I have to admit; I have sent a text, watched AI (as it’s called by its followers), checked my e-mail four times during a day, Skyped my family and friends, and most certainly have searched Google for an apple pie recipe. Does this make my life less meaningful? Does all this technology disconnect me, at some deeper level, from family and friends? That’s a tough question. There are days I would say I am extremely bothered by all of the texting, emailing, etc., and then there are days that I’m so grateful for having access to it.
In the perfect world, I think combining the eras would be ideal, at least for me. I would love to have regular meals with my neighbors and friends and catch up on the weeks’ events because that’s just what you do. I know I would enjoy cleaning out the barn on a Saturday together as a family and then having homemade ice cream that we all took turns cranking, then coming inside to Skype with family about their busy day and actually see their smiling faces. We could then e-mail pictures of the new kitten we found alongside the road to family after a day of fishing in the creek (a mile away - that we walked to).
I think it’s the extremes that we question. Some make us want to be completely unplugged and others make us feel grateful for advancement in the world of all things techy. Like many of you, I don’t like hearing a phone ring while I’m out to dinner with family, and often feel disconnected from people when they are carrying on a conversation with you while checking their e-mails on their phones. And, I am truly happy to buy my milk at the store rather than milking the cows in the barn for hours to get it. I also enjoy being able to drive somewhere in my car and it take ten minutes instead of planning every trip to town then having to harness the horse to the wagon when it’s snowing and eight below.
It all comes down to how you use technology and to what extreme. We all know this, but don’t always stay ever-present in that fact. I’m guilty of going overboard on a given day with my computer, but do try to take a step away and do things with family that doesn’t require a charger or the car adaptor. I do. We do. We can’t lose sight of the times when life was very simple; drinking sweetened iced tea with neighbors when it’s hot out and playing cards together instead of watching TV or sending that all important e-mail before we kiss each other good night. I don’t want to ever hear my children tell their children a story about the time their mom got a funny e-mail. “It was a Saturday, when my mom got a long e-mail from one of her friends…”. Never. Ever.
In the olden days, when I was a child, we only went to town once a week - on Saturday afternoon - and then only after all the work was done on the farm. About 2:30, we and the other families congregated downtown - double-parked - on the one block of Main Street...where the weekly drawing was held. Then the loud speaker (from where?) would announce the three winners in the drawing - - and we'd all hope our name was one of the three drawn, so we could feel important when we went to claim our prize - sometimes as much as $10. It was a community meeting, actually - books were checkout out at the tiny library, gossip was told, advice was asked and given, and everyone was brought up-to-date on the happenings in the county for that week. Times were much, much simpler then - - and somehow I believe, much much happier - without cell phones and GPS and computers. But I'd hate to have to give up my computer now - like most others, I'd adicted.
ReplyDeleteIt's so much more fun to read these posts now, nearly live, on the same day you write them, even though I am hundreds of miles away. What would have once been tucked in a drawer only to be discovered years later-as we all wished you had shared them then- is now shot round these intertubes (which we all know are made of cats: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi8VTeDHjcM) to land in my lap while the keyboard is still warm on your side. So it should be noted that the internet doesn't kill time, people kill time. It's our choice to go for a walk on a Saturday afternoon and leave our iPhone at home (I know, I did this once!) and discover that the world continues to spin without gravity becoming disconnected form logic. As technology becomes easier, our choices become harder, and it's just another test of our resolve to choose quality over quantity.
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