According to Claire Cain Miller's article, most people who lack cell phones are "older or less educated Americans or those unable to afford phones." Says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, "These are people who have a bunch of other struggles in their lives and the expense of maintaining technology and mastering it is also pretty significant for them." So basically, if you don't have a cell phone you must have bad problems. Unless of course you're among the 5% of non-cell phone users who, as in so many other areas of life, become cool by simulating those with actual problems. These are the refuseniks.

They are neither too poor to afford a phone nor too stressed to learn to operate one. They just don't want you to call them. Gregory Han says, "It's a luxury not to be reached when I'm out and about." The writer/editor doesn't even have a landline, and when he travels for work he has to provide his employers with a detailed list of ways to reach him, raising the question of how he still has a job. Jenna Catsos thinks being reachable via cell phone is "scary," and prefers handwritten letters. But she's also only 22, so this sounds like an affectation of youth. She says she'll probably need a cell phone soon, because she'll be couch-surfing — maybe lacking both an apartment and a cell phone is too close to actually being poor.

Gawker helpfully categorizes the cell-phone refuseniks into a few groups, including "people who are so incredibly important that the world will bend over backwards to find them when it needs them" and "people who are total jackasses." In my totally jaundiced view, most refuseniks think they're the former, but are actually the latter. Not having a cell phone is like a much less dire version of not getting your kids vaccinated — you still benefit from other people's willingness to do what you eschew. Yes, not having a cell phone makes it harder for you to reach other people, as well as for them to reach you — but if all your friends have cell phones, you can always stop by a pay phone and call them, no matter where they are. Your life is made more convenient by other people's decision to allow the "scary" intrusion of reachability. Of course, there are probably those who barely even use pay phones, who find all phone conversation outside the boudoir to be beneath them. These are people like that dude who tells you how much he wishes he could spend a year living in the woods without the burden of human contact. Having to talk to you is really rough on him, and he wants you to know it.

As you might be able to tell, a few bad experiences have caused me to associate not having a cell phone with being a holier-than-thou dickwad. But. When I came to New York, I discovered that my phone didn't work in my apartment. After a fruitless eBay transaction — the next time I feel like buying electronics on eBay, I'm just going to stand in the middle of the sidewalk wearing a "kick me" sign instead — I sort of gave up, and resigned myself to keeping up with my friends via Skype, or while sitting in the park. It was kind of like the opposite of not having a cell phone — I could only talk while I was out. But since I don't hear very well, I didn't do much of that either, and my cell phone use plummeted. Then, last weekend, I found myself telling someone at a party: "Yeah, I don't really have a phone." He looked at me with a new respect, and I have to admit, I felt pretty fucking cool. Then the next day I went out and bought an iPhone.

The Cell Refuseniks, An Ever-Shrinking Club [NYT]
Cellphone Non-Users: An Ethnographic Study [Gawker]

Elizabeth Bernstein opened for peace with the charming tale of two men having a heart to heart — about motorcycle oil. She writes,

It's no big secret that men don't share their emotions easily. Numerous research studies-and millions of baffled women-can attest to that.

But is it really so harmful if men want to keep their feelings hidden? And don't women share too much, yammering on about their husbands to friends, co-workers and sometimes even strangers?

The answer to both questions is an emphatic yes.

O rly? Bernstein follows this assertion up with anecdotes about men whose relationships failed because they couldn't bring themselves to ask for advice, and a woman who complained about her husband to "her mom, friends, co-workers, housekeeper, husband's best friend and two radio stations." The couple reconciled, but, unsurprisingly, he now feels uncomfortable around her family. Bernstein rounds out her discussion with a mention of the amateur gender theorist's hormone of choice, oxytocin. Apparently it helps women bond with each other, but testosterone limits its effects on men. Or something like that.

But is having the whole town up in your business really the biggest problem with oversharing? A study last year suggested a more pernicious effect — "co-rumination," or discussing the same problems over and over, can increase depression and anxiety in girls. Boys have fewer of these types of conversations, and seem to suffer fewer ill effects when they do.

