THE WIZARDRY OF OUR GADGETRY
The culture seems to keep coming back to the wizardry of its gadgetry. From Silicon Valley to the local Radio Shack, we're daily dazzled by these new powers we're being handed in the form of palm-size magic. iPhones, iPods, iPads, Blackberries. Like a child in the middle of a Christmas toy pile, which and when to use first...?
It's always hard to make predictions. Especially about the future. But here are two that both captivate and contradict at the same time:
* These hand-held devices are allowing us to become little mobile universes of instant information and communication. Their power to bedazzle us is easily documented by scanning your everyday horizons. People everywhere clicking and clacking on their devices with the intensity that always accompanies great power
* And yet at the very same time that we're reaching out and touching someone somewhere in the world, we're ironically doing it in The seclusion of a cocoon. Our own private world which connects us at the same time it cocoons us from the real world
There's no reason why contradictions can't co-exist. And so this media contradiction will continue. But always with the whisper of a question -- with what unintended consequences? No, you won't find them listed on the manufacturers warranty. Rather, you and I are writing them as we go along....
THE WIZARDRY OF OUR CENSUS
We've now begun the sweeping job of the 2010 US Census. I've checked the questions, but found one important one missing: What pills do you take...?
Hey, don't laugh. that's a big one. In today's America virtually everybody takes pills. From vitamin complexes to memory enhancers...from birth control pills to death control pills...from legal to illegal...plus a gazillion other options that bulge out of our pharmacy's behind-the-counter stacks, and on-the-shelf displays.
When I was 20, my number was zero. Today it's nine and counting. I ask the government: How in the whole wide world can you leave off this enormously revealing question...? Oh, I hear you...! Americans don't like revealing themselves. Something to do with our sacred right to privacy.
A right we seem to readily give up any night of the week shouting at the local sports bar. But that's another story...
The culture seems to keep coming back to the wizardry of its gadgetry. From Silicon Valley to the local Radio Shack, we're daily dazzled by these new powers we're being handed in the form of palm-size magic. iPhones, iPods, iPads, Blackberries. Like a child in the middle of a Christmas toy pile, which and when to use first...?
It's always hard to make predictions. Especially about the future. But here are two that both captivate and contradict at the same time:
* These hand-held devices are allowing us to become little mobile universes of instant information and communication. Their power to bedazzle us is easily documented by scanning your everyday horizons. People everywhere clicking and clacking on their devices with the intensity that always accompanies great power
* And yet at the very same time that we're reaching out and touching someone somewhere in the world, we're ironically doing it in The seclusion of a cocoon. Our own private world which connects us at the same time it cocoons us from the real world
There's no reason why contradictions can't co-exist. And so this media contradiction will continue. But always with the whisper of a question -- with what unintended consequences? No, you won't find them listed on the manufacturers warranty. Rather, you and I are writing them as we go along....
THE WIZARDRY OF OUR CENSUS
We've now begun the sweeping job of the 2010 US Census. I've checked the questions, but found one important one missing: What pills do you take...?
Hey, don't laugh. that's a big one. In today's America virtually everybody takes pills. From vitamin complexes to memory enhancers...from birth control pills to death control pills...from legal to illegal...plus a gazillion other options that bulge out of our pharmacy's behind-the-counter stacks, and on-the-shelf displays.
When I was 20, my number was zero. Today it's nine and counting. I ask the government: How in the whole wide world can you leave off this enormously revealing question...? Oh, I hear you...! Americans don't like revealing themselves. Something to do with our sacred right to privacy.
A right we seem to readily give up any night of the week shouting at the local sports bar. But that's another story...
The "pill" question IS a new perspective, and I must admit I would be interested in the results. However, I do believe that is an invasion of privacy. I don't think I would want to have to answer that one :-)
ReplyDeleteYou pose a complicated view on the gadets argument. People are reaching others...technically...and there lies the question. Is that the same as human contact? I guess for some, it can be. It must depend on the individual.
ReplyDeleteThen again, some of the younger kids text each other while they are sitting right next to each other in class or in the mall....so what's that all about? They are physcially "there", but still using technology. It's just another statement on our present society.
Actually my "pill question" was more tongue in cheek, for it could never happen (at least not yet!)
ReplyDeleteAs for the human contact issue, it's really hard to see where all this is going to take us. Including its neurological effect on our whole thinking process.
YU i wish I knew what you just said...???
ReplyDeleteOther than enumerating us for purposes of voting, the census has not legal basis. However, over years it has asked other questions, which might well impact public policy. So your tongue in check question is not so far off base in this healthcare year. If the census were year we might ask how many members of your family have been foreclosed, unemployed, or killed by a Toyota. Oh the list goes on.
ReplyDeleteYet, somehow the most important question is missing. Are you a corporation? We all know that our corporate citizens are more important than the rest of us. Indeed, should we not be counted as two thirds to their full personhood?
Anyway, I enjoyed reading this.
Thanks, Ken. From one writer to another. Now lets go out there a take the Supreme Court to task whenever we can...
ReplyDelete