Things That Cheapen Interruption
Nov 16th, 2007 by Micah Tillman | 8 Comments |
Christine wrote a post yesterday about feeling at home, and how she prefers her encounters with others to flow naturally out of her day. She and I both find a lot of sociality stressful, and would rather not have to worry about it in advance.
I, for one, am afraid of phones, e-mail, and even normal mail. As Morissey said:
I always find when the door bell rings that my automatic response is to hide or run away, to be quiet. They might want you to do something that you don’t want to do, want you to go where you don’t want to go.
I feel the same way about almost all interruptions. For the longest time I’ve been trying to figure out what’s so threatening about non-personal interpersonal communication.
I think it has to do with the fact that the ability to interrupt someone else without being there is bizarrely unnatural. It’s a radical disjunct, a rupture. It’s unsettling that another person can do something to me and yet be absent.
And because a person can act on you while absent from you, she/he can impose obligations on you without your having any say in the matter. She called, so you know you’ve got to eventually call her back. He e-mailed, so you’re expected to respond.
After all, they may need your input to be able to finish what they’re doing, or to decide on what they’re going to do. If you ignore them, you’re messing with them.
There’s something messed up when not messing with someone who messed with you first constitutes messing with them.
(Somehow face-to-face interactions aren’t like this. Or rather, only those face-to-face interactions with people who treat you as someone to talk at, rather than converse with, involve a similar feeling of affront.)
In making it easier for us to interrupt each other — in making it possible for me to interrupt you when I’m not even around — things like mail and telephones cheapen the act of interruption.
I don’t even have to get up and walk across (the room, the hall, the neighborhood, etc.) to put an obligation on you. It costs the interrupter nothing and can cost the interrupted a lot.
(I imagine it’s a good thing that most people in the world don’t see this the same way I do.)
Poor snuggly! It’s hard being a Micah. I hope it doesn’t mind my interruptions too much.
Micah, you’re so weird.
And it’s probably why I like you so much.
Yeah, I kind of resent the fact that people can contact me even when I don’t want them to, and worse I am subsequently OBLIGATED to contact them back.
There’s a prof here at school who doesn’t have voicemail on her cell phone just so she won’t feel that obligation, by the way. That’s one way to deal, I guess!
Scott–
I know. And thank you :-)
Joanna–
Now there’s an idea! Hmmm.
Sometimes I get the urge to become a Luddite, or something. Not quite a Luddite, though, because technology itself doesn’t weird me out. Mail, for instance, isn’t technology.
More like voluntary abstention or something, rather than destroying technology. So like a pacifist Luddite.
For what it’s worth, I don’t own a cellphone precisely so people cannot call me when I’m not at home. However, a great many people seem to derive considerable enjoyment from being able to talk with another person remotely at any time or place. I’ve always assume I’m just more introverted by nature. I don’t feel the same way about email or normal mail, though, probably because I quite enjoy writing.
Nice. I was talking to my students on Wednesday about how luxuries become necessities, and used cell phones as an example. You’ve decided to continue treating them as luxuries, which I approve.
I love writing too, but have never enjoyed writing letters. Letters are too claustrophobic. Only you and the person you’re writing to read them.
Blogs are nicer because they feel more open. You know anybody can read them/see them/join in.
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