Many of us have likely been in a situation where talking about a problem too much just made it seem bigger, with two brains obsessing on it instead of one. And while we don't buy that only men are capable of a get-in-get-out approach to emotional conversation ("What they had accomplished in 20 minutes took us two hours," says the girlfriend of one of the motorcycle oil dudes about their parallel tete-a-tetes), it is sometimes helpful to have someone who tells you to quit your bitching and move on. This is a good argument for having friends with different communication styles, which may mean friends of the opposite gender. While the men-talk-about-machines-and-women-talk-about-feelings dichotomy is an artificial one, it's still true that men and women are socialized differently, and taking your troubles across gender boundaries can give you a fresh perspective. It can also teach you that — oxytocin and motor oil aside — men and women actually suffer from many of the same problems.

How Much Sharing Is Too Much? [Wall Street Journal]

Earlier: Positive Teen Talk Can Sometimes Turn Into A "Mutual Complaint Society"

"While NBC bleeped out the words, it was abundantly clear what was being said," writes AdAge's Brian Steinberg, "But the very fact that the network felt the need to put a semigloss on harsh language — even though it appeared in a gritty drama that initially aired at 10 p.m. on a Thursday — epitomizes the confused TV world in which we live." Indeed: why would NBC even bother to allow those lines to be shot if they knew they'd just get bleeped out anyway? It's a stupid tactic to appear edgy that actually makes the show look ridiculous and fearful of the censors.

While it's understandable that you probably shouldn't be allowed to say "go fuck yourself" on an episode of Yo Gabba Gabba, why are we still, in 2009, acting as if people don't swear on a regular basis? Paid cable shows have the luxury of adding realistic dialogue to their programming, as swears are allowed. Can you imagine Tony Soprano or Kenny Powers using "friggin'" and "bullcorn?" No. So why do we get up in arms when an actor playing a NYC cop uses the word "tits?"

Perhaps the ever blending cable, network, DVR, and paid cable landscapes are to blame for the seemingly strange decisions over what is and is not okay to say on television: "whether you agree there's no place on TV for cursing or accept that it's part of the language as it exists today," Steinberg writes, "it is impossible to miss that the rules today seem to be mostly arbitrary and based in a time when there was a much larger distinction between broadcast and cable, and when a TV time slot was a fixed appointment to view."

I will admit, however, that there is one bonus of swear removal: the amazingly bad re-dubs of 80's films, wherein you can see the character mouthing "fuck off, shithead," but hear some ridiculous replacement like "fuzz off, shipmate." That's the stuff that profanity-free dreams are made of.

Does Bleeping Profanity On TV Make Any F—king Sense? [AdAge]

According to Matthew Hutson of Psychology Today, "Psychologists at the University of Nottingham in the U.K. asked students to imagine a romantic encounter with an attractive member of the opposite sex or a casual conversation with someone older. Then the students wrote an essay on an unrelated topic. The romance-primed men unknowingly used more unusual words in their essays. Female subjects didn't show the same effect, but a previous study found that women do show creativity spikes when primed with thoughts of attracting a long-term partner."

The scientists believe that intelligence indicates superior genetics, and that men may be showing off their vocabulary in an attempt to impress potential mates. This would appear to be the opposite of that dude at the bar who strolls in wearing his free spring break beer t-shirt and talks about his dick for 20 minutes and what a stud he is before beginning to cry during a singalong of "Piano Man" and passing out in his basket of wings.

However, men should steer clear of becoming Thesaurus Boy, that pretentious paramour who attempts to insert unnecessary words into regular conversation as a means to impress the ladies; women may be able to detect deception and will be turned off. And your chances of scoring with the ladies, as Mike Tyson would say, will "fade into Bolivian."

Language: Bed Bards [Psychology Today]

[Image via Toothpaste For Dinner]

The Onion piece describes a well-intentioned father who attempts to impress his kids with his knowledge of random movie quotes and, of course, ends up failing miserably. "At dinner he started waving his wine glass and yelling, 'irreconcilable!' over and over again in this sort of Elmer Fudd voice. That's not even the right speech impediment," the fictional daughter, Erica complains.

My family communicates in joke form: we are not a super affectionate people, and growing up, we expressed our love for one another by making fun of each other or going back and forth with random movie quotes or impressions of people we'd seen on television. For a long time, I believed that this was the norm for most families, until I had my first boyfriend, who insisted upon hugging me at all times and couldn't quite understand why I'd rather just give him a high-five and moonwalk away like a total idiot in the hopes of making him smile. The relationship did not last long. Either did the moonwalking, as my friends staged an intervention and tried to explain the difference between "amusing" and "annoying."

