One of the things that drives children, especially teenagers, crazy about adults is our poor memories, which lead to us repeating ourselves. The problem gets worse as we get older. Since our phones are always listening (and sending the audio back to Vladimir Putin’s office?), why not have our phones keep track of everything that we’ve ever said to everyone. The phone can then vibrate if we’re advising a younger person of something that we’ve already noted. For the fifth repetition and beyond, perhaps a Bluetooth shock band can zap us. This could reduce embarrassment for adults and improve relations between adults and teenagers.
Readers: What do you think? Useful?
Except that teens rarely pay attention to first iteration by their rents
good idea, as long as we can configure it to skip vibration when a story starts with “How many times did I tell you?”
I have found that conscious attention to this very problem works well in solving it. By being attentive to what I say and to whom I say it, I repeat myself much less.
Perhaps our over-reliance on technology as a social tool has weakened our innate social abilities. Why walk when you can drive?
You could human turk the problem. Hire a midget to follow you around and shock you when you repeat yourself. Hire another midget to monitor your monitoring midget, to zap him anytime he either wrongly zaps you or fails to zap you. This makes your system heuristic. The more little people you employ, the smarter the system. This allows you to be followed around by iterations of angry dwarves with stun guns, for the sake of self improvement.
Assuming that children’s memory is better than that of adults, would it be simpler to just design a bluetooth shock band, with a handheld switch for activation given to children, to be used at their discretion?
Birch branches make a very good handheld switch. They used to be used in the training of wives and children. Behavioural therapy requires something heftier with men. Or just rub their noses in whatever mess they make.