Posted on 05/30/2014 3:25:36 PM PDT by NYer
Ping!
So we sit in a cave and wait to die?
Do you disagree with all of these assertions? I found the article to be refreshing. Is there some reason why we need to have tv screens in a restaurant? What is wrong with conversation? It can be challenging to grab someone's attention in conversation when their eyes are focused on a tv screen. As for the the cell phone's ability to "record the moment", what actually happens to those memories? Are these preserved for future viewing or relegated to a moment in time that has just passed, and we move on?
The author has addressed your question with the final statement: So … what could possibly be good about all this? Tune in tomorrow … Please remind me to post the sequel.
“Tomorrow, I will post: “How New Media Are Enhancing Our Lives””
Add to the list of “shortest books ever written”.
Media is a result of WHO posts WHAT on it....I am on FB....but most of what I post is Political or historical...If you are a narcissist, it will just be a reflection of you no matter how you communicate...ie...I refuse to participate in the Happy Birthday activities...and i do NOT have my real birthday or city of birth listed
It’s all about moderation.
I do despise TVs in restaurants unless it’s a sports bar. I dont want CNN pumped into my face while I’m trying to eat.
My smartphone is very important to me as a way to keep in touch quickly and get useful info.
For the most part I do disagree. Too bad you never answered my question.
This is one of those damned if you do, damned if you don’t situations. Yes, the internet has changed our lives in very dramatic ways. Some changes have been good. Some have been bad. In my case, my life was totally changed because of the internet and the World Wide Web. (emphasis on world wide)
Everything he says is true, of course. But there is another side. The new media are useful when used in moderation.
How would we know what Plato said about writing, if it hadn’t been written down? How likely would it be that we would have the Iliad and the Odyssey if they hadn’t been written down for us to read? Even if that makes it difficult to write more epics now?
Google search is probably bad for young people who would otherwise commit more stuff to memory. On the other hand, it’s very useful for an oldster like me, who remembers something vaguely but needs to use Google search to recover the details. You still need to remember enough to know what to look for.
Too much internet can be destructive, but without it, the MSM would be totally irresistible.
In other words, yes, there are two sides to the coin.
Indeed. The Internet has opened the news to Everyman.
The kind of people who get sucked into narcissism or pornography with technology would find other forms of expressing their character defects without it.
BTW, word processing is a gift from God, as far as I'm concerned.
My goal is to one be rich enough to leave electronics behind and never be bothered again.
As one formally educated in the use of a typewriter, I would have to concur. In my first job, each document typed included 5 onion skin papers, separated by carbon papers. If one mistake was made, the entire document was tossed and the process began anew. Hence, emphasis was placed on one's ability to type without error. Of course, once someone announced that no mistakes could be made, a mistake took place and the document was tossed.
The problem with word processing, however, is the introduction of spelling and grammar checkers. No need to describe how these systems fail; simply look to the web or your local newspaper for examples. Automation cannot distinguish between "to, too, and two" or "thru and through". The nuns taught us our grammar and I have never forgotten it. When working with word processing software, I turn off the spelling and grammar checkers.
Funny.
Went to our local outside, hip and upscale mall to take a friend to lunch.
The first two places were unbelievably loud. Food was asian themed and would have stayed too but, we had to raise oir voices to speak with the waitress. Too frickin much.
Went to the next place. Only a few people there but, easily communicated to with the waiter.
Had an awesome ribeye with some delish marrow that was easy to scoop.
Very pleasant atmosphere and enjoyed conversation with my friend.
Glad I’m not on FB.
I for one find the enhancement of information availability almost exhilarating. I am ‘old’ school, from before we had TV. We had one phone in the house and it was on a desk and was powered trough a cord. I had friends in the country who had big old phones with a crank, and they were on ‘party line’ because there weren’t enough phone lines to go around for everyone to have one. I remember when we had to go to the library and search manually through volumes to get a few pieces of information. I remember when we had to use Strong’s Concordance to find a passage in the Bible that we could partially remember, but did not know where. I remember when the first McDonald’s came to Des Moines where I grew up, and it was amazing that we could get a decent hamburger for 15 cents. I remember my Granddad’s 1934 Ford V8 four door (four ‘suicide’ doors), and it had a ‘trunk’ on the back. I learned to drive on that car, btw. My granddad lived with us in Des Moines. He was native of Sweden, and as a teenager made his way to Nebraska with brother, sister and parents.
And I remember my first computer, dos based pc with a 30 Meg hard drive. I learned on an IBM pc with two floppies but no hard drive. I learned to do ‘everything’ on that, and when I got my own with the 30 meg hard drive, a ‘computer expert’ friend of mine said, ‘you will never need that much hard drive!
It was not until the late 90’s that I learned about the internet and ‘web pages’. Wow, information. And we had our own novel web page that helped find long lost cousins. How about that!
Also in the mid 90’s I got my first ‘cell phone’. It was a ‘bag phone’. And expensive to use. But it worked unbelievably well as a communication devise. And after that I had various cell phones that were just phones! And then, finally, a year ago, I got my first ‘smart phone’. Yup, it is smart, and hope someday I will catch up with it. But I am learning to like it. Even given over to texting, but NEVER while driving! An accident waiting to happen!
Today we have, if we want it, information overload. And as a researcher, I am whole heartedly in favor of the availability of information. I thrive on information. And at my age, it is astounding that I can access information about ‘anything’! And I am an information ‘hog’. I have the capacity to remember much of what I read, and save it on my pc so can find it again with searches.
Wow, if I could have ‘secretly’ had all this info at my fingertips, literally, I could have been a ‘real boy wonder’. No wonder kids are so smart today!
But I am a year and a half away from being an octogenarian, and I ain’t done learning yet!
So no, the new media are not destroying our lives, unless we are ‘sheeple’. I am not ‘sheeple’. I will never let all the technology control me. My plan is to control it to my benefit. I have clients who depend on what I know through my research. I will benefit those clients by my relentless search for knowledge. We can be masters of what otherwise would master us.
“If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks.”
With all due respect to Plato, there is more stuff to remember now than there was then. It can't all be passed down orally. Someone has to take notes.
Besides, folks wrote before Plato. Was he being facetious?
Add to the list of “shortest books ever written”.
Believe me, I can be as cynical as anyone. That said, even if the only entry in that "shortest book ever written" is "FreeRepublic.com," that fact alone will make it all worth it.
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