Still: it's amazing to me how, to this day, the bulk of my family conversations are still peppered with ridiculous pop-culture references and stupid jokes. Even in the darkest times, my family has relied on a line or two to lighten the tension: when I was hospitalized for anorexia five years ago, I'd call my parents and give them updates on my progress. "My heart rate is low, my weight is steady, and the nurse has finally stopped yelling "Are you constipated?" to the entire floor in the morning," I'd say, "So I got that going for me, which is nice." My father, as scared shitless as he was, would always laugh.

I know that some families have sit downs and long talks and express their feelings in that way, but we've always shown interest in one another by picking up on each other's pop-culture loves: my mother suffered through modern rock radio when I was in high school, even though she didn't care for it, if we were traveling in the car together. At night, I'd hear her humming Nirvana's "Lithium" as she put the dishes away, which made me laugh, and, at 15, made me feel like my mom was connecting to me in some way, even if she didn't realize it.

My father and I have a similar relationship; we bond over music and stupid movies and seem to understand each other based on the lines of fictional characters. There is something quietly reassuring in having the ability to make another family member laugh: in a way, you're able to get out the things you can't say by repeating the same damn quotes you've used a million times before.

Unlike the father in the Onion piece, however, my dad rarely misses a quote; in fact, his pop-culture memory is a little too good at times. I took him to see Fellowship of the Ring when it first came out, and every time an Orc came after Samwise Gamgee, my father would lean in and whisper, "Why are they attacking Rudy? He just wants to play for the Irish." Which, of course, would send me into a fit of laughter and the patrons around us into a fit of shushes and dirty looks. But nothing is going to stop my dad and I from throwing stupid references back and forth. For that's just the way my family chooses to communicate. Anything else would just be irreconcilable inconceivable!

Area Dad Botches Princess Bride Quote [The Onion]

Last week, my boyfriend turned to me while reading the Jezebel comments and asked, "Why do the commenters spell everything wrong?" When I asked him to explain, he said, "Well, they always write 'kitteh' instead of 'kitty' and 'puppeh' instead of 'puppy.' Is that on purpose?" And that is when it hit me: my boyfriend had no idea what LOLSpeak was.

My first reaction was "Where the hell have you been for the past 8 billion years?" LOLSpeak has been all over the internet for what seems like forever, and is so overdone at this point that one wonders if it may, finally, be on its way out. Yet my boyfriend had completely missed the wacky internet phenomenon, and it was nearly impossible to explain it to him without sounding like an idiot:

"Well there's these cats," I began, "and people post pictures of them, you know, like doing things? And then people write captions for these pictures, but they spell things wrong. You know? Like a cat is saying them, only cats are cats and they can't really type? I Can Haz Cheezburger? Does that make sense?"

"Oh," my boyfriend said, looking like I did when my 10th grade Chemistry teacher tried to explain stoichiometry to me.

I then went on to explain the concept of FAIL, showing my boyfriend a few pictures from FAILBlog. "You see, it's a FAIL, because the car is parked on a rock," I explained.

"I see," my boyfriend shrugged, before adding, "Am I really lame because I don't know these things?"

To which I replied: "No, I think I'm really lame because I do know these things."

It's strange, sometimes, to realize how the time you spend on the internet shapes the way you interact with others. My boyfriend and I have been dating for 9 years, yet the way we choose to spend our time online has put a dumb internet language barrier between us. It's weird when you discover that someone you know inside and out is a bit disconnected from the life you've created for yourself online; in commenting, you develop an identity through your word choices which doesn't necessarily reflect who you are or how you communicate offline. I'm sure many of us have encountered looks of complete bewilderment when we try to explain an online joke to one of our friends.

I kind of love the fact that my boyfriend is clueless about the fads of the internet: it's a reality check and a means to disconnect from the online world, which can be all-consuming at times. He's now worried that you will all make fun of him in the comments. "They are going to think I am such a loser," he frowned. Yet I think the fact that he's honestly been able to steer clear of dumb internet memes over the past few years is much cooler than the people who try to pretend that they're too cool for LOLCats and such.

In any case, he's now aware of LOLSpeak, but thankfully hasn't become fluent, though he's made small steps. Before we went to sleep, after our LOLSpeak conversation, he turned to me and said, "Goodnight, baby. Or wait! Goodnight, babeh? Is that it?"

"Yes," I told him, "now never, ever say that again."

