I have one. A "smart" phone. It tells me stuff at the touch of an icon or the voice of a command. It has navigation, and can get me to where I need to be, albeit in a sometimes circuitous route. I can waste hours playing Tiny Tower or Words with Friends. I can also watch movies from a used Netflix account I borrowed from a friend. I can also make calls (crazy, right!). All this neato stuff, and yet, I wish I sort of had a dumb phone again. Why?
I'll tell you why. The other day, I was on BART riding into San Francisco. It was rushhour and so the trains were pretty full. Among the hundreds of people were hundreds of handheld devices - smartphones, tablets, kindles. And then I noticed something very strange among the riders in my particular car. Some wierdo was reading a book. With pages! I was intrigued. I don't ride public transportation as a general rule and so I am not usually around this type of commuter community. A book? What was wrong with him? Clearly he was a weirdo.
Then I looked around and saw all the other drones - I mean "people" - with their heads staring at a screen. They looked like zombies, totally immersed I their tiny world in front of them, not even aware that they were on a train with other people. I bet the train could have crashed and no one would have noticed. It was sort of creepy. Almost science-fiction. I understand that riding the train can get monotonous day after day, but these devices seem to be zapping the humanness out of humanity. What I like to do on the train is people watch. There is no better form of entertainment when traveling with strangers than people watching.
I get it. The devices keep one entertained while moving from point A to point B. I'm assuming no one knew each other as no one was talking to each other, which was strange to me as well, but I'm not sure why. It's just so strange to me how technology is moving at such a rapid pace. The idea of nastalgia seems to be withering away at the same time for new generations that are growing up with this type of technology that promotes little direct interpersonal interaction and immediate satisfaction. When was the last time you went to a record store or a book store to get the latest release of your favorite band or writer? I can't even find a record store or a book store for that matter. Nope. Just download your song and viola! Things just don't have any weighted value as they once did, and therefore it seems like we are turning into a race of robots that lived and did stuff and died. Perhaps I should go into the tombstone business and engrave a slew of them with that very saying. "Here lies so and so. He lived. Did stuff. And died." Sounds about as interesting as his life. And it sounds like I would make millions.
Back to the guy with the book. The book allowed him to go off into his own mind while riding BART. Sure. Just like the smartphone and like devices. But one thing that I liked about seeing that relic of a piece of entertainment was that it served a purpose in that setting only - and maybe the bathroom at work. He most likely doesn't pull it out at dinner with friends, or at the bar with friends, or while having coffee with friends. That is my problem with the "smart" devices. It provides way too much instant gratification for the user, but makes those around you feel as though they are less important than what it is that you NEED to know from some other schlep who is not paying for your beer. I'm beginning to miss those days.
(This blog post was created on a smart device while in the company of my dog that licked me until I gave him some attention. Hmmmm...)
I'll tell you why. The other day, I was on BART riding into San Francisco. It was rushhour and so the trains were pretty full. Among the hundreds of people were hundreds of handheld devices - smartphones, tablets, kindles. And then I noticed something very strange among the riders in my particular car. Some wierdo was reading a book. With pages! I was intrigued. I don't ride public transportation as a general rule and so I am not usually around this type of commuter community. A book? What was wrong with him? Clearly he was a weirdo.
Then I looked around and saw all the other drones - I mean "people" - with their heads staring at a screen. They looked like zombies, totally immersed I their tiny world in front of them, not even aware that they were on a train with other people. I bet the train could have crashed and no one would have noticed. It was sort of creepy. Almost science-fiction. I understand that riding the train can get monotonous day after day, but these devices seem to be zapping the humanness out of humanity. What I like to do on the train is people watch. There is no better form of entertainment when traveling with strangers than people watching.
I get it. The devices keep one entertained while moving from point A to point B. I'm assuming no one knew each other as no one was talking to each other, which was strange to me as well, but I'm not sure why. It's just so strange to me how technology is moving at such a rapid pace. The idea of nastalgia seems to be withering away at the same time for new generations that are growing up with this type of technology that promotes little direct interpersonal interaction and immediate satisfaction. When was the last time you went to a record store or a book store to get the latest release of your favorite band or writer? I can't even find a record store or a book store for that matter. Nope. Just download your song and viola! Things just don't have any weighted value as they once did, and therefore it seems like we are turning into a race of robots that lived and did stuff and died. Perhaps I should go into the tombstone business and engrave a slew of them with that very saying. "Here lies so and so. He lived. Did stuff. And died." Sounds about as interesting as his life. And it sounds like I would make millions.
Back to the guy with the book. The book allowed him to go off into his own mind while riding BART. Sure. Just like the smartphone and like devices. But one thing that I liked about seeing that relic of a piece of entertainment was that it served a purpose in that setting only - and maybe the bathroom at work. He most likely doesn't pull it out at dinner with friends, or at the bar with friends, or while having coffee with friends. That is my problem with the "smart" devices. It provides way too much instant gratification for the user, but makes those around you feel as though they are less important than what it is that you NEED to know from some other schlep who is not paying for your beer. I'm beginning to miss those days.
(This blog post was created on a smart device while in the company of my dog that licked me until I gave him some attention. Hmmmm...)
hahaha!
ReplyDeleteI would like to state for the record that I still have a dumb phone and read books with pages.
ReplyDelete