"Who doesn't check their email every 5 minutes?" she asked someone on the other end of her phone, while speeding past me down the sidewalk in knee-length black boots, each footstep stomping out her frustrations. That was all the conversation I caught as I walked at my own brisk pace in the opposite direction. As if she had turned and asked the question directly to me, I mumbled an answer into the purple scarf cinched around my neck, "Not me," to which I felt like adding, "and I'm still a good person!"
It all snowballed with the new phone, this feeling of technological inadequacy. We had been back in Arkansas for about a week when Drew decided to buy a Verizon Droid. I was o.k. with my clam shell version but was eligible for an upgrade, so I looked around for a sleeker style. Then I heard about The Deal, "Buy a Droid, Get a Droid." What veteran shopper, like me, could ever pass up the alluring words, Buy One, Get One FREE? So I left the store with a phone I had no clue how to use, and poor Clamshell had been disconnected, was dead, was no longer the reliable "friend" in my pocket. Two days later, tapping the little white receiver on the front of the phone with no results, tapping it again, and AGAIN, still with no results, I flung the phone across the sofa, buried it under the pillow and muttered, "Rest in peace." Could Clamshell be resurrected?
But the Droid allows me to be connected to my email and the Internet, everywhere I go. I actually could check my email every 5 minutes. Would that make me a cooler person? Well, it might get me closer to that hallowed goal in the realm of technology, except for one glaring omission. Except for my blog page, I don't have a Facebook account. I feel like whispering that confession, as if asking for forgiveness from the 600 million people on the other side of the Facebook wall. A world of connections, just a quick "sign up" away, yet invisible to me as a self-imposed outsider.
I've wrestled with this issue of being more or less connected for months now, and even recently read a book dealing with one man's journey to come to peace with what he terms the "conundrum of connectedness."
It all snowballed with the new phone, this feeling of technological inadequacy. We had been back in Arkansas for about a week when Drew decided to buy a Verizon Droid. I was o.k. with my clam shell version but was eligible for an upgrade, so I looked around for a sleeker style. Then I heard about The Deal, "Buy a Droid, Get a Droid." What veteran shopper, like me, could ever pass up the alluring words, Buy One, Get One FREE? So I left the store with a phone I had no clue how to use, and poor Clamshell had been disconnected, was dead, was no longer the reliable "friend" in my pocket. Two days later, tapping the little white receiver on the front of the phone with no results, tapping it again, and AGAIN, still with no results, I flung the phone across the sofa, buried it under the pillow and muttered, "Rest in peace." Could Clamshell be resurrected?
But the Droid allows me to be connected to my email and the Internet, everywhere I go. I actually could check my email every 5 minutes. Would that make me a cooler person? Well, it might get me closer to that hallowed goal in the realm of technology, except for one glaring omission. Except for my blog page, I don't have a Facebook account. I feel like whispering that confession, as if asking for forgiveness from the 600 million people on the other side of the Facebook wall. A world of connections, just a quick "sign up" away, yet invisible to me as a self-imposed outsider.
I've wrestled with this issue of being more or less connected for months now, and even recently read a book dealing with one man's journey to come to peace with what he terms the "conundrum of connectedness."
Hamlet's Blackberry - A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age - by William Powers, researches periods in history when people such as Shakespeare, Thoreau, Gutenberg, and Ben Franklin struggled with major changes in communication, in transmission and organization of information, looking for ideas of how to find balance in his own life.
Mr. Powers states, "If we're constantly toggling between people on Facebook and texts and all these new ways of connecting all day long, and we never have a sustained connection, it's not really connectedness. It's sort of the opposite of connectedness." Powers finds value in our digital devices, but states that "overconnectedness"can adversely affect our relationships, unless we intentionally aim for balance.
Last Saturday I took our grandson, Luke, to the park. As I was watching him play, I observed five parents on the fringes of the jungle gym, three of whom were engaged with their smartphones. Mine was in my pocket, still a stranger, but becoming more familiar every day. I resisted the temptation to pull it out, but instead ran over to climb up a pole behind Luke. The other connections could wait. The one right in front of me was quickly getting away.
As I continue contemplating Facebook and the prospect of spending more time digitally, I'd appreciate hearing comments from any of you as to how you achieve balance between "screen time" and "non-screen time." Thanks.
Mr. Powers states, "If we're constantly toggling between people on Facebook and texts and all these new ways of connecting all day long, and we never have a sustained connection, it's not really connectedness. It's sort of the opposite of connectedness." Powers finds value in our digital devices, but states that "overconnectedness"can adversely affect our relationships, unless we intentionally aim for balance.
Last Saturday I took our grandson, Luke, to the park. As I was watching him play, I observed five parents on the fringes of the jungle gym, three of whom were engaged with their smartphones. Mine was in my pocket, still a stranger, but becoming more familiar every day. I resisted the temptation to pull it out, but instead ran over to climb up a pole behind Luke. The other connections could wait. The one right in front of me was quickly getting away.
As I continue contemplating Facebook and the prospect of spending more time digitally, I'd appreciate hearing comments from any of you as to how you achieve balance between "screen time" and "non-screen time." Thanks.
I saw a study that seemed interesting, which apparently showed that sedentary "screen time" is bad for your health even if you balance it with physical activity--in fact, the physical activity makes no difference whatsoever. Here's the link . That's rough news for those of us who work 8 hours a day in front of a computer. But it still seems easier on the body than working 8 hours of hard manual labor.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I also read a mind-blowing article recently that will make you think twice about any scientific study you ever hear about again.
Oh, Twylla, what a great post! I know just how you feel. I read it right after I posted a piece on my blog about iPad picture books...something I've been thinking about and learning about for months, with very mixed feelings.
ReplyDeleteI do have a Facebook page, but I don't use it much. I lurk a bit and occasionally post some small remark. I guess it's handy for keeping in touch with family and friends spread about...but I'm not comfortable with such a porous boundary between the personal and private. Facebook is a weird mix of both. When I blog or use my webpage, I'm posting publicly and for a purpose. To me, Facebook feels...fake? Maybe I'll start calling it Fakebook.
Another issue is privacy. People don't realize how much data mining of personal information is going on at social network sites.
I was also, just this morning, thinking about the various ways I observe people (usually but not always younger folks)surreptitously checking their phones for the latest message while supposedly engaged in conversation, work, or other real-time activities. It breaks my heart to see parents playing with their phones instead of interacting with their kids. I certainly used to sneak in a few pages of a good book while the kids were playing, too, but the constant withdrawal from the here-and-now to check a device worries me.