I’d additionally frame this as a friendly interaction by politely (second-order condescendingly) adding, “You should continue though, I’ll try to get into it.” (Then you can keep using your phone without necessarily trying to listen.)
The other person was attempting to put you in the frame of “impolite listener”. Your reply is a good way of blocking the attempt to frame you as consciously antagonistic. I would go further and frame myself as someone who is a polite listener and friend to everyone there, but also perfectly within my right to follow where my attention takes me.
Regardless, I think the key to both of our approaches is that we can sound first-order chill so that nothing about our first-order words or tone of voice sounds antagonistic. It obeys the highest standard of polite behavior (ideally out-politing the other person), while the logical implication of our behavior is to assert our own frame against the frame control attempt.
Like you, my instant reaction to these kinds of spiky social behaviors is to try to use sarcasm or wit to “win” the interaction and make the other person look ridiculous or feel awkward or off balance. I think this works on two levels—firstly, if I do “win”, the other guy is not likely to keep trying this sort of thing on me. Secondly, it focuses my psychology in such a way that there’s no chance I will actually be taking their “frame” seriously. I’m too busy trying to figure out how I can make it sound stupid.
I guess the obvious failure mode here is if they were actually saying something that I would benefit from taking seriously.
Oh nice, I think that’s good.
I’d additionally frame this as a friendly interaction by politely (second-order condescendingly) adding, “You should continue though, I’ll try to get into it.” (Then you can keep using your phone without necessarily trying to listen.)
The other person was attempting to put you in the frame of “impolite listener”. Your reply is a good way of blocking the attempt to frame you as consciously antagonistic. I would go further and frame myself as someone who is a polite listener and friend to everyone there, but also perfectly within my right to follow where my attention takes me.
Regardless, I think the key to both of our approaches is that we can sound first-order chill so that nothing about our first-order words or tone of voice sounds antagonistic. It obeys the highest standard of polite behavior (ideally out-politing the other person), while the logical implication of our behavior is to assert our own frame against the frame control attempt.
Like you, my instant reaction to these kinds of spiky social behaviors is to try to use sarcasm or wit to “win” the interaction and make the other person look ridiculous or feel awkward or off balance. I think this works on two levels—firstly, if I do “win”, the other guy is not likely to keep trying this sort of thing on me. Secondly, it focuses my psychology in such a way that there’s no chance I will actually be taking their “frame” seriously. I’m too busy trying to figure out how I can make it sound stupid.
I guess the obvious failure mode here is if they were actually saying something that I would benefit from taking seriously.