Comment by majormajor

Comment by majormajor 3 days ago

7 replies

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Americans have been raised for a couple generations to be afraid of people. "Stranger danger." Apocalyptic news media. A general millenarianism-run-amok "the final battle between good and evil is coming and evil outnumbers us" assumption that permeates much of American culture across the political spectrum. Catastrophizing.

Somehow that had an impact on our social skills! It takes a lot of work to de-program that if you're not a natural extrovert.

halfmatthalfcat 3 days ago

This is a disingenuous take. Americans value their time probably more than any other culture. I’d rather be able to keep reading a book, read some interesting HN content or talk with my friends on Discord more than have small talk with a random uber driver.

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  • majormajor 3 days ago

    The example starting this discussion was not "avoid talking to a taxi driver." It was "book the taxi with an app at higher cost vs using the phone." No Waymos in Europe for them to avoid the drivers with just yet. Simply spending to avoid a phone call.

    I'm skeptical we save a lot of time with our technology-mediated world. I think I could say "one medium pizza with pepperoni" and hear back "ok it'll be ready in 20 minutes" on a phone call quicker than I can put that order in with a device. Apps/websites are only better for group orders that require coordination. That's after I've picked out the restaurant, of course, but there is no shortage of literature on how the huge menu of choices presented by modern app-based services usually slows down people's decision making. (Amusingly this may swing back the other way, just with us talking to LLM-backed machines soon, but I find it hard to believe "we don't want to talk to the guy at the pizza place because we value our time THAT MUCH.") Compared to the phenomenon discussed in all sorts of media from https://www.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/15ecqat/phonephobia/ to https://www.thecut.com/article/psychologists-explain-your-ph... to https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/gen-z-developing-fear-o...

    Very curious if you have a source for that time value bit. I find it hard to believe. We Americans often have EXTREMELY long commutes using a mode of transportation that allows less multitasking than most others. I don't mind my car-based commute personally - it lets me listen to music in peace - but that's similar to how I don't mind making small talk while getting my hair cut - it's a peaceful respite from the usual noise of modern life. Certainly a nice change of pace from using that time to scroll social media or argue on the internet even more.

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    • Shank 2 days ago

      > Simply spending to avoid a phone call.

      If I’m looking at an app I can read far faster than I can understand a phone call, and often I don’t need to explain myself beyond moving some pins around. “Pick me up by the P1 parking garage across from the fence near the stairwell” and related things. I actually want to use my eyes and look at information and not place my bets on the human on the other side getting all of my preferences right.

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    • ryandrake 3 days ago

      > I'm skeptical we save a lot of time with our technology-mediated world. I think I could say "one medium pizza with pepperoni" and hear back "ok it'll be ready in 20 minutes" on a phone call quicker than I can put that order in with a device.

      Apps could beat this in terms of speed, but they don't seem to prioritize it. Every native app and web app I have ever used to do any kind of commerce (not just ordering food) is a grind of tap this, wait, tap that, wait, tap to enter your username, tap to enter your password, tap, tap, tap, wait, wait, wait, do you want these deals?, tap, wait, tap to enter credit card number, tap to enter expiration date, tap to enter ccv code, confirm order, wait, processing, wait...

      I should be able to just invoke my phone's voice assistant function, say "one medium pizza with pepperoni, pick up" and that's it. It already knows where I am, what my usual pizza joint is, what I use to pay, all that. But, we're not there yet for some reason.

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    • nottorp 2 days ago

      In the taxi case the advantage of the app isn't the lack of a phone call, it's not having to explain where you are and where you want to go over said phone call...

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  • maybelsyrup 3 days ago

    You may not agree with it but I fail to see how it’s disingenuous

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