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Sunday, March 30, 2014

CELL PHONE-ITIS & OTHER THINGS I HAVE GOTTEN TIRED OF ... HOW ABOUT YOU?




Cell Phone-itis:



What is wrong with everyone?

It's like half of our population has been drugged and cannot walk a foot without the blue light of their phone screen guiding them.

Follow me, follow me, it whispers.

Glassy-eyed, they march along the pavements glued to their social network like the Walking Dead

How many times a day do you check your smartphone?

According to the Mobile Mindset Study conducted by security app Lookout,

 58 percent of U.S. smartphone owners check their phones at least every hour -- and a large share check their phones while in bed or in the bathroom.
What were once considered bad behaviors have now become social norms,

according to the following statistics (though that doesn't mean they're not annoying):



    When at a meal with someone else, 30 percent of participants say they check their phones.
      Think that's bad? Forty percent check their phones on the toilet.
When driving, 24 percent admit to checking their phones.
    During a religious service at a house of worship, 9 percent of participants check their phones.  
One of the tragedies of this phonophilia is surely that people just don't like looking each other in the eye any more.
    They're far more comfortable typing their news -- especially bad news -- over a phone.

    They dump their lovers by text. Or, if they're still deeply in love with them --

    but just can't get over their fears that they themselves are not quite good enough -- they'll use the Skype app or FaceTime.
They persuade themselves that if they type into a screen, their feelings will be more accurate and more thoughtful.
They feel sure that, if they hurt the other person, they won't actually have to see their tears.





THE WALKING DEAD --


When the series killed the mother, Laurie, (having her young son shoot her after giving birth to his baby sister) ...

I just went:  "Seriously?" 

I stopped watching then but my co-workers dragged me to the lastest episode.

Now they have this Terminus (yeah, like that's not a foreboding name for a sanctuary or anything?) plotline --

Plus did you catch a glimpse of what Mary (Denise Crosby) was cooking when Glenn, Maggie and company first arrived at Terminus?! 

Alice Wentworth and I don't know about you, but that looked like an arm on the grill to us!

Even actor, Andrew Lincoln, who plays Rick Grimes asked the creators of the show if they weren't going a little too far in the finale.


GAMES OF THRONES --


My friends knowing how much I like fantasy insisted I watch an episode of it.  It was RED WEDDING ...

and red did not refer to the wine! 

I am definitely a dinosaur entertainment-wise.  Obviously, thoughtful, clever plots are a thing of the past.  Only CGI, sex, and gore need apply.





SELFIES --


Our culture has plainly gotten something wrong with it.

The selfie craze has gotten out of hand.

It started as a bit of fun but now turns out to be a descent into heartless self-obsession and inane photophilia that turns a perfectly normal-looking individual

into a cold Warholian observer of death and disaster, whose only reaction to another's pain is to take a picture of herself in front of the scene she chanced on.

And is that a smile she's cracking?

Really?

Adolescent pop poppet Justin Bieber constantly Tweets photos of himself with his shirt off to the shrieking delight of his huge online following.

Rihanna has treated her fans to Instagrammed selfies of her enjoying the view at a strip club, of her buttocks barely concealed by a tiny denim thong and of her posing with two oversize cannabis joints while in Amsterdam.

Reality TV star Kim Kardashian overshares to the extent that, in March, she posted a picture of her own face covered in blood after undergoing a so-called "vampire facial."

In the same month, the selfie-obsessed model and actress Kelly Brook banned herself from posting any more of them (her willpower lasted two hours.)

But if selfies are simply an exercise in recording private memories and charting the course of our lives,

then why do we feel such a pressing need to share them with hundreds and thousands of friends and strangers online?

It is a puzzlement to me.

Most teenage girls do not like the reflection the mirror shows them on a daily basis, yet they are confident enough to take a selfie and post for all the internet to see.

Back in the day, only superstars or famous people were noticed.

Today, social media which allows other users to like or comment on postings has made it quick and easy for the ordinary person to fish for compliments.

To some, the selfie has become the ultimate symbol of the narcissistic age. Its instantaneous nature encourages superficiality.

Research shows that there’s a direct relationship between how many selfies you share on social media and how close your friends feel to you.

There are many possible explanations for this finding, including the self-portrait artist looking or being self-absorbed or lonely or lacking the social skills to know when to say when.

In our Peacock Culture, selfies seem as natural as the LOOK AT ME! or BUY MY BOOK! tweets on Twitter.

Speaking of which --


CONSTANT SELF-PROMOTION ON TWITTER --


As an Indie author myself, I understand authors have to promote/market their books/ebooks to get sales,

but how often do you actually click on a Twitter, Facebook, Goodread, etc., link to a book/ebook?

