Examen 1

Throughout the last couple of centuries, our means of communicating with each other have grown vastly. Where once it was only possible for speech to travel via word of mouth or letter pigeon, we can now communicate with practically anyone anywhere in the world or even just beyond it with just the click of a few buttons. With these new forms of communication methods, the way we interact with one another varies greatly. The first interaction of my day is generally a face to face one with my roommates but today it was with a phone call to my parents. My parents are currently visiting India, so this is the only method of communication that I have with them. Over the phone conversations, in my opinion, are not the ideal way to have an interaction with someone, they are merely for convenience purposes. Without the invention of this method, I would have had little to no commination with my parents for weeks or would have to wait for the pigeon to cross the world. This form gives us access to a person somewhere else but doesn’t give us full access. In my experience holding a conversation on the phone is much more difficult than a face to face one. When talking on the phone I felt that I only did it when I needed something specific from that person at that time, I never really called just to strike up a conversation. The face to face interactions I have with my roommates, on the other hand, are much different. In these cases, I talked to them not because I needed something from them, but rather I just wanted to converse. The conversations with them compared to my parents over the phone are much longer and I feel like I get more out of them.  When speaking to someone over the phone you feel as if you are not with them and that you cannot fully ask them what you want to say. Although you may be talking to that person then and there you aren’t truly with them and do not completely know what they are up to. When you are speaking with someone face to face the interaction is much more complete in that if the person you are conversing with is giving you their attention in its totality at that moment.

The hour that I turned of all my technology for the day actually happened on accident. I was just going about my day when a friend called me up and asked what’s up. My roommates and I weren’t doing anything important in particular, so we decided to head over to their place. After getting there we kind of just sat around and talked for a decent amount of time. I forgot my phone in my room entirely, so I really was really able to do this exercise properly.  In this period well over an hour, I noticed that when sitting in a group setting like the one we were in conversating is extremely easy. There is always someone adding something new or giving a new idea. I struggle to pay attention for a long period and through this exercise, I noticed that I can keep a much longer conversation with someone face to face because I can tell through their body language they are engaged while through the phone my attention goes to other places disengaging myself from the interaction. I also saw that in this setting others generally tend to use their devices less. Generally, someone is always doing something on their phone but when sitting and conversating as we were, I noticed that people only used their phones if someone had contacted them, not simply because they wanted to look at something or scroll through their social; media feeds. Once it became late, we headed back to our room and our own devices.  Once my roommates and I got back to our room I noticed that we all started to use our devices again and didn’t talk to each other as much. We would look up every once and a while and say something, but the continuous talk was not present. For most of my life, I have never been one to communicate in large amounts via cellphone, I would much rather just sit and talk to someone than hold a phone up to my ear or face. When speaking to someone directly I feel, and I can ask almost anything in the realm of conversation while on the phone I need something direct to discuss with them. Over the phone conversations, in my opinion, are meant to talk to someone a good distance away that is not as accessible, if you really want to sit and have a wholehearted conversation with someone, it must be a face to face interaction.