WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? PLENTY!
Picture a Little League game where the kids are playing their hearts out. Among the adults watching are the coaches....some parents...some neighbors...some guys with cameras. The coaches are advising the kids between innings. The parents are cheering their hearts out with every play. The neighbors are politely indifferent. Now about those guys with the cameras -- they're sitting sullenly by until one of the players makes a dumb mistake.
Metaphor for modern civilization!
In this game of life there will be a total of at least 5000 pitches & plays. A few of them outstanding, most routine, two or three really dumb. The parents and neighbors (that's you and me) are observers...the coaches (that's the people in a society with some game-of-life skills) do what they can to help improve the game....the sullen guys with the cameras (today's gotcha media) seem obsessed with the idea of catching any dumb mistake with which to show the world how really dumb "the game" is. From city politics to airport security to oil rigs.
If those gotcha pictures are all about the-people's-right-to-know, I'd counter with this. What we the people really want to know is not more about the occasional dumb play, but more about the plays that were good enough in the world today to make this game worth playing again tomorrow....!
OMG...LOL....WTF
If you don't understand these codes, you probably don't text. You use the phone instead. Oh, but that's so 20th century!
The Pew Research Center has now validated what most parents have already learned. Kids text more than they talk. In the survey, up to 80 messages a day vs only five phone calls. The one exception is with parents. Most teens call their parents, because they understand this is the easiest mode for them.
The question then arises: What about adults? Is texting between adults (say on Facebook) an effective mode or not? On the No side is the lack of vocal nuancing. On the Yes side, Facebook can put you in touch with hundreds, maybe thousands, of fellow adults who are really interested in in-depth conversations about a wide range of subjects. Usually considerably more than tea-time talk or locker-room chatter with face-to-face friends.
For good or for bad, it's a new day and a new way. OMG!!
Picture a Little League game where the kids are playing their hearts out. Among the adults watching are the coaches....some parents...some neighbors...some guys with cameras. The coaches are advising the kids between innings. The parents are cheering their hearts out with every play. The neighbors are politely indifferent. Now about those guys with the cameras -- they're sitting sullenly by until one of the players makes a dumb mistake.
Metaphor for modern civilization!
In this game of life there will be a total of at least 5000 pitches & plays. A few of them outstanding, most routine, two or three really dumb. The parents and neighbors (that's you and me) are observers...the coaches (that's the people in a society with some game-of-life skills) do what they can to help improve the game....the sullen guys with the cameras (today's gotcha media) seem obsessed with the idea of catching any dumb mistake with which to show the world how really dumb "the game" is. From city politics to airport security to oil rigs.
If those gotcha pictures are all about the-people's-right-to-know, I'd counter with this. What we the people really want to know is not more about the occasional dumb play, but more about the plays that were good enough in the world today to make this game worth playing again tomorrow....!
OMG...LOL....WTF
If you don't understand these codes, you probably don't text. You use the phone instead. Oh, but that's so 20th century!
The Pew Research Center has now validated what most parents have already learned. Kids text more than they talk. In the survey, up to 80 messages a day vs only five phone calls. The one exception is with parents. Most teens call their parents, because they understand this is the easiest mode for them.
The question then arises: What about adults? Is texting between adults (say on Facebook) an effective mode or not? On the No side is the lack of vocal nuancing. On the Yes side, Facebook can put you in touch with hundreds, maybe thousands, of fellow adults who are really interested in in-depth conversations about a wide range of subjects. Usually considerably more than tea-time talk or locker-room chatter with face-to-face friends.
For good or for bad, it's a new day and a new way. OMG!!
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