Are you tired of seeing millions of authors promoting their works on social media and simply dismiss promotions on social media?

Do you click on one in ten book/ebook promotions?


One in a hundred? One in a million?

Never click on a book/ebook promo because you're sick and tired of seeing them pop up all the time?

  I occasionally tweet about my books, but I’m convinced no one pays any attention. 

Most likely, my messages blend with all the others in the endless clutter of promotional tweets vying for people’s attention.

How do you promote your work?


How often have you seen "Blah blah blah buy this book" or "Available for free on Amazon for X days only" and just bypassed it?

 

12 comments:

  1. I don't get the selfie either. And I hate the name!

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  2. Dinosaur City here.
    I haven't seen any of Walking Dead. Ditto Game of Thrones - though I might read it someday.
    Selfies? Not for me. I still, despite being long past adolescence, don't like to look at myself and wouldn't inflict in on others. And as for the one you portrayed? It filled me with rage. It doesn't come much more insensitive than that. Some one elses pain and grief (the individual and the family) is NOT a photo opportunity.
    And I don't play Twitter - or Facebook.
    Climbing down from my soap box and doing my dinoasaur stomp away...

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  3. I quite agree with you. Selfies (hate that name) are just inane photophilia, taken (more often than not) by inane people.

    We are definitely on the same page, Roland :)

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  4. Too bad Oscar Wilde isn't here to observe and give us his assessments of 'selfies'. Or Mark Twain. Can the undead take selfies? Or is it like mirrors?

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  5. SouthPaw:
    It's as if those doing it know how self-centered the act is. Sigh.

    Elephant's Child:
    I used to like taking pictures of my friends together as mementos -- but like you, I did not include myself in the pictures unless dragged in them!

    I do not know the appeal of watching the deaths of beloved characters on screen.

    Wendy:
    I thought to get chided for my attitude on selfies. Maybe we are not the only ones who feel uncomfortable with this sheer narcissism.

    D.G.:
    Wilde would say that in his case, self-portraits would be entirely understandable! Mark Twain would have some dry jest at the self-love of those with none to give to others.

    Some would say that ghosts are the ultimate selfies by their very nature! :-)

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  6. I liked the first season of Game of Thrones and it went way downhill after that.
    Another thing I'm sick of? Facebook memes that make some obvious statement like "We have to stop people from killing puppies" then stating, "Share if you agree that killing puppies is wrong!" Emotional blackmail plain and simple. I mean really, if you think I enjoy killing puppies, why are you my FB friend?

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  7. Hi Roland .. I have to agree .. I don't like being tied down, don't like doing what others do, and positively dislike selfies .. though I wish I'd taken a few of my face and how it healed after I fell over .. but that's another story: and I didn't!

    Me, Me, Me - as authors or on blogs for that matter drive me demented .. me, me, me = demented!

    Cheers to you - Hilary

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  8. I watch the Walking Dead. To me it can be a reflection of our innermost demons, that and Zombies have always been my childhood fear. The SELFIES have gotten out of hand. What do we expect from a society that places high praise on the importance of the attention getters.

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  9. Sean:
    Guess I picked the wrong espisode to start watching, Huh? :-)

    As you travel so much, I understand why you would use Facebook, but I come to work and those who aren't checking their FB on their cell phones are texting (both outlawed by my center.) Sigh.

    Hilary:
    I am so glad your face healed nicely. The doctors took pictures of my face after the surgery -- I did not look -- it felt bad enough without that!

    And yes, all of this ME or MY BOOK on blogs and on Twitter are whispering that I should bid farewell to this forum.

    David:
    I enjoyed the first few seasons of THE WALKING DEAD ... but it just got so depressing. I can get depressed for free!

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  10. Friends send pictures of meals to each other. I don't do it only because I don't know how.

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  11. Walter:
    I rather my friends just sent me a meal! :-)

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  12. I am proud to say I DON'T own a Smartphone, just a land line at home and an el cheapo, very basic cell phone. And yet somehow I get along just fine. And I don't know how to Twitter, though maybe I'll learn one of these days. I'm old enough to have lived through so many electronic fads and softwares that I'm getting burnt out on technology.

    True story: a work colleague of mine was in Aspen where he left a bar late one night and saw, on the deserted street, a bear (they occasionally wander into town from the mountains). He hung around and watched another guy come out of the bar and, because he was so engrossed with his phone and not watching where he was going, walk right into the bear. A part of me is sad that the bear merely ran away instead of giving the guy a hard swat.

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