While I was preoccupied at the time, mostly by heart-rending despair after yesterday's football game, I thought of a few interesting examples of new media usage that happened to me during the game.
I often question the importance of new-media technology, and personally I'm not the biggest fan of the technology -- especially cell phones, but there are times when I wonder how I would ever accomplish things without them.
I was working at a concession stand earlier in the morning and I was supposed to meet my parents and my sister at their friends' tailgate party. Since I did not go with them I had no idea where the tailgate was located, until my sister texted me with the location: "between 11 and 15." It seemed natural at the time, but how long would it have taken me to find them if I had not been able to receive such a simple text-message or even a mobile phone call? My sister or my parents would have had to come and get me and then walk back over to the tailgate. I guess convenience is something we often take for granted when approaching the negatives of certain new media technologies.
The second instance was while I was in the stands and noticed that one of my friends had not made it to the game. I decided to call him (a ridiculously stupid idea as the game had started so everyone was yelling for the defense). I reached him, but obviously I couldn't hear him at all, so my friend just "texted" him instead. I was almost embarrased that I hadn't thought of the same thing before I attempted to make an impractical call. Texting just isn't really part of my normal communicative routine, so it's usually a second option for me.
The last thing that happened was kind of funny. I always complain to my parents and their friends that nobody outside of the student section stand up or yells during the game so that the majority of our fans just resort to "golf-clapping" when something good happens. To prove me wrong I got a text from my mom during overtime that said "We re cheering!!" I laughed because she was obviously texting instead of cheering, but it was funny to receive a message so spontaneously from someone who doesn't really text that much.
Excuses, excuses: why I dread writing
16 years ago
2 comments:
That's pretty funny...I thought of this kind of stuff this weekend too, because at one point in the game I realized that each person to my right, to my left, in front, and behind me were all texting at the same time. That moment led me to think about how football games would have been pre-texting (and pre-cellphones in general). People would have been much more engaged with each other, not to mention less distracted from the action on the field. Not that I've never texted during games either...
Exactly! See cell phones aren't that bad! I had such a hard time gettin in touch with people at the time when I was without texting. I was in situations where the noise was way too loud to even think about making a phone call and now i'm definately appreciating the ease and convenience of my connectedness. And btw, that is such a mom thing to do. Except try having grandma call at every game to make sure i'm there. She doesn't quite get it yet, but i'm working on it.
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