Technoblivious
Ok so I’ll give you an example. A 17 stone (238lb or 108kg) 6’3” bloke rushing through a busy city centre to catch a train that is always rammed (think Tokyo tube and you get the idea). He’s watching the traffic (cars and people) to make sure he doesn’t barge anyone when a particularly large flock of people migrate into his path. He’s got a problem, slow down (and miss his train) and very slowly negotiate his way round or rely on the fact that he’s very large and therefore very visible and hope that people use those two fleshy balls in the front of their face to see him and also try and avoid barging.
So he plugs for the second one, however he forgot to factor in Technoblivion. This is my new term to describe the way that mobile technology (phones, pda’s, ipods to name a few) captures your awareness so completely that you are unaware of what is happening around you.
We’re getting closer to the milling flock, accountants, lawyers and shop workers are milling around trying to figure out what they want to do. Vast quantities of stored energy are being wasted on faceblogtwittering emails as they get closer and closer to the bloke.
Then “Wham”, collision with a fragile looking businessman who suddenly looks up, terrified that this human behemoth that appears to have deliberately assaulted his personal space is going to cause him so form of verbal or physical harm. Stammered apologies and seconds later he’s on his way, still twitterblogbooking and not having learned a damn thing from the experience.
Ok so not really a very abstract example really. Yes I collide with people a lot as I try to navigate my way out of these concrete hellholes that most people call cities. And interestingly enough I do not, I repeat DO NOT try And collide with these people. Quite often there is nowhere else to go. I can’t get out of the way, and I do try but in the end I just can’t seem to avoid the three out of five people who think that it is safe to textwebsurf whilst walking around, crossing roads, shopping and generally conducting their lives.
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