Hello the internet.
I have, however, checked in on how you were getting on,
internet, while I have been away.
I've been watching a lot of your videos, around 86% of
which would totally change your opinion of me, and cause the public Wi-Fi
hotspot you're using to block my blog. However pornography and animals that
think they're peoples aside (those are two separate types of video before you
go and make a thing) there have been some actually thought provoking videos (no
that Russell Brand Newsnight interview doesn't count but we'll discuss that
some other time).
In the last couple of days I've seen the following video
posted on Facebook several times by my friends. The title of the blog linked to
on Facebook is "After I saw this, I put my phone down and didn't pick it
up for the rest of the day..." I was intrigued. Could I really be
persuaded to put my phone down for a day?
Let's see.
Well, first of all, I did put my phone down after watching
it. If the title is a statement about the shoddy battery life on a Nokia Lumia
800, this is a pretty good video that highlights the inability to watch 2
minutes of YouTube while signed into Facebook chat.
My next thought is, bit preachy. I mean if a preacher were
to get up and preach to a class about the correct way of preaching that would
be a little less preachy than this video. What it's trying to say of course is
that mobile phones are terrible. The fact that I watched this on my phone and,
I suspect, some of my friends did and then we used our phones to spread the
message is an ironic side effect charstarleneTV was probably hoping nobody
would notice. I only hope for her sake this wasn't filmed on a phone too.
I find myself constantly being told that people use their
phones too much or that my more mature friends are quitting Facebook because it’s
boring. It's not boring. No way is it boring. It’s an interconnected database
of millions of people sharing their lives, loves, opinions, sorrows, faux
sorrows that seem important when you're in sixth form, campaigns for the least appropriate people to be prime minister, photos,
friendships, jobs, relationships, jokes about the natural disaster or celebrity
who has just died, music and films if all that seems boring to you then you probably have boring
friends. Look, I think there should be rules to this. Remember if you're on
Facebook, you're talking to the world (or at least the very small percentage of
it you were talking to at a house party six years ago) and try to make it
interesting. The cliché that we don’t need to know what Stephen Fry had for breakfast is true but if he’d rearranged his Alphabetti Spaghetti into the sentence “hold the newsreader’s
nose squarely waiter or friendly milk will countermand my trousers” with a
sausage and fried egg as an exclamation mark then that might be worth sharing
with the world.
There are some things Facebook isn’t great
for. “Oh no, they’ve broken up. They were such a lovely couple. Oh that must be
horrible for them, nobody likes to see a relationship collapse. Oh spoke to
soon, 37 people like it apparently. An odd number? Is that more of her friends
or his? Better like it or she might win.” And as for your thoughts on Sherlock series 3 internet, I need to
have a word with you about that sometime. But broadly speaking it’s a lot of
fun with friends who I barely get to see and links to the most amusing news,
views and mews (you guys are obsessed with cats!).
I’m worried that the woman in this video
may be one of the boring friends that Facebook just doesn’t work for. This next
bit is mostly intended for her:
In one scene in your video you go bowling
and are disappointed to see all of your friends on their phones. You knocked
down three pins, bitch I'm not standing up for anything less than a spare! At
the start you're in bed with your boyfriend and he's checking his phone,
apparently having a well-read boyfriend who catches up with the news first
thing is a turn off, that's fine, but it’s not exactly like you're doing
anything to hold this guy’s interest. A simple good morning kiss might get him
off the phone, lying there like you're dead he probably thinks you're asleep.
If you're the kind of person who gets annoyed by phone use, don't go do your
dramatic sunrise watching next to a fella shouting down his phone. He was there
first. At dinner with your friends, they weren't all on their phones before you
started your anecdote. Sorry, you're boring.
As part of the first generation that grew
up with mobile phones I was always told that phones were ruining children's
minds in the same way that previous generations were told the wireless set was
ruining the children's minds or dancing was ruining children's minds or dying
in factories during the industrial revolution was ruining children's minds and
the reason everyone gave: "oh that text messaging is ruining communication
skills." We were the generation that had the newest, quickest, best
communication machines since (well since the fax machine but that's a bit
undramatic) since ever! And we even invented our own brand new language 2 speak
on it and we were told it was ruining communication. Wtf? Lol.
I'm sure there are people who said that
combine harvesters were ruining people's farming ability, the wheel bred a
generation of people who were less good at walking, the first generation with
coins were less good at decision making. Prior to the invention of phones
children's pet snakes hardly ever found their food before eating their own
tails. Phones make the world better.
