero self-awareness as they talk loudly and draw attention to themselves is rather embarrassing.) OverQualified is just being a prick for the sake of being a prick, and reading into my observation more than is necessary.
It doesn't matter to me where one is doing it or how long they've lived there. If I walk out my door today and begin a headspace where I'm validating the notion that I'm superior to people i see, I'm just fantasizing. It's worse than looking at a phone.
I know for people that are really wanting more control of their neighbors desires and inner thoughts that it must be frustrating to be thwarted by Big Phone.
You have fair points.
Still doesn't make it any better to see people in the thralls of addiction.
♥️🙏
I said nothing about being morally superior, nor anything about people who use smartphones being somehow immoral. I just refuse to fall into the temptation of having instant access to the internet at my fingertips wherever I go. It's just sad that people get dependent on this and knowing myself, I know that I would get sucked into that as well. It's not about ego.
When we believe our time spent is better than others time spent, we are making a morality judgement.
Also, I agree with you. About addiction etc. But I loathe to hear the guy on the internet that does internet better or at the right time, or somehow correctly, compared to people on The street.
Feel free to loathe me then. DILLIGAF?
I have a flip phone too that my son provides me when I babysit his kids. It is mine to use, but I only use it to call my husband or either they call me when they are at work. The other day I used it to call a friend at church and she asked me yesterday if I got her text message. I kindly looked at her and said, "No George and I don't text, we're just simple people." Like you, we only use ours for phone calls. My son was going to get me a smart phone and I said, "NO, I don't need any internet, texting or any of the GPS stuff, just a simple phone is all I need."
It sounds like you operate the way I do. Last year the phone co. said they no longer support my Nokia, they sent me a free flip phone. It stopped working and lives in the garage. I use the landline.
I have a landline at home. But at my son's where I keep my grandkids I needed a phone and so he and his wife added this phone to their bill. Like I said, they wanted to give me a smart phone and I told them NO. Just something to make an emergency phone call for that just in case moment.
Japan had mobile technology way ahead of US for decades. It makes me sad Japan used to be the leader in mobile and now it is Korea.
1segTV launched in 2007 and people could watch hdtv on their flip phones and game consoles
I could never give up my smartphone because to me it is the manga, the book, the walkman, the gameboy, the Bible, that people used to carry all rolled up into one. then add this Q board and all the resesrch we can do...it's a lethal weapon in anon hands.
still it is mindblowing to me..Japanese flip phones back in the day did things American phones just barely started doing.
If I were you I would make a visit to Itoya 11 stories of pens, paper, stationary...I love that Japan has things like that even if it is so tech saavy