I received an Amazon Echo as a gift from one of my kids a couple of years ago. I stared at it blankly and my son said “You don’t know what it is.” He was right. I had no clue what it was but I thought it was really cool looking.
Now I’m an Echo whiz kid, but one thing drives me crazy.
You can be rude with the Amazon Echo and it’s perfectly fine. It will be rude right back at you.
me: Alexa, please play Rolling in the Deep by Adele.
Echo: Playing Rolling in the Deep by Adele.
me: Thank you.
Echo:
I refused to stop saying please and thank you for a long time, even though being polite wasn’t programmed into the Echo. I’ve pretty much given it up now, but saying please and thank you is programmed into me. I learned social politeness as a child, by my parents, my church and my school.
Now I’m a high school teacher. Some kids are totally polite and it’s lovely. Others are either outright rude or just don’t say please and thank you. Do we blame social media? Do we blame parents or schools?
I blame the Amazon Echo.
And don’t get me started about what the Echo says when I’m talking with my friend-in-real-life Alexa.
saneteachers 
Oh too funny! I am also a please and thank you kinda gal, Alexa or not!
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I’m glad you liked it. I’m very happy that I have the Echo, but it annoys me every day.
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I can only imagine!
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It would be pretty awesome if it would refuse to do anything unless asked politely. It could revolutionize society.
If I had one of those, I would want it to have the voice of Stephen Fry in character as Jeeves from “Jeeves and Wooster”–all “very good, sir,” and “just as you say, sir.”
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Oh man, what an AWESOME idea. You should seriously do it. I’m torn between “Yo Adrienne” and “Say the magic word”
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We were given an Echo as a gift. I never set it up. I feel like enough of my personal info is out there already. Now you’ve given me another reason not to use it: the thing’s just plain rude! 😄
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lol I don’t use it to the extent many people do. We are renters, so don’t have the type of thermostat that you can set on a timer with Echo and have the heat/air automatically turn on at a certain time (I wish I had that). I listen to the news, weather, politics and ALL of my music on the echo. My grandsons love the jokes. I do some other stuff but that’s the main things I use it for. Oh and audible. I prefer to listen to books “on tape” as I still call them even though tape went by the wayside years ago. But I prefer to listen in the car.
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I hadn’t thought about listening to audiobooks on it. That makes good sense!
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Ha! Well, your Echo definitely didn’t grow up in Canada that’s for sure.
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That’s so true! I has NEVER said “I’m sorry” or “excuse me.” Both of which I DO say. It just occurred to me that maybe it’s only my Echo that is rude.
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And I just read my reply to you again. It* not I has, lol. I try to be polite AND use good grammar.
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Barb, I hate to say this (and now everyone else will hate me for saying it too), but maybe Alexa is not the droid you’re looking for. 😀
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Alas, you could be right.
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Alexa sounds nice. I play nice with any object that plays nice with me. Aluminum track storm windows, I swear at.
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The thought of the Echo not functioning correctly hadn’t occurred to me. Thank you for that. 🙂
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Sadly, I wouldn’t have understood what an Echo was either. I’m just beginning to grasp siri, or whatever her name is. Whenever she shows up on my phone, I turn her right back off. The voice is too annoying and borderline creepy! But I do like your idea of trying to make her polite.
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Yes the Alexa voice is slightly less 2001 Space Odyssey than Siri. I find Siri SO annoying and have used it let’s see……zero times. My husband has a new GPS app on his phone which is supposed to be really good. I have the one that comes with the iPhone and I think is infinitely better than Google Maps. I forget the name of his. But “her” voice is ultra-annoying. Why don’t they have male voices ever? Or a choice? How funny would it be if it were the voice of a 4-year-old giving directions!
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I love that idea! A four-year old’s voice would be perfect. And if they can’t do that, then I want a man’s voice with a British accent who only refers to me as “darling.”
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Oh the nerve of Echo…how dare she/he! 😜
But…are you secretly liking it now? 😝
On a more serious note, it really does make me wonder the future society we are breeding…😔 Sigh..
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I agree. I do like the Echo, but I could be using it for a lot of different things and I don’t. I still use dictionaries or google when I could use the Echo. I like what I do with it but I can’t believe they didn’t program it with simple polite commands.
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Now that you mention it, I bet someone will make it!
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Now that I would buy!
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