1929: Argument Timing

|< < Prev Comic #1929 (December 15, 2017) Next > >|

Argument Timing

Title text: Of course, everyone has their own profile. There are morning arguers, hangry arguers, meal-time arguers, late-night arguers, and people who get in a meta-argument over what their argument timing is, dredge up examples of past arguments, and end up fighting over THOSE again as well.

Explanation

This comic comments on how (a) the prevalence of using mobile devices in bed, combined with (b) burgeoning use of social media, especially Facebook, has increased the potential for conflict by encouraging early morning and late night communications, when those involved may not be at their most clear-headed.

Before mobile devices were common, the ability to argue on-line usually ended when a person left their computer to go to bed. Before social media was common, arguments with friends would mostly occur in person or during a phone call. The 'old-fashioned' cycle for arguing suggests that the odds start at near zero, because most people didn't interact with others immediately after waking up unless they lived together, and even then were unlikely to get in arguments first thing in the morning. The frequency increased as the day went on, with peaks at breakfast, lunch and dinner, and a final peak in the evening. This likely indicates that people would frequently share meals with friends and loved ones, then spend time together in the evenings, meaning those times had the most potential for conflict. As the evening ended, the odds fell away dramatically, becoming very low by bedtime, and effectively zero immediately afterward.

The red line, indicating argument frequency with mobile devices and social media, has a similar trend, but is distorted by massive peaks between waking up and getting out of bed, and then between going to bed and going to sleep. This suggests that, in Munroe's experience, most relationship-ending arguments in modern times happen over social media and electronic communication, while still in bed. It's not clear whether this indicates people primarily using their devices in bed, or just that people tend to get into arguments more while posting in bed (possibly making less inhibited and diplomatic comments due to fatigue). It could also be that people objecting to their partners using social media in bed is also contributing to the number of arguments. Interestingly, this line indicates the chances of conflict in the mobile/Facebook era remains above zero for a short time after one goes to sleep. This may suggest that Randall sometimes falls asleep while writing a social media post but finishes it while sleep-typing, or it may be that he is prone to sending out ill-considered messages just before going to sleep, which are only later picked up, unwelcomed, by the recipient.

The title text talks about different types of arguers, saying that some people argue more at certain times, or in certain states. "Hangry" is a portmanteau of "hungry" and "angry", meaning bad-tempered or irritable as a result of hunger.

490: Morning Routine covers similar ground to this comic.

Transcript

[Shown is a curved time plot. There is a black line, marked "Before Smartphones and Facebook" and a red line marked "After." On the y-axis the label reads "Odds of getting in a friendship-ending argument." while there is no scale shown. On the x-axis, at uneven intervals some times of the day are marked as "Wake up", "Get out of bed", "Breakfast", "Lunch", "Dinner", "Go to bed", and "Fall asleep."]

[With the exception of "Waking up" and "Falling asleep", the red line is slightly lower than the black line. Directly after "Waking up" and during the interval between "Going to bed" and "Falling asleep", the black line is near zero while the red line peaks.]

 add a comment! ⋅  add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅  refresh comments!

Discussion

In addition to the many arguments that might occur through early morning or late night texting, it is also possible that a lot of arguments occur at those times because the facebook and texting activities at those hours interfere with normal healthy life activity and start with one's partner saying something like, "put the phone away and go to sleep". Rtanenbaum (talk) 16:54, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Hopefully someone more talented in maths can calculate if the integrals are identical 🤔 162.158.93.21 16:56, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

The graph doesn't say if the probability is per unit time (eg per day), per friendship or per failed friendship. Only in the last case would the integral be 1. For the others you might expect the total probability to be higher now than it was, because it's so much easier.141.101.104.161 22:12, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

I would expect the integral under the red line to be much higher - Facebook and like have cheapened the meaning of friendship to the point I don't even KNOW a lot of my so called friends162.158.126.64 00:30, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Gonna be honest, expected a Net Neutrality comic. DPS2004'); DROP TABLE users;-- (talk) 17:04, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

And this is why I don't use Facebook. ----

A non-zero value after going to sleep doesn't necessarily imply sleep-typing. It could be that he's sending messages just before going to sleep, which then aren't being received by the other party until later.141.101.76.16 08:44, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

To react on the "sleep typing" part, and the "receive during the night"/"read while the other is asleep" argument. I think the comic rather highlights the fact a lot of people keep typing on their phones while in bed, or start the day by typing a bit before getting up, while in both cases being "perfectly" awake. This might even be a moment of very strong activity as there is nothing else to do - unlike during lunch breaks or work. Additionally, since more and more people start typing during their pauses, they diminish the chances of having an argument in direct conversation. likewise they don't type so much strong stuff while having others around, in order to remain sort of social. 172.69.54.147 17:09, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

It's not just 'sleep typing' or delays in receiving messages (note, that due to snail mail, etc., this should have always been a non-zero rate-of-occurrence) modern social media allows us to get into friendship ending arguments even when neither party is conscious simultaneously much more easily than was ever possible before, as seen by the many, many arguments that occur through short utterances, issued at a rate between that of face-to-face verbal communication and postal missive. For example, Party A can discover an old remark that Party 1 made, quite sometime previously, on one of their 'walls,' and respond to it, prompting a response from Part 1...in this manner, the two Parties could have quite the heated argument, with a facility and fevor difficult to match with olde fashion pen-and-ink-and-Pony-Express methods, and easily destroy a friendship with far greater efficiency than our less advantaged forebears. -172.68.54.4 05:01, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

I like that the timeline ends after he goes to bed, as it should be (and not at midnight, like so many stupid calendar apps do). --172.68.54.76 04:14, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Outside of the waking-up and falling-asleep periods, does this mean that arguments have gone down since the rise of social media, or are the red and black lines adjusted to the total number of arguments per day? WingedCat (talk) 23:10, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Considering that Randall seems to have the most offline arguments at dinner, should we recommend a marriage counselor?173.245.48.153 04:13, 21 December 2017 (UTC)