Hanging out with a different group of friends last night, the bleed-over from conversation to phone-scrolling only happened a couple of times. Which isn't that bad.

What got me though, was that at the end of the last one, two people were sharing some pic in real life that they had shared together online; re-inforcing their relationship. Since our social network venn diagrams don't intersect, there was no photo for me (insert forever alone pic ;).

I hadn't felt that twinge of exclusion in a while, so I savored it. Someone had taken my brain out and put it into my high-school-aged body with its comfortably familiar toxic neurochemical soup. Though only for a split second.

Which was disquieting enough that I went into Rant Mode, trolling my friends for the rest of the evening because I was afraid of another episode of phone-scrolling.

[permalink] First - I apologize for falling off the face of the planet. Email forthcoming this weekend. Second - this reminded me of http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.09/nokia_pr.html Specifically - well, I can't seem to find it now - but I remember some sidebar alongside the article talking about the social dynamics blending the pervasiveness of texting between teens infringing on social norms - and that one person would get a text and show their screen to another person in the group, excluding the others. I wonder what the Victorian era one was - maybe showing a calling card left for oneself to another at the poker table? - Ryan

[permalink] Perhaps the inside joke / comment for 100 years ago? Good read, that. I'll post more on the ideas in that article in a bit. -- Patrick