It's time for a new post. Beyond time, probably. I stand by my accordion post, but I got a few emails about that one. LOL. Eh, at least you're writing me.
So I recently described myself as technology resistant. I should clarify that I understand most technologies, especially the ones I need to become accustomed to as a writer and for jobs. You're looking at the product of one, actually. And, I was a squealy squealy girl when my friend Mel plugged a dohicky cord into my MP3 player, attaching it to her car radio and we got to drive around South Louisiana to my favorite songs. Her iPhone is pretty fantastic, actually. She can solve trivia disputes, find the times for movies, get directions, play music, etc., all with a single tool.
I resist, resist, reeeeeeesiiiiisssst the iPhone, however. I acknowledge its greatness and this is WHY I resist it. Once you pop, you can't stop. Every iPhone owner I know tells me this and I take one look at it's glittery goodness and I know. I will be come THAT person, the one none of us can stand, who is addicted to technology and helpless without it. I purposefully buy the cheapest, least glorious phone I can find and limit all the bells and whistles. And you know, as much as I complained about my basic red Samsung, I have dropped that thing a million times and it's still going strong. It's so dinged, cracked and scratched nobody would steal it. I took that thing to Europe, to Russia, to New York and back. It did the trick.
And what about cell phones? It used to be, you screened calls if you didn't want to talk to someone. "Oh, I wasn't home." But there is something about my cell phone answering that urges a Pavlovian respone. I can't bear to ignore the call. And I feel like, if I miss a call, I must respond very quickly. Texts have to be returned asap. I'm connected. Some of the happiest moments are when I forget my phone at home or in my car, except then I'm worried my car will break down and I can't call for help...
The thing is, folks, I can't even remember phone numbers anymore. I'm entirely reliant on the pre-programed numbers in my phone. I can remember two of my best friends' parents' phone numbers from like 10 years ago with barely any prompting, but I can't tell you my last boyfriend's phone number. Or my best friend's. If I should upgrade to a shiny iPhone, how much more helpless and dependent will I become?
The other day, I struggled for 20 minutes to find phone numbers for a friend using Google, etc. I got the wrong person when I did find a potential number and she promptly opened up her phone book and gave me several helpful numbers. Her phone book. You know, old school, a book. That thing the phone company throws on your porch periodically.
Are we capable of keeping our McGuyver-like, practical, real-world skills as we allow machines to further simplify our lives? Somehow I doubt it.
Another friend (you shall remain safely anonymous) recently asked me sheepishly, "What does LMAO mean again?" We're not even 30, so don't call us fuddy-duddies, but the thing is, everything is changing so much faster now due to technology. Sometimes, that's a cool thing. But more often, it's bewildering. I find myself saying old-fashioned things like, "Can you turn that down? Do you know correct English? WHAAAAT?!!" quite often. I dream of cabins in the woods without electricity and plumbing, then I kinda shake myself and wonder, "But what would I DO? I'd miss Bones and American Idol. I couldn't write after it got dark. And outhouses??"
I'm the girl who's almost desperate to go on Survivor and has confessed to friends that I'd like to be turned into What Not to Wear (Stacy would kill me), except I don't want to be on t.v. I don't want my 15 minutes of fame, my blogger stardom. I remember thinking, as a kid, that one of the best things about being a writer was that, unless you were Stephen King, everyone could know your work and not know your face. It was possible for your name to be famous, but you could also go to the grocery store unaccosted. We're all competing in a super-saturated market.
So how do we market ourselves and our work and still lead private lives? That IS the question. This world is getting faster and smaller and to me, often, scarier.
Take Google Earth, for instance. Ohhhh. Yesterday, I walked up to one of my neighbors at Cheers and he waved me closer to look at his computer screen. And there was... our street. My front door. Satellite images (not real-time, thank goodness) of our street. Up close and personal. It was cool, but I felt a wave of terror and revulsion. I got a bit distracted, back at my own table, by plugging every address from my address book into Google Earth. I was fascinated and really, really creeped out. And you know what? With every address I checked, except for one, I could see front doors, yards, cars, whole streets outside their houses like I was going to visit for lunch.
When did we stop asking, "Just because we can -- should we?"
And structured controls of things like satellite imaging and say cloning can get scary too, cause then we're looking at Big Government, Big Brother type situations. So I guess it comes down to each of us choosing to make active decisions. To try to remember phone numbers, to stop morbidly typing in every address we know into Google Earth. Hesitate. What's wrong with that? Take your time. We don't have to jump into everything without thinking about it first, evaluating how it makes us feel, how it may change our lives.
Sigh. So this post all came together because I accidentally got AIM. I signed up for a MapQuest account so I could save my searches and apparently, simultaneously signed up for AIM. This entire blog/rant began there and then I remembered everything that's happened recently that also pinged the same technology anxieties.
