cell phones and planning skills

[Kyle]

I have noticed somthing lately.

I just turned 20, and so I come from the first generation of %95 kids having cell phones from day 1 of high school at the very latest. I think during high school I was the only person I even loosely associated with who did not have one.

I didnt get my first cell phone until I was 18 and ready to go to college.

My friends always make comments about how "anal" I am about planning ahead. I do not think I am anal about this, however, I simply think their constant and long-term dependance on cell phones makes them totaly unfamiliar with and suspicious of planning ahead.

A simple example of this? Before I go to work, I tell my roomate, his girlfriend and my girlfriend that we should go out and do somthing after I get off.  Let's say I meet you guys at the movie theater and we catch a movie. Ok? Ok. This is the end of their interest in the subject, and I am left standing there.

Dont you think we should pick a time to meet?
No, just call when your leaving work.

Dont you think we should pick a theater?
No, call after work.

Dont you think we should decide which movie, or showing?
No, I will call movie phone in the car.

On and on and on.

This usualy results in nobody being on time or in the right place or with the same idea in mind. This is a regular occurance and only one example.

This is entirely different from how my family operates. I suspect this has somthing to do with my family's late entry into the cell phone game.

Cell phones will be the end of us all.

[Art Eatman]

Find some new friends.  Find some folks who give thought to the future, who don't wake up every morning to a totally new world.

The cell phone may facilitate the behavior of which you speak, but the "disease" is built in.

Children live in the "Now"; adults look to what's ahead.  It doesn't matter if it's the long-term of life itsownself or an evening's entertainment.

Art

[TarpleyG]

Cell phones will be the end of us all.

This, I agree with 100%.

Greg

[Bogie]

I concur - those guys will be 35 years old, working at their local Starbucks, and bitching about The Man...

That said, I'm guilty... Then again, I'm one of those folks with the Cell Phone From Hell... keyboard, etc., etc... I'll get into the "time we're gonna meet" (which gets alarmed...), but I also probably wouldn't pick a movie until actually en route...
 
Or we'd just go to The Bunker, where one doesn't have to deal with screaming children, there's over 5,000 watts of surround sound, the popcorn is always freshly popped (in coconut oil!) and the beer tap in the back of the theater is open to all guests...

[Mabs2]

I'm 19 and still don't have a cell phone.
I have one of those pre-paid phones for when I really need it...but many they're expensive.

[mfree]

I have a cell phone. I barely touch it.

It's a snazzy upscale model with all the bells and whistles, and what do I use it for?

1. It tells time synchronized with a decent source. It's what I reference to reset all my clocks after a power outage.
2. It's my only phone, and even then gets used maybe once every few days
3. about once every 3-4 months I get a text message
4. When I'm lost, there's 411 or the web access to mapquest.

That's it. Of course I could go on about my reliance on internet messaging but I digress...

[Kyle]

Ah, you have one with a keyboard?

I had a friend with one of those in high school.

Well, we were friends until she got that. Because she would constantly pull it out in the middle of a conversation and start typing on it and then out it back down. She would do this every couple of minutes, no matter how important our conversation was. She did it like taking a breath.

I stopped hanging out with her at that point. And she was cute, and before she got that I was thinking about steping it up a notch, so you KNOW it was bad.

Art, thats the thing. Theyr not burnouts. They go to the same university as me, theyr active on campus, they get good grades and have a definite plan for themselves. I think its just that they lack the basic planning skills the previous generation had. I dont mean they cannot plan what courses to take to get them to the degree they want, that they can do. Long-term and real important is fine.

But simple crap like me and my roomate going to HEB to buy groceries, he cant wrap his head around saying "We'll go at 9PM."

[roo_ster]

Malice:

Find more on-the-ball buddies or resign yourself to forever being "Mr. Logistics" in your group.  You'll be the guy who, if y'all take a road trip to somewhere, keeps the others from being locked outside the hotel, hungry, naked, and cold.

Forethought and planning are things that mature people do.  Thinking through a chain of actions & consequences before execution is not anal.  Neither is planning to attain a goal.  Could be dinner, movie, or 4-year degree.  Spending a bit of time on front-end planning saves time at the end of the day.

[TMM]

here's a thought from the other side:

Sometimes things get caught up, and youre left waiting at the movie theater and no one's around. maybe somthing has to be played by ear, because the sceduleing would be affected by a somewhat unknown arrival time.

jus' somthing to chew on.

~tmm

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Think about it from the other side.  Why lock yourself into a set of plans that may not prove ideal, given changing circumstances and objectives?  It simply makes more sense to use the tools at hand, including the cell phone, to build some flexibility into your plans.  By refusing to use any of the readily available resources, you're arbitrarily hamstringing yourself.

Take your example about going to the movies after work.  You could make hard plans in the morning to be at a given theatre at a given time, all so that you can avoid using the cell phone after work.  But what happens if one of you has to stay late at work and wants to see the movie at a later time?  What happens if the theatre you've picked is sold out and you need to go somehwere else to see your movie?  Without using the cell phones your plans fall apart.

*expletive deleted*it happens.  Be flexible.  The cell phone is an incredibly powerful tool that makes plans simpler, more convinent, and more robust.  They INCREASE your ability to formulate and carryout plans.  But only if you're willing to use them properly and sensibly.

You're friends are right, you are anal.  They want to take full advantage of the tools at hand to better formulate their plans and activities.  You're refusing to make that possible.

[Sindawe]

Find more on-the-ball buddies or resign yourself to forever being "Mr. Logistics" in your group.  You'll be the guy who, if y'all take a road trip to somewhere, keeps the others from being locked outside the hotel, hungry, naked, and cold.

I can second that opinion.  Among my group of friends in meat-space, *I'm* the one who historically did the planning for stuff.  What date, who's house, what spot in the woods to shoot, etc....  It gets OLD after a while, and I stopped doing it.  Now group activities are less frequent and less well organized.

Forethought and planning are things that mature people do.  Thinking through a chain of actions & consequences before execution is not anal.  Neither is planning to attain a goal.  Could be dinner, movie, or 4-year degree.  Spending a bit of time on front-end planning saves time at the end of the day.

  Too true.  My immediate family does not plan ahead, so just about EVERYTHING is ends up being a crisis of some sort.  One that *I* usually have to sort out. : banghead :