I read this article in the Washington Post today. It was about how we are more interested in the digital world that has been created than the physical world we live in. The opening story was about a father who was sitting in the bathroom with his four-your-old while she was taking a bath and was on his smartphone, playing chess, and suddenly realized his feet were wet. He did the ultimate multitasking move--used one hand to turn the faucet off and the other to do a move on the chess game he was playing on his phone.
This is what society has become. I got my first laptop and iPod this summer in June, and felt like I was behind in technology when I started using it. I didn't know anything about iTunes and was at a loss to the fact that you can let your iPod and your Mac sleep, and it won't use up as much battery power as when you turn it off. As technology has kept improving, the iPad has come out, an eBook-sized touch screen computer. The App Store has had billions of downloads since the beginning of Applications. Each application has a purpose, though some seem like they have none.
In the past, I have let it be known that I hate video games. I once dated a guy who seemed wonderful, but in the end, he wanted to play video games more than he wanted to talk to me or look at me. The sad thing is that I realized this six months in. And wasted a lot of time and emotions on him. Then I took a loathing to them--the video games (the guy as well). I hate the fact that people can sit in front of a television or a GameBoy Advance and play games for hours. I hate it when parents let their kids play video games at age four.
My family never grew up with video games. My little experience with playing them was at my grandparent's house, where my uncle (only five-six years older than me) played some, and would occasionally let my sisters and I try. We also had the occasional computer and internet game. This actually had more of an expense on me-- when we were in elementary school, we went on Stickerworld, and then Neopets, but then we were too 'old' for them. Marie and I also enjoyed playing Zoo Tycoon and Age of Empires, but as the years go on, we haven't played, instead we spend more time on Facebook and for me (haha) on Blogger.com, and my own email. There really aren't games that satisfy. I play a little Tetris on Facebook, and sometimes keep going on and on, but eventually it drives me crazy, and I hate it and quit for a little while. There's a little satisfaction to getting a score that is higher than someone else, but after awhile, you are playing against yourself. What good is it to become amazing at a video game? When the power goes out in your house, what can you brag about? Sometimes I wonder about the significance of this blog, because I know it's all digital data stored in wavelengths somewhere. I can keep baring my soul to the world through the web, but it will mean nothing if I decide that I'm going to live with the Bushmen someday, in a place where technology will never reach (hopefully).
In honesty, I think that what bothers me the most about technology is that it becomes more significant than actual relationships. There was a point with Zach that he would just talk about his iPod and talk about it. Granted, he did get it for Christmas and was enthralled by it's amazingness, but it drove me crazy, because I wanted to talk to him about him, not about his stinking iPod. The article talked about how this addiction to technology made some couples have to have marriage counseling because there was lack of real conversation.
Sure, restaurants play music to dull the uncomfortable silence. But does that mean that people need to have the TV on in the house so that there is less uncomfortable silence at the dinner table? When there is uncomfortable silence, people get up the nerve to say things that they have a hard time saying--sure the moment is awkward, but it makes the relationship better in the long run. People shouldn't have to hide in the world of music to be able to get through the day with the fear of silence. There isn't music on the Metro, because they are saying stops and things, and right after the snow storm, the heat was going on and off and that was the first time I was aware of how silent the metro is. Everyone is quiet, chill, cold to one another, except the occasional excuse me and thank you. Silence is only interrupted by families, and groups of people who know each other. I think the reason behind this is that a lot of people have their iPods and their smart phones with them on their commute to home or work. Maybe people aren't comfortable with the idea of talking to strangers and that has affected them through their lives so far. Maybe people just prefer music to talking to people, because reality is too harsh. I don't understand.
I personally do my devotions in the mornings on the metro. If there is space, people don't normally sit next to one another. I think that most people just take the metro with the prospective thoughts--what I'm going to do when I get to work, what I'm going to do when I get home--and so they aren't thinking about the actual present time. That they are actually on the metro, and aren't actually on their way home.
I feel like technology diminishes relationships. I don't want to be a part of this diminishing, dehumanizing effect that is talking over our first-world country. I kind of don't want to be a part of this country, with the lack of care for citizens here, and people all over the world. I would like to be part of something that is positive and beneficial to all who step into it. Yet I'm here, humbled to be an American.
My devotions have been coming out of a small book called "the Basic Trek." It was something assigned by my Ethics teacher last semester that I never got to finish, and brought to DC with me this semester with the purpose of reading it, and I found the need and decided to do so. It focuses on the aspects of life that are important, and reintroduces the idea of living with only what we need and finding joy in the people around us, and less in the things around us.
I'm going to sell my iPod touch, I think. I don't use it that much anyway.
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