Tonight I was driving to pick up the boys from Scouts when I had an idea. What if a person used video clips of various kinds of phone behavior to gauge perceptions of acceptable vs. rude? Is it obnoxious to play a video at full volume in a waiting room? Is it acceptable for someone to cut you off mid-sentence? What if they've warned you up front that they're expecting an urgent call?
I'd predict that there would be pronounced age effects. I'd also predict that people who have trouble reading social cues (people on the spectrum, people with social communicative disorder) would be more likely to produce inconsistent responses. I am really curious about how people perceive the rules that govern this new facet of social interaction. I was thinking to myself, "This could be useful for teaching students about older adults' perceptions of attentiveness and impoliteness. Wonder if I could get a grant if I wrote it from that angle? It's an increasingly important aspect of pragmatics, after all."
Suddenly I realized that the person behind me was trying to edge around on my right. I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I was going about 27 in a 30 mph zone, and the other driver had had enough. (Wonder if he thought I was texting and driving?)
So I'm interested: what scenarios would you include? What are your hot buttons? What kinds of differences have you observed?
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