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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 6324455" data-attributes="member: 18">Further thoughts:I feel like technology which is successful is generally moving AWAY from disrupting normal social gatherings, rather than towards disrupting it more. Smartphones cause less of a disruption than laptops, or even really mobiles (because the options for none-immediate communication are better).Laptops were disruptive, in my experience, less because of what was on them, and more because of their physical presence and requirements - they were relatively large, taking up a lot of tablespace (even netbooks), they were fragile (requiring a lot more care around them than other devices), and they were very power-hungry - if they weren't plugged in they were often running out of batteries, or had to be constantly opened/closed to keep their charge, and if they were plugged in, they suddenly had a trip-inducing lead which, unless you had one with a quick-release (and even those aren't 100% - I've seen an Apple one fail to release leading to flying laptop, before), meant even more care and annoyance.So their largely being replaced by phones and tablets which can easily outlast our normal sessions has been a huge benefit. Modern stuff like Twitter seems to be less disruptive than texts.Further examples, albeit more theoretical. I think one reason Google Glass has failed (ignoring privacy/creeper stuff) is that it's disruptive to normal social stuff, in that it's this big thing on your face (very unlike actual glasses in shape), and which you can't easily share with others in the way you can with handing round a phone with a picture or whatever, so it disrupts the experience. Whereas I reckon the Android Watches, which make it even easier to get notifications without getting one's phone out, will actually reduce disruption further.My brother lives in Australia, and we've tried to have him join us in games via Skype, but that's been a huge disruption, because we constantly have to move around the laptop or tablet (and balance the latter) so he can see/hear stuff properly. If he had some kind of actual telepresence thing, where he could move a camera himself, and with better sound pickup, I think that'd be actually vastly less disruptive, even though it's "more tech", as it were.On multitasking - I'm sure it does reduce ability, but I don't find people switch back and forth to the point of causing an issue. One could also make an interesting argument that 4E's "Look at your powers on your sheet" design causes multi-tasking issues (I don't know that I'd agree, but I think the same issue is potentially occurring).</blockquote>

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