Photo of the Day

Portland, OR

January 2010

Photo of the Day

"For Ever"
Portland, Oregon
January 2010

Photo of the Day

Shop Window, Nob Hill

Albuquerque, NM

2006

Photo of the Day

Al's Backyard

Dixon, NM

November 2006

A view from the inner/outer landscape of my favorite NM potter, Al Tyrell.

Digital Nation

Did anyone catch PBS’s Frontline documentary Digital Nation last night? It was one of the more sad and sobering docs I’ve watched in a long while. Although I use computers far more than I’d like, I keep a few toes in the Luddite camp on the issue of digital technology and how it has severed some key elements that used to make life fun. To wit, the tangibility of physical objects and the joys of eye contact and in-person human relating.

Much of this program focuses on children and how steeped in technology their lives have become. In one extremely sad segment, young South Korean Internet addicts were filmed at a “detox” facility, trying to learn how to be kids again because Net gaming had taken over their lives. Digital Nation showed them learning how to jump rope and go outside to play in the 3-D landscape. Wow. These kids had been manipulated so very far from their instincts that they truly did look like they were being tortured by having to pry their fingers away from their keyboards. Apparently PC Baangs, arcades in which kids can play video games in stacked cubicles, are very popular in Asia—to an extreme extent. One child actually died because he played for 50 hours straight without bothering to pause for food or water. Just what we need—another source of addiction in the world.

Another segment examined the in-class behaviors of both grade school and college students. Obviously I am way out of the loop on this one, as I had no idea that children were allowed to bring both cell phones and laptops to school and use them while the teacher tries desperately to convey information. Once upon a time, this would have been considered extremely rude and distracting--probably because it’s extremely rude and distracting—and would have been banned. Producer Rachel Dretzin interviewed one vice-principal who seemed to be spending his days monitoring students’ Internet surfs during class. Give me a break! We’re paying educators to cyber-babysit?? How ‘bout either issuing students dumb terminals so they can’t be chatting on Facebook during class, pulling the plug on the school’s router, or….imagine this!...not having individual computers in the classroom? Is it really such ignoble idea to teach kids how to pay attention to one thing at once, instead of 5?

One high-schooler from affluent Chatham, NJ, proudly boasted that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d read a book. Couldn’t remember…. He was shown referring to an online version of Spark Notes for Romeo and Juliet, as he simply “didn’t have enough hours in the day to read the whole thing.” He seemed quite pleased with his “accomplishment” of having ingested the summary version in less than 5 minutes. No doubt the demands placed on him by Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, and MySpace are so onerous that he has no time to consider the pedestrian words of one of history’s greatest writers. Would anyone like to join me in slamming him up against a wall and shoving the complete works of Shakespeare through his smug little eyeballs?

And thus we stumble upon the popularity of books with titles like The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30).

As old, cranky, and out-of-touch as I may sound, it’s hard to be middle-aged and have known another way. Life used to have much more time in it. Much more serendipity. And much more pleasure. Relating the majority of our time to a machine has made us, as a society, much colder. More calculated and pragmatic. We want exactly what we want, and we want it NOW.  Just as technology serves our every whim, we expect people to do so as well. It has fashioned us into digital creeps.

I'm not sure where we're heading with all this. I try not to be xenophobic toward these "natives" of cyberspace, but it's tough to not feel some apprehension sneaking in. If we have ostensibly gained so much from the glut-of-information age, then why don't I feel happier? Smarter? Kinder? As effervescent as pink champagne? Why do all my most cherished memories not involve sitting around staring at a screen? Yesterday I stood on a long line at the PO, where everyone had tried to endure the wait by whipping out their smart phones. A 6-year-old boy whose mom had left for a few minutes was wandering up and down the line aimlessly, searching in vain for someone to look up from their screens and acknowledge him.

Some days it feels like that for me, too.

 [I like this topic. For further info, see my November blog entry, “Apocalypse How?”]

Photo of the Day

I like this one because it looks like a coupla rolled-up snakes. I think I found it at Jake Harwell's place on NM 68 in Embudo, on the road to Dixon. It’s one of the best spots to shoot--you can find anything there…

Photo of the Day

Tattoo Shop Window
Albuquerque, NM
August 2006