MINI CASE Smartphones: Promoting Communication Connectedness or Disconnectedness? while on a date, while in the shower, and even in the middle of any of us feel naked without our smartphones. They keep religious services and funerals. Ninety percent of respondents teams, and social media groups. Most people keep their phones admit to texting while eating, and 80 percent said they text right in their pocket so that the phone is readily available to while using the washroom, and neither of these locations was check the time, check the weather, check social media, check considered an inappropriate texting setting. Texting during a transit schedules, take photos and videos, and on, and on, and face-to-face conversation with someone, during a movie, and on. Smartphones entertain, fill gaps in our day, and demand during class were all deemed inappropriate texting settings, our attention with an endless string of notifications. Smart- but students admitted to frequently sending texts during these phones offer a convenient alternative to face-to-face conversa- times. "People calling, texting and responding to e-mails at tions, and at times they interrupt the conversations we do have. inappropriate times and places have become an issue in both a professional and business context." The Wall Street Journal Interestingly, with all that smartphones can do to facilitate communications, they have also undermined verbal communi- reports cation and promoted incivility in the communications process. SOURCES.. De Autu, "The Unused Cellphone App: Calling." The Wall Street Journal (Eastem edition), February 24,2010:01:5. HI. "Are Smartphones Kiting the Art of Face-to-face Conversation? We Ask the Expert "Friends hardly call each other. People resist protocols that https://www.digitaltrend.com/mobile/art-smartphones-cally-killing-the-art-of-conversation. More call for verbal communication....People don't like using their College Students Admit Texting in the Most Inappropriate Places" CS News, https://www.ch.com/ news/college students admit testing in the most inappropriate places; B. Pachtet, "Mind Your Busines phones to make calls or listen to voice mails."Texting seems to Manden: Etiquette Suggestions for Success. CPM Proctice Management Forum 6(5) May 2010): 163 page) be the preferred mode, especially for younger people, when communicating with others. Apply Your Understanding People use their phones as a shield to protect them from 1. Can the basic interpersonal communication model be having to have difficult, embarrassing, or emotional conversa- used as an aid in understanding the impact of smart- tions: People use Facebook to notify friends and family about phone usage? If so, how? engagements, births, and even deaths and funerals. People end relationships via text, or use Twitter to vent complaints against 2. How have smartphones transformed the way in which companies and service providers. college and university students communicate? College students in a recent survey indicated that they send and receive more than 100 messages every day, and check for messages more than 16 times an hour. They admit to texting 3. Do you think that as people become more connected technologically they become less connected interperson- ally? Why or why not