Disconnecting Connectivity

OK, please pardon the rant on this but something for days has just been eating me up. Has anyone noticed the new Sprint commercials? Specifically the newest one with the family sitting at the DINNER table and the Mother texts the Father to inform him that her parents are moving in. Then emails the daughter telling her that the grandparents will be taking over her room and when the daughter shows a little objection to this (and who the heck wouldn't) the Mom tells her basically thats OK honey I'll help you tweet about it. Really??!!?? REALLY???

In simmering over this particular commercial and thinking over all of the other Sprint commercials lately starting with the athlete on the gurney and the Dr. sitting BESIDE the gurney emailing the man that his career is basically over, several things came to mind about what this is teaching our children and programing we adults for:

1. Disconnect from one another on a real world human level. In this technology age where connecting to one another is so easy we have become a society, in general, who have learned to 'disconnect' with the human condition. Its almost as if advertisers are leading us into the "It's OK to have total disregard for anothers feelings" mentality. And yes I know that corporate America has done this for years but it just seems to be getting more and more obvious. What gets me though is that we are letting them!! Here are a few examples in the commercials that show this point:

a. The Dr. slaps the injured leg of the athlete as he is telling him basically "Your career is over but its not that bad because my text/email etc is unlimited. So be damned with your injury"
b. In the commercial with the 2 neighbors over the holidays the one feels that it is now OK to insult his neighbor over his choice of wardrobe in their holiday card.
c. In the commerical with the family referenced above, the Mom demonstrates that it is now OK to just make a total in the family dynamics without consulting the rest of the family first and makes her family out to be total idiots and not deserving of respect.

In this disconnecting connectivity it allows us as humans to revert to a more base and unfeeling way of communication. It allows us to disregard respect for one another in the way we deal with each other and in doing so in the cyber world it is spilling over to the 'real' world.

2. Teaching a lack of respect.
a. In the commercial with the athlete there is a basic lack of respect for physical human suffering as well as a lack of respect for the fact that if indeed the athlete's career is truly over what will he do for a living now? Basically telling people that "Its OK to toss you aside now because you no longer serve any purpose to me"
b. In the commercial with the 2 men over the holidays it shows us that it's OK to insult another simply because we happen to think their personal style is not what ours is.
c. In the commercial with the family sitting at the dinner table the Mom shows a lack of respect in so many ways. She makes a large decision like that without everyone talking it over first. She treats her husband like a total idiot and shows a total disregard for her daughter's feelings and then further disrespects her by telling her to tweet about it instead of talking it over.

This is NOT a rant about this particular telecommunications company, it just so happens that their line of current commercials so perfectly illustrate the things I see going on in our society as a whole. This whole 'Disconnective Connectivity" so to speak. I for one am just sick of it!

Thanks for your time

reply to post by MyMindIsMyOwn


Everyone mostly here is the ones your talking about.

Next you will have stalkers that follow you in life, follow you on net too. Won't the net be a great place to be, lol.

Mobbing techniques take over boards on the net.

Originally posted by andy1033
reply to post by MyMindIsMyOwn

 

Everyone mostly here is the ones your talking about.

Next you will have stalkers that follow you in life, follow you on net too. Won't the net be a great place to be, lol.

Mobbing techniques take over boards on the net.

edit on 2/13/2011 by andy1033 because: (no reason given)

Andy I gotta tell you man that you are a paranoid schizophreniac.You need treatment. I have put up with your ranting on different threads since I joined.You have a problem and you need treatment. You are the very psycological definition of paranoid schiz.please seek treatment and stop posting your paranoid nonsense.

I am reminded of a personal experience my girlfriend and I had a couple of months ago.We had gone to a restaraunt for dinner and had been seated in the back room.Next to us the servers were pushing serveral tables together for a large party.In walks two families.Two moms ,two dads ,and six kids.three of the kids were texting madly as they sat down as was one of the mom's.They had no sooner sat down when the rest of them whipped out their phones and proceeded to text someone or check their email .The silence at the table was deafening.I thought to myself that these people were connected to others but disconnected from each other.If this is the state of the world ,no wonder it's going crazy.People can't sit across a table and talk to each other anymore.What has happened to interpersonal communications.Everyone is so detached from one another.I find this a frightening developement.Hey folks did you ever wonder why the first four letters of twitter are twit?Think that's a joke?Bet the people who thought it up don't.

reply to post by lonegurkha


Yep...I have a younger sister, who's about 10 years younger than me...she's in her teens now and sometimes I'll see her hang out with her friends...they don't do this all the time but often enough to make you go...well...what are they hanging out for?...They literally just sit next to each other, all of them focused on their blackberry...technology is eroding all that is human

reply to post by dude69


That seems to be the new, quickly developed norm. And it is now compounded by the apps for cells, especially the iphones. One of my old-fashioned pet peeves is to go to a person's home (my daughters is a good example) and the TV remains blaring while we try to visit. Now with apps, they can have that virtual TV or computer right in their hand so as to not miss that important program or email as you have dinner with them.

How about voting to pull the plug on the internet AND all phones during, oh, say 6 to 9 nights and all day Sundays?