Living with (or without) the modern-day gadget
Posted: Thu Sep 02, 2004 6:37 pm
Living with (or without) the modern-day gadget
By DAVID TICOLL
The Globe & Mail-Thursday, September 2, 2004
As August days waned and September seriousness loomed, newspaper pundits appeared to have risen up against technology. If we could just get ourselves off gadgets, they implied, life would be better.
All this literary Luddism reeks of nostalgie de la boue. It looks to me like a denial-tinged rite of passage from the raptures of summer to the cold realities of urban autumn and back-to-work time.
One writer bemoaned that whirring digital camera lenses now mask loon calls and the sounds of cicadas and personal watercraft (!). Sadly, he suggests, we\'ve become our own paparazzi, gaggles of people all thrusting our little lenses towards the same pitiful objects. As we squint at postage-stamp-sized images on tiny camera screens, digital cameras have nearly killed the photo album, he writes. (I\'m impressed. Most of the old film photos that I actually got around to developing are sitting in their original processor envelopes in various cubbies around the house -- they\'re seldom looked at, if at all.)
Sadly, he says, we no longer wait patiently for films to be developed, but have succumbed to the instant gratification -- or worse, disappointments -- of the digital medium. Now we immediately find out when our vacation was a flop. (For me, a frustrated camera buff, digital photography is true liberation -- I can take as many pictures as I want, no extra charge. And my ratio of good shots to bad is much higher than it ever was on film.)
Other writers have celebrated experiments in technology withdrawal. One reporter persuaded a number of subjects to stop using their most valued electronic device for two days. The president of a public relations firm banned her BlackBerry. A real estate agent shelved her mobile phone. A family with three young kids turned off the TV. And a husband-wife high-tech consultant team dropped the Web. Another reporter celebrated the decision of a Silicon Valley executive to prohibit employees from using office e-mail every second Friday -- indefinitely.
These experiments in high-tech sensory deprivation remind me of the scare techniques in George Orwell\'s 1984. The dystopian novel\'s Big Brother uses cameras to spy on citizens in their homes and ascertain their greatest fears. The authorities then use this information to design acts of sadistic intimidation. At the novel\'s climax, protagonist Winston Smith, closeted in a small room with rats, commits an obnoxious act of betrayal.
You\'re probably thinking that depriving a real estate agent of her cellphone isn\'t exactly in the same league. But you\'ve got to admit that, for some, it risks coming close. Certainly, the authors of these stories imply as much. They describe their subjects\' various uses of technology as borderline deranged and addictive (with references to RIM\'s BlackBerry as the \"crackberry,\" a TV \"fix\" and Internet \"junkies\"). The implication? Depriving these folks of their habitual dependencies for any more than a couple of days could well turn any one of them into a pathological menace.
Or maybe not.
Dig deeper into these stories and you find calm, rational people who explain -- in practical, ordinary language -- the good sense in their electronic devices. The BlackBerry \"addict\" at the PR firm says her device is a true labour saver -- something she really noticed when she couldn\'t use it. Same with the real estate agent: no cellphone meant two more hours of work in her day. The mother of three says her kids were OK with no TV \"fix\" -- though she and her husband had to get used to it. And the high-tech consultants confronted a real business dilemma: lacking the Internet\'s instant information, they ended up faking advice to clients on the day\'s industry events.
Now let\'s not kid ourselves. Misused, and in conjunction with other negative forces, today\'s technologies can contribute to harm. A recent study in the United Kingdom found that for many young people, technology-filled bedrooms have replaced much of what has traditionally passed for family living.
According to market research firm Mintel International Group Ltd., three-quarters of Britain\'s 11- to 14-year-olds have a television in their bedroom, almost two-thirds a DVD player or video recorder, and a quarter have a computer. Eighty per cent have their own mobile phones. Two-thirds of those surveyed said they played computer games in their rooms, and chillingly, one in three said they only ever played the games alone.
The firm\'s consumer analyst Jenny Catlin said, \"In many cases modern technology has now replaced the family unit, so that everyone does whatever they want, when they want, even if it means doing it on their own.\"
This does not seem good. Over half the children surveyed worry about problems at home, one-in-four feel their parents don\'t understand them, and over 80 per cent harbour worries about schoolwork and bullying. Meanwhile, a recent article in the New York Times describes in heart-rending detail the impact of Internet bullying among high school children -- girls in particular. \"Everyone hates you,\" reads one anonymous note. On-line lists rating a school\'s girls as \"hottest,\" \"ugliest\" or \"most boring\" are common. And anyone can tell you how social technologies like e-mail and the Internet easily become time wasters -- or worse -- in the workplace.
What to do?
Despite their anecdotal charm, strategies of turning off technology don\'t really make sense. It\'s kind of like going cold turkey on refrigerators because we face an epidemic of obesity. Instead, almost overnight it seems, consumers have decided that the common sense solution to fatness is to balance consumption -- not to shut off kitchen technologies. This to the detriment of Krispy Kreme\'s recent financial results, for example.
Maybe we can all apply similar principles to our emerging social-technological landscape.