How do we have a private life these days? Between MyFace (let's go ahead and add AIM, OkCupid, Twitter into all of that) and Google Earth and our iPhones. Everything is connected and some days, that can be great. But it can get problematic. I'm looking for a job right now. All a prospective employer needs to do is type my name into a search engine and this blog comes right up. Perhaps my MySpace, as well. Instantly, they read this latest post "technology resistant" and they're uncertain whether I can work a fax machine (I can), scan (yep) or probably even type (fastest fingers in the southeast, folks). Maybe they're resistant to hiring me because I'm technology resistant.
The consequences of everything are harder to escape because the world is small and faster. There's nothing wrong with being careful, using our problem-solving and analytical abilities to work out what feels right for us, how and when we're going to invest in the McMyFace world.
Another thing that sparked this blog for me was watching a slideshow of "weird news images" and seeing a picture of a robot acting in a play with a woman. This isn't where I saw it, but where I found it, second image down. Let me know what you think.
The whole technology issue is brought up in He's Just Not That Into You, by Drew Barymore's character. Her technology stress and anxiety is eerily spot on, very valid. Also, watch the hysterical Top 10 Cliches (under videos) that has three of the male actors (Justin Long, Bradley Cooper and Kevin Connolly) playing girls in cliche romantic comedy scenarios. Very, very funny.
Also, from a little while ago (and wordsmith.org), A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: Myth: we have to save the earth. Frankly, the earth doesn't need to be saved. Nature doesn't give a hoot if human beings are here or not. The planet has survived cataclysmic and catastrophic changes for millions upon millions of years. Over that time, it is widely believed, 99 percent of all species have come and gone while the planet has remained. Saving the environment is really about saving our environment - making it safe for ourselves, our children, and the world as we know it. If more people saw the issue as one of saving themselves, we would probably see increased motivation and commitment to actually do so. -Robert M. Lilienfeld, management consultant and author (b. 1953) and William L. Rathje, archaeologist and author (b. 1945)
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2 comments:
Wanna know the truth? Our parents had the same bewilderment at our using the boring old telephone when we were teenagers.
THEIR parents had the same bewilderment at them watching TV.
And THEIR parents before them had the same bewilderment at our grandparents listening to the radio.
And it goes right back to the parents of those post Gutenberg who wanted to learn to read and own books.
Technology is inevitable, it's just always getting shinier than it was for the previous generation.
Roll with it baby!
Hi Sleepdumpling, good to see you.
You make a good point. But I think you also help to illustrate mine. This kind of change, generational confusion and miscommunication is NOT new, no.
However, it's speeding up. What's a generation? Didn't it used to be like 20 years, the median length of time in which, theoretically, a human could begin to mature and become sexually active and reproduce? However, everybody I ask seems to be confused about whether this is still a typical generational length because the people born at opposite ends of a twenty-year time period have less and less in common with each other.
Here's a quote from wikipedia's page on "generation":
It is important to distinguish between familial and cultural generations. A familial generation is defined as the average time between a mother's first offspring and her daughter's first offspring. This makes a generation around 25 years in length give or take a few years. Cultural generations are significantly shorter, as noted below. Many experts now believe, partly because of the acceleration of culture, that cultural generations are approximately 10-15 years long. This trend of shorter generations is increasing, so that it is most relevant for recent generations.
So my point is that while it's normal for OUR PARENTS and THEIR PARENTS to be bewildered at their children, etc. I AM NOT A PARENT and I am currently bewildered at people who are 5 and 10 years younger than me. While I was teaching, most of my students were about 5 years younger and often didn't get many of my references (keep in mind, I'm a dork and I'm an only child raised by what was considered "older" parents at the time) and I was consistently bewildered by them. Growing up, my family got their first home computer when I was 16 whereas my students, most of them, have never lived in a home without a computer. Many of them don't remember a time before everyone had cell phones, before GPS and etc.
So one of my points, I suppose, is that technology makes it easier to communicate, but it also makes it much, much harder in ways that are hard to quantify and understand. The real point - we need to make constant, conscious efforts to understand, take time to hesitate before jumping into the latest craze.
One of my exes said that he would be happy to replace one of his flesh and blood limbs in order to replace it with a rocking mechanical one and be a cyborg. Regardless of whether he would, if really faced with this, er...opportunity, there ARE people who would, undoubtably. And this worries me. While it's amazing what mechanics can do for people who do lose their limbs, why would anyone voluntarily give up some of their natural body, their human qualities, in order to become more machine-like?
Maybe this sounds extreme to you, but check this out, it's already happening:
http://www.dabbledoo.com/ee/images/uploads/gadgetell/roadrunner_bluetooth_headset_425.jpg
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