I wonder what someone unfamiliar with modern technology would think when looking at us. I’m not talking about cavemen—maybe just someone from the 80s.
Hey! Stop rolling your eyes. This isn’t one of those look at how far we’ve come articles.
But sometimes it just hits you in the face that we’re so hooked on the latest and greatest technology, that we don’t stop to consider how it will affect us. And by us I mean either our society, or just us lowly peons.
Specifically I’m wondering if the helpful souls that invented the Bluetooth headset, ever stopped to think about what a bunch of idiots we look like when we’re walking around yelling to ourselves.
I have a Bluetooth. I use it while driving, and at the office so I can keep working when I take a call. I remove it during lunch, meetings, personal conversations, and even during long stretches at my desk. But like most people I often forget to remove it, and as soon as I see the eyes of someone I’m talking to darting back and forth from my eyes to the blinking blue light by my right ear, I take it off.
But many—MANY—Bluetooth users never take them off. Frankly, I wonder if they sleep with it on. And most people just haven’t developed the body language to convey that they are talking on the cell phone.
Here’s a tip. If you’re talking to someone on the phone, and not to me, don’t make eye contact with me.
My favorite thing about the headsets is that they make us look like a bunch of nutcases wandering the streets. Most people make a point not to talk to themselves around other people—lest we look insane. But that little earpiece really gets rid of a lot of social awkwardness. The hallway outside my department is routinely littered with people having arguments, personal conversations, and business meetings with…the wall, the door to the breakroom, a person facing them who happens to be in a completely different conversation.
But by far the oddest thing—in fact, what inspired me to write this post—were the two people in the lobby having a meeting over their headsets who didn’t even realize they were in the same room.
We really are a bunch of loonies.
Where Is My Spot? 
I’ve never had one of these. I used to be kind of curious but the nerd in me has lately been hidden. I’m a little shy to admit I’m a nerd and the headset would be way to obvious.
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So when I first came up to Gainesville for college they took you through all these safety courses – campus safety, drug & alcohol safety (that worked really well, btw), etc. I remember one of the counselors telling all the incoming freshman girls in a breakout session “Here’s a great tip – if someone’s following you just start screaming at yourself or talking really loudly like you’re having an argument with someone. Inevitably they think YOU’RE a looney and leave you alone.”
That worked well then.
Now since everyone has these bluetooth doojobbers EVERYONE walks around talking loudly, arguing with an invisible person or just acting random. It takes away the last resort we were all taught.
I guess now if someone is following me or tries to rape me I’ll just have to shoot them in their junk.
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yep A bunch of cyborgs,
i hate it
I use a headset with a cord occasionally. it works just fine – and less brain damage thank you!
here from Netchick
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I think of Bluetooth headsets as merely the first of our Borg implants. “Resistance is futile. You _will_ be assimilated.”
Really, though I work for lawyers, and it is impossible to tell sometimes when I walk into their office with a question, whether they are listening to another person on a phone conversation or free and have simply left their headset on.
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