AmeriKesa tumblelog

3 months spent, 14 cities visited, 0 dollars left.

New York. San Francisco. Monterey. Sacramento. Denver. Boulder. Portland. Seattle. Victoria. Vancouver. Washington DC. Pittsburgh. Chicago. Cleveland.

posted 2 years ago

How Wi-Fi is killing social interaction

I blame Starbucks.

Remember the days when you would pop into a lovely locally owned, beautifully independent café and enjoy a cappuccino whilst chatting away with some friends? Those days have come to an end it would seem (particularly in America) and I believe Starbucks is to blame.

Nowadays, if people decide not to get their 20oz (591.5ml to most of us) decaf low fat candy cane latte (with whipped cream) to go and scurry off to their very important urgent appointment with their laptop for work/study which ultimately turns out to result in commenting on photo albums of friends of friends, they sit at a table or one of the comfy lounge chairs and have their appointment with their laptop for work/study which ultimately turns out to result in commenting on photo albums of friends of friends. Since Starbucks became ubiquitous and began offering Wi-Fi, every other coffee chain and independent store started offering it as well. What has resulted, is a café culture where everyone is glued to their laptop screens (and often plugged in at the ears too) and nobody engages anyone else in conversation - including people they are there with.

I’ve spent a lot of time in and around university campuses recently and the cafés in these areas are the worst. Students love to be out ‘socialising’, yet ultimately most of it is done through social networking. I don’t want to get into how the Internet and mobile phones are promoting shortened methods of non-verbal communication (I’ve never been able to bring myself to use “text speak”) and dumbing down social interactions, but it’s not being helped by this new café culture.

For another great example of how ‘wireless-ness’ is affecting our lives, remember when you’d go to the pub and have the type of conversation about something like who sang that song ‘Hot for teacher’? You would say it was Aerosmith, your friend would say it was KISS and you would argue about it for a while over a few beers until you’d ask a random who would inform you that you’re both wrong and that it was in fact Van Halen (I would personally never make the mistake). You would then begin a long discussion about whether Sammy Hagar or David Lee Roth was the better front man over yet more beers. Ideally, any additional people brought in on the conversation would include at least one attractive female which one of you would (or at least try to) hook up with. Generally though, it would probably be a balding overweight bartender called Ron. With advances in technology and decreasing costs we are seeing more smart phones like the iPhone and the dispute can be settled with a quick Google search and altogether avoiding the entertaining dialogue with the pretty girl/Ron.

Probably the most relevant example to most of the people who read this blog though, is how free Wi-Fi has affected hostels. During my year at Carpe Noctem, I observed an incredible increase in the number of travellers carrying laptops and various other wireless devices. Thankfully, due to the persuasive nature of the staff and splendidly organised night time activities, most people at Carpe Noctem still socialised and spent time getting to know the other guests (some more intimately than others). As I have travelled around North America though, I have been witness to the pervasiveness of the laptop based socialising culture in hostels, with people more content in speaking to existing friends than trying to make new ones. At one New York hostel, I walked into a common room containing no less than 20 people focusing on laptops and another 20 watching the movie that the hostel puts on every night as a ‘social activity’. I’m sure these days if a traveller was to find out that a hostel did not have free Wi-Fi, it would play a strong part in the  process of deciding whether to stay there.

As I sit in an independent coffee shop (directly across the street from a Starbucks) writing in my notebook, I have concluded that Starbucks will be to blame when in 20 years from now, no one communicates verbally and everyone has carpal tunnel syndrome. I fucking hate Starbucks.

posted 2 years ago

Observations on America - Part 3

Neon: A chemical element with the symbol Ne and the Atomic Number 10. It is a colourless, inert noble gas.

What the Wikipedia article I got this information from failed to mention, was that American’s are obsessed with the stuff. In particular, they love to stick it into little glass tubes, bend those tubes into all kinds of fancy shapes and pump electricity into them, creating the widest array of neon signage I have ever seen. This obession is obvious if you walk down any single street in America that contains a commercial premises. In fact, go to Times Square. Even better, go to Vegas. I think Times Square and Las Vegas probably contain more neon then the rest of the world combined. Maybe they’re just taking a lead from Vegas, but every bar, restaurant, market, deli and retail shop in this country seems to have at least one neon sign hanging in the window - anything from a simple text sign like ‘Open’ to world-famous icons such as Vegas Vic.

A non-American friend recently remarked on the abundance of neon signage in a conversation with a born and bred American, to which they replied “Well you need to know it’s open”. Yes, because all the interior lights and people inside are just for show. Bars and markets are the worst offenders, as most of the neon signs seem to relate to beers and they feel the need to display one (sometimes two!) signs for each beer they have (on top or bottled). This brings up an interesting point actually - perhaps some top secret research was conducted years ago which found that when a human brain observes a large amount of neon lighting, they are compelled to part with large sums of money (Vegas???) and if a brand name or logo is in neon, there is an even higher chance of that product or service being purchased.

Maybe I’m wrong though. Maybe I’m looking too much into this. Perhaps all it comes down to is that I’m just not fashionable enough. Neon clothing was fashionable 20 years ago but appears to have made some form of resurgance recently - perhaps all these shops are just trying to stay fashionable in this world where the customer is always right.

posted 2 years ago