[url=\"http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040902/TWTICOLL02/TPTechnology/\"]source[/url]
By DAVID TICOLL
The Globe & Mail-Thursday, September 2, 2004
As August days waned and September seriousness loomed, newspaper pundits appeared to have risen up against technology. If we could just get ourselves off gadgets, they implied, life would be better.
All this literary Luddism reeks of nostalgie de la boue. It looks to me like a denial-tinged rite of passage from the raptures of summer to the cold realities of urban autumn and back-to-work time.
One writer bemoaned that whirring digital camera lenses now mask loon calls and the sounds of cicadas and personal watercraft (!). Sadly, he suggests, we\'ve become our own paparazzi, gaggles of people all thrusting our little lenses towards the same pitiful objects. As we squint at postage-stamp-sized images on tiny camera screens, digital cameras have nearly killed the photo album, he writes. (I\'m impressed. Most of the old film photos that I actually got around to developing are sitting in their original processor envelopes in various cubbies around the house -- they\'re seldom looked at, if at all.)
Sadly, he says, we no longer wait patiently for films to be developed, but have succumbed to the instant gratification -- or worse, disappointments -- of the digital medium. Now we immediately find out when our vacation was a flop. (For me, a frustrated camera buff, digital photography is true liberation -- I can take as many pictures as I want, no extra charge. And my ratio of good shots to bad is much higher than it ever was on film.)
Other writers have celebrated experiments in technology withdrawal. One reporter persuaded a number of subjects to stop using their most valued electronic device for two days. The president of a public relations firm banned her BlackBerry. A real estate agent shelved her mobile phone. A family with three young kids turned off the TV. And a husband-wife high-tech consultant team dropped the Web. Another reporter celebrated the decision of a Silicon Valley executive to prohibit employees from using office e-mail every second Friday -- indefinitely.
These experiments in high-tech sensory deprivation remind me of the scare techniques in George Orwell\'s 1984. The dystopian novel\'s Big Brother uses cameras to spy on citizens in their homes and ascertain their greatest fears. The authorities then use this information to design acts of sadistic intimidation. At the novel\'s climax, protagonist Winston Smith, closeted in a small room with rats, commits an obnoxious act of betrayal.
You\'re probably thinking that depriving a real estate agent of her cellphone isn\'t exactly in the same league. But you\'ve got to admit that, for some, it risks coming close. Certainly, the authors of these stories imply as much. They describe their subjects\' various uses of technology as borderline deranged and addictive (with references to RIM\'s BlackBerry as the \"crackberry,\" a TV \"fix\" and Internet \"junkies\"). The implication? Depriving these folks of their habitual dependencies for any more than a couple of days could well turn any one of them into a pathological menace.
Or maybe not.
Dig deeper into these stories and you find calm, rational people who explain -- in practical, ordinary language -- the good sense in their electronic devices. The BlackBerry \"addict\" at the PR firm says her device is a true labour saver -- something she really noticed when she couldn\'t use it. Same with the real estate agent: no cellphone meant two more hours of work in her day. The mother of three says her kids were OK with no TV \"fix\" -- though she and her husband had to get used to it. And the high-tech consultants confronted a real business dilemma: lacking the Internet\'s instant information, they ended up faking advice to clients on the day\'s industry events.
Now let\'s not kid ourselves. Misused, and in conjunction with other negative forces, today\'s technologies can contribute to harm. A recent study in the United Kingdom found that for many young people, technology-filled bedrooms have replaced much of what has traditionally passed for family living.
According to market research firm Mintel International Group Ltd., three-quarters of Britain\'s 11- to 14-year-olds have a television in their bedroom, almost two-thirds a DVD player or video recorder, and a quarter have a computer. Eighty per cent have their own mobile phones. Two-thirds of those surveyed said they played computer games in their rooms, and chillingly, one in three said they only ever played the games alone.
The firm\'s consumer analyst Jenny Catlin said, \"In many cases modern technology has now replaced the family unit, so that everyone does whatever they want, when they want, even if it means doing it on their own.\"
This does not seem good. Over half the children surveyed worry about problems at home, one-in-four feel their parents don\'t understand them, and over 80 per cent harbour worries about schoolwork and bullying. Meanwhile, a recent article in the New York Times describes in heart-rending detail the impact of Internet bullying among high school children -- girls in particular. \"Everyone hates you,\" reads one anonymous note. On-line lists rating a school\'s girls as \"hottest,\" \"ugliest\" or \"most boring\" are common. And anyone can tell you how social technologies like e-mail and the Internet easily become time wasters -- or worse -- in the workplace.
What to do?
Despite their anecdotal charm, strategies of turning off technology don\'t really make sense. It\'s kind of like going cold turkey on refrigerators because we face an epidemic of obesity. Instead, almost overnight it seems, consumers have decided that the common sense solution to fatness is to balance consumption -- not to shut off kitchen technologies. This to the detriment of Krispy Kreme\'s recent financial results, for example.
Maybe we can all apply similar principles to our emerging social-technological landscape.
[url=\"http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040902/TWTICOLL02/TPTechnology/\"]source[/url]