1466: Phone Checking

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Phone Checking
'Where were you when you learned you'd won?' 'I was actually asleep; I woke up when I refreshed the webite and saw the news.'
Title text: 'Where were you when you learned you'd won?' 'I was actually asleep; I woke up when I refreshed the webite and saw the news.'

Explanation[edit]

Cueball asks Megan what's up, and Megan announces that there's a Compulsive Phone Checking Championship, presumably an award for the person who checks their phone the most often. Megan checks her phone to see if the winner has been announced, but finds the site's server is overloaded, which would be exactly what would happen if many people were checking their phones simultaneously. Given the nature of the contest, we can presume this is indeed the case. As a solution, Megan tries refreshing repeatedly, sending more load to the server and, thus, making it unavailable longer.

This compulsive behavior predates the popularity of mobile phones as shown in 477: Typewriter and 862: Let Go.

Another possible analysis is that the site was purposely down, and instead was the contest itself, to see how many times different users would refresh the page within a time period, or perhaps to the last one standing, determining the winner.

The title text implies that Megan checks her phone so compulsively she even does it in her sleep. This probably contributed to her victory. A "webite" is probably either a typo of "website" or a pinned tab in a web browser.

Transcript[edit]

[Cueball approaching Megan.]
Cueball: What's up?
Megan: They're announcing the winner of the compulsive phone-checking championship.
[Megan checks her phone.]
[Megan puts her phone away.]
[Megan checks her phone again.]
Cueball: Did you win?
Megan: Site's down.
Cueball: Weird.
Megan: I'll keep refreshing.


comment.png add a comment! ⋅ comment.png add a topic (use sparingly)! ⋅ Icons-mini-action refresh blue.gif refresh comments!

Discussion

No comments yet. I'll keep refreshing. 108.162.217.125 06:40, 29 December 2014 (UTC)BK201

What's a 'webite'? 199.27.128.178 08:51, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I think it's a term related to the "wobsite". --Koveras (talk) 09:41, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

He first refreshed the web(s)ite and thén woke up? NGLN (talk) 14:38, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I believe it is possible to check one's phone while sleeping (i.e. partly asleep) and not remember having done so in the morning. Research is needed into this matter. Mrob27 (talk) 14:54, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

The title text implies that checking the phone is an even more fundamental resting state for her than sleeping. As an analogy, you may subconsciously play with a sharp object while watching TV. You don't notice it until it pricks you. Same way, she was checking her phone while sleeping. Noticing that she'd won made her wake up. -quantumfrost 173.245.62.105 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

My interpretation is that this refreshing is a continuation of the contest. Maybe they either are adding this data to their original data, or this is a second contest, or this refreshing is the actual contest, because all the contest entry and judging was either a ruse, or the data was lost somehow. --199.27.128.192 20:54, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

"The title text implies that Megan checks her phone so compulsively she even does it in her sleep. This probably contributed to her victory." - There's no indication that the titletext relates to Megan, and not just any other eventual winner... But it could be, of course. 141.101.98.191 15:05, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm thinking of a different version. Maybe the contest never had a winner, she was only dreaming she had won. A complete irony to how refreshing the phone is completely pointless and we've never woken up from that fact. 108.162.225.95 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

On "webite": I strongly believe that it's just a typo of "website". 173.245.54.204 02:05, 3 January 2015 (UTC)