Look there are times and places where you
should ignore your phone. Ignore is the wrong word. Don’t be that dick whose
phone goes off at a play and tries to pretend it’s not them. You're the only
person in the theatre who thinks people won't know it’s you if you ignore it.
Everyone else knows already. We can’t hate you anymore for turning it off. Same
goes for at a funeral, though then I would appreciate it if you answered the
phone and shouted "stop!! Open the coffin!!"
Tweeting along to Question Time opens debate up and encourages political engagement,
furthering Question Time's goal of holding
politicians to account. If you do it wrong anyway, if you do it right its
retweeting everyone's clever ways of pointing out how backwards David Starkey
is, appreciating Bio-Dimbleby's tie and making fun of the glasses of the man
who asked the serious climate change question. We need to tweet during #xfactor
to make it bearable. I've had so many brief and meaningless chats with
strangers as a result of mocking a talented youngster for the death of her
granddad, if that makes the world a worse place...probably not a good example.
I draw the line at tweeting drama though.
If I have to explain the plot of Sherlock to you coz you missed a bit,
I'd better not then flick through your twitter and find you were loving
Cumberbatch's hair this week and wanted the world to know. And can we please
not tweet to BBC3? The finale of Being
Human was amazeballs but nothing ruins a teary moment a writer spent ages
worrying about like @SexyVampFan93 saying so over the end credits.
The whole filming a concert/comedy show is
a bit of a difficult one. People always say that you should enjoy the moment
rather than watching it down a screen. My tablet is HD though, so I wanna see
the show as clearly as I can.
I find it kills the mood a bit when
everyone has their phones out. It can never capture the mood or the atmosphere
of the show and for comedians it can ruin the jokes if everyone can find them
online first without the context. How am I supposed to steal jokes of acts that aren't famous yet
if some twat is posting them on YouTube?
I don’t think you should post it on
YouTube by the way. You look like you have Parkinson's disease and your friend
singing along will sound 10 times louder than the band and not half as good - unless its
Justin Bieber, downside of phones is post that on Twitter and I'll get badly
written deaf freats.
I'm not a fan of filming shows myself. I
get too caught up in the moment, and at comedy gigs it must put off the acts,
but I get people's desire to have a permanent reminder or a great concert. I've
enjoyed a lot of unique performances, seen a lot of impro and things that went
wrong, it's kinda sad that I won’t be able to see that again. But me losing my
shit when Suggs joined The Horne Section was better for not having to pick up
bits of my broken phone off the floor when my body had stopped working properly
and just started shaking and screaming like a 12-year-old girl who got McBusted
tickets for Christmas. A few days later, during The Horne Section's Edinburgh
show there was a fire alarm and everyone from all the shows in the Pleasance
had to be evacuated and this happened. So someone captured a unique gig that
would never happen again, unless there was an arsonist who hated Alex Horne.
Recently I did a very cool thing. I went
to the Shard in London. After admiring the view a bit and making some jokes
which spoilt the majestic atmosphere (it’s what I do), I got out my phone and
tweeted a picture of Tower Bridge. Ok, phones may have destroyed the business of
the official photographer, but maybe it’s because of Snapchat and the limited
life of photos these days that they can try and charge me £25 quid for a photo
of myself in the gift shop, on the grounds it will last forever. Also, in the video
woman’s defence, half an hour before and 310 metres lower, me and Leigh were
both staring at maps on our phone discussing which way the tallest building in
London was as everyone passing saw it tower above our heads. So I will concede
that phones are not as good as eyes. But then eyes have been around for years
and the bugs have been ironed out. Remember when we were living in the sea and
we couldn’t see more than 3 megapixels?
 |
| Tower Bridge from The Shard. Tower. Ha. It has no idea what a tower is. |
I think phones are great and I'm tired of
being told otherwise. They're not worth losing your real life over, and they’re
not as great as eyes, but they can complement real life nicely. They're good
for sharing experiences. I have a camera on me at all times now. And if you
can't appreciate the sunrise because someone is tweeting #sunriseisgay near you
then that's your problem. If someone filming a concert means they're not living
in the moment and letting go and having a crazy time, well judging them isn't
exactly the wildest way to go either. Ignore them and dance like you don’t care
if you do end up a YouTube sensation and practice on the Wii before you go
bowling next.
Please note: all opinions in this blog are
true (or funnier than the truth) at time of writing. They are all subject to
change next time I hear that Samsung message tone that's like someone
whistling. Seriously that freaked me out for months before I realised it was a
phone, still I like my baggy clothes and thicker curtains now.
