Sufficiently advanced technology
I spend my days getting bombarded with information. It's everywhere I look. Email, television, billboards, phone calls, social networking, text messages, advertising... everywhere. I'm beginning to wonder if there's anywhere left where a person can just be, completely enveloped in a single moment, without answering to a hundred electronic masters.
Things didn't used to be this way. Information moved slower. If you wanted knowledge, you pursued it. You went to the library, looked things up in encyclopedias, dug through stacks of old magazines. Now knowledge comes at us, literally flying through the air, all of it laced with opinion, spin, commentary — all of it with an equally strong opposing viewpoint, as equally laced and jaded.
When the phone rang, you answered it to find out who it was. Caller ID didn't exist, nor did the need for it — perpetual computerized sales calls. When you called someone, sometimes you got a busy signal. You had to wait and try later because there was no other way to get in touch. There are four phones in my house, each with a different number.
I can't remember the last time I got a handwritten letter. I do, however, have four email accounts — most of which sort and process mailing lists, manage bills, and collect spam. Having electronic mail simply means there's electronic junk mail which gets thrown into the virtual garbage.
Is it even possible to "get away from it all" anymore? Restaurants tout Wi-Fi, people wear Bluetooth headsets like Borg implants, and cell phone dead spots are a rarity. A decade ago, a large portion of that sentence would have been completely incomprehensible. Today, a ten-year-old understands it fully.
Ten years from now, it will probably be a hundred times worse. And the seasons will march on, the sun will rise and set, the wind will blow through the trees. I wonder if, despite all our technological brilliance, we are actually missing out, becoming a world with no basis, lost in electronic folly.
Comments on "Sufficiently advanced technology":
I know what you mean. I almost get the shakes if I haven't been able to check my phone in a couple of hours. That's two hours worth of Facebook and Twitter updates and emails that I have to catch up on. Oy. I wish I had the balls to not do any of it, but then I feel like I'm missing everything because that's how most of my friends and acquaintances communicate. I get weirded out when my phone actually RINGS...I automatically think something bad has happened.
# Posted by Lisa on October 9, 2009 @ 09:11:13 EDT.
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On Goodbye, Blossom, Martha said: We can still dress up and go to Laury's. Or Aubrey's. Or even Soho's, if/when I get over being mad.