Technology and I are friends. We are. Unfortunately, we’re also on really rough terms lately. It seems that, with the introduction and assimilation of technology into our culture, the manners and etiquette that I’d expect from people is just going farther and farther away. If you ask my mother, it’s just the new generation and how they were raised. While that might be a part of it, I do think a large part of it also has to do with all of the technology and how impersonally we relate to people at times.

Sometimes I feel abandoned when I want to obey some etiquette rules that I was taught as a child. My mother always told me that it was rude to request food while at another person’s house – even if you were hungry. If you were offered food, you could nibble, but it would be rude to pig out on food. People now come to my apartment and go straight into my kitchen and pull out their own food to eat. If I offer them food, they’ll sometimes finish off the entire box! My boyfriend tells me not to worry or think so far into it, but I feel like it’s just rude or something.

Don’t get me wrong – I love technology. I couldn’t live without my laptop and my internet. (Or EdenFantasys for that matter.) I instant message quite a bit, and while I only text occasionally, I do have one of those “smartphones” that allows me to basically carry around a mini-computer. (I actually bought the smartphone just so I could keep up on e-mail. It’s like an obsession.) Despite my addiction to my laptop, I still never feel like it impedes my life. I also feel like it hasn’t changed how I interact with people – at least, not in terms of my etiquette. I know that using “LOL” while speaking is just stupid. I also know that using technology is never the way to break up with someone. I do. I know all of the rules. I still feel like technology has changed our society for the worse sometimes though.

Take college, for example. In high school, the classes were smaller (at least for me), so teachers could police it more, but in college, it’s gone rampant. During my lectures, people just sit there and text their friends. Some of them even have the audacity to turn their phone on vibrate or on low just so they don’t miss a text message. Of course, all of this comes at the sacrifice of the people near them since I can hear that vibrating noise every time they receive a text message. With laptops now allowed into lecture halls, I’ve watched countless movies over someone’s shoulder during a lecture. What would you rather watch? “Theories of Thermal Dynamics” or “South Park” – even if the “South Park” is on mute? Even if I have no interest in actually watching the show, the moving of the picture out of the corner of my eye is beyond distracting.

If we ignore how it effects me, we can still think about how it would effect the professor. After all, this guy goes through a lot of time to prepare his lecture and be ready to present it, so you can learn something. He gets to look up to see his students napping, a group of them focused on laptops, or a lot of others staring down at their lap. I’m sure he feels like his time is being well-respected. (Though I don’t feel too horribly bad since he is paid for it, but it’s still never nice to disrespect someone.)

Where things like this really get me is during more social meetings like at our local kink group. I’ve done quite a few presentations at the local kink group, and you know what’s infuriating? A couple people brought their laptops and were having a gaming tournament in the back of the room. Other people were sitting there fidgeting with their phones in their laps. How can I feel like I’m spending my time wisely? More importantly, why in the world did you people come if you’re just going to sit there and do the same thing you’d do at home? I know you enjoy the social aspect, but then sit and enjoy the social aspect. Don’t sit there on your phone texting someone who is somewhere else.

This entire rant comes to a head from a conversation I had with someone last night. I consider myself a bitch – a sarcastic, cynical bitch. However, that’s not to say I don’t have manners. I’ll think it, I’ll gossip about it with the boyfriend, but if it isn’t appropriate, I will not say it to your face just for the sake of hurting you. I also will not pretend to like you if I don’t. We had someone over to our house yesterday since I was feeling social-able. I spent the entire night arguing with this guy. No matter what I said, he wanted to argue. If it was about things like the weather or the state of the economy, it’d be annoying – but not rude. However, it was about personal things. I mentioned I did like fighting games. He called me an idiot and said that fighting games are so much more educational than simulation games, so games other than fighting games aren’t worth playing. I said that I thought that my credit score was much more important than pretending to be friendly to net friends – he said that I sucked at living. I mentioned that I didn’t find myself a social person, and later in the conversation, mentioned that my mother was having a hard time right now because she felt lonely, and her husband was gone. His response? “There’s you in your future since you can’t seem to manage to live right.”

I was so close to throwing this guy out of my apartment at multiple points. I have nothing wrong with a differing opinion. There’s even nothing wrong about having an opinion on some one’s life choices. Coming into some one’s house with a “I’m completely right!” attitude and spending the entire night insulting someone? That’s wrong. After having these conversations to spend the next hour playing a video game by yourself on the couch while the other two people politely wait for you to finish to play a game with you? That’s rude.

Maybe it does have something to do with the technology. I have no idea. It just amazes me how people relate to other anymore; it also amazes me about the etiquette. This might have something to do with how relationships seem to be failing left and right lately. We all go into relationships expecting a lot, but lacking in the communication skills to actually make things work. Maybe I’m just uptight, but if uptight means uploading a standard of etiquette, skip keeping that stick up my butt – I’ll just take the forest, thankyouverymuch.