[FAILBlog]
[I Can Has Cheezburger]

Image via [I Can Has Cheezburger]

If a woman says, I'm "seeing someone else," as a way to get a dude to stop going forward sexually, he could interpret that statement to mean:

• You want to go further but you want him to know that it doesn't mean that you're committed to him
• You want to go further but you want him to be discreet, so that the other guy doesn't find out
• You want to go further but you want him to realize, in case you end up "going together," that you may do this with someone else while you're seeing him
• You don't want to go further.

Those were all choices in the form that Motley gave his students. Some of the men were asked to choose what it would mean when they said "I'm seeing someone else," and the other half were asked what a woman would mean if she uttered the phrase. According to the press release, "The questionnaire study showed that men were accurate at interpreting direct resistance messages like 'Let's stop this.' But they were as apt to interpret 'Let's be friends' to mean 'keep going' as to mean 'stop.' And few of them would mean 'stop' if they were to deliver any of the indirect messages themselves." Motley thinks that women are more likely to use indirect messages because they don't want to anger or offend the men that they are dating. One of Motley's main conclusions is that women need to be as direct as possible when communicating sexual wants. We suggest using the time-honored "Get your fucking hands off me." It seems to relay the message pretty clearly!

Men, Women, Sex And Confusion [Los Angeles Times]
Why College Men May Hear 'Yes' When Women Mean 'No' [UC Davis]

Earlier: College Senior Tells Rape Apologist* To Stop Blaming The Victim
'Cosmo' Tells Me I Was 'Gray Raped'; Feministing Says It Was Rape. Are We Really Arguing About This?

One theory states that cursing is a substitute for a physical act of aggression. So it would make sense that as women become more aggressive in life, their speech patterns would match.

The most interesting thing thing in the article is the news that, after people have strokes and lose the ability to converse, they still retain the ability to swear. This has led neurologists to believe that swear words are stored in the brain's right hemisphere, where as propositional language is stored in the left, the part that gets affected by having a stroke. Here are some other tidbits:

• Cursing in groups promotes social bonding.
• "Fuck" and "shit" make up half of all swear words used.
• The seemingly benign "damn" was the "undisputed king" of swear words before "fuck" began being used
• Almost all swear words are based on sex or excretion.

Some psychologists believe that our dirty mouths are a product of evolution. It's safer for us to scream "Fuck you" from across the street at a person, without worrying about getting beaten up. But for as long as that piece was, and all the theories and facts it contained, it didn't state what seems to be the most obvious thing: People curse because it's fucking fun.

The Science Of Swearing [New Scientist]

In 2006, for instance, a popular science book called 'The Female Brain' claimed that women on average utter 20,000 words a day, while men on average utter only 7,000. This was perfect material for soundbite science - it confirmed the popular belief that women are not only the more talkative sex but three times as much - and was reported in newspapers around the world.

Cameron goes on to explain that a psychologist named Janet S. Hyde, who specializes in meta-analysis, wrote an article about gender similarities. Scientists believe that one study on its own does not show anything: Results are only considered reliable if a number of different studies have replicated them. Hyde reviewed a large number of studies concerned with all kinds of male/female differences, aggregated the results, and came up with a number — a formula, d, — indicating the size of the overall gender difference: Looking at the chart (there's a PDF here), the last column indicates whether the figure given for d is an effect that is very large, large, moderate, small, or close to zero. (Still with me?) And in almost every case, the overall difference made by gender is either small or close to zero.

Two items — spelling accuracy and frequency of smiling — show a larger effect - but it is still only moderate. In other words, hundreds of studies, hundreds of participants, hundreds of men and women, and the difference between their results was, very often, close to zero. So why do we still believe that there is a vast chasm of communication between the sexes?

In relation to men and women, our most basic stereotypical expectation is simply that they will be different rather than the same. We actively look for differences, and seek out sources that discuss them. Most research studies investigating the behaviour of men and women are designed around the question: is there a difference? And the presumption is usually that there will be. If a study finds a significant difference between male and female subjects, that is considered to be a "positive" finding, and has a good chance of being published. A study that finds no significant differences is less likely to be published.

If it does not reflect reality, why is the folk-belief that women talk more than men so persistent? The feminist Dale Spender once suggested an explanation: she said that people overestimate how much women talk because they think that, ideally, women would not talk at all.

What Language Barrier? [Guardian]

'This study at least suggests that the marriage is a place where women can exert some power,' researcher David Vogel, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Iowa State, says in the release. 'Whether or not it's because of changing societal roles, we don't know. But they are, at least, taking responsibility and power in these relationships.'