I have information at my fingertips at all times.
I couldn't imagine having to drive to a library to research something.
Or phone around everywhere asking questions
Or going out with pals and someone gets separated and having no means to message them.
Or going to a travel agent to book a flight that I can do in 3 minutes online.
The 90s must have been endlessly running errands. No thank you.
The 1990s was the final decade before things started going downhill. Technology was still at the point where it was beneficial rather than detrimental. The negative effects of climate change were in the early stages of manifestation but for the most part things were normal.
I had envisioned the 21st Century as being a continuation of the strides we had made and thought we would see even more progress. Two decades later, I'm not seeing this; the opposite seems to be occurring. Society has become fragmented and polarized; people are voluntarily dumbing themselves down and becoming indolent.
Phone zombies stumble around in public mesmerized by their "smart"phones... which I call stupidphones because, contrary to popular belief, they don't make users any smarter. These ridiculous gadgets have become electronic crutches to many who can't perform simple tasks without implementing some silly "phone app." They walk into traffic or fall down stairs because they can't divert their eyes from the screen for even a few seconds, even when their own personal safety (or that of others) is at stake. I would like to know what is so-o-o important on those screens that they are willing to risk injury over it.
Then there's the social media, which enables narcissism and self-centeredness: Oooh! Look at me! Look at what I did today! Me, me, me! Everything revolves around me!" Or the isolated fringe groups that can now hook up and disseminate their hate speech around the world within seconds, making these groups appear larger and more powerful than they are in reality... which, of course, is exactly what they want.
This list of maladies continues to grow: increased invasion of privacy; lack of patience and demand for instant gratification; no attention to grooming, slovenly attire in public... I could go on, but I'm reaching the character limit.
Two of the biggest scourges of today's society are the stupidphone and the social media.
Seriously, you must be exaggerating.
No, I'm dead serious. Just within the past month I've encountered not one but two cashiers who didn't know how to make change. In the one instance it was even after the cash register had displayed the proper amount!! The guy owed me $1.48 and he was struggling to come up with the correct combination of coins. It went like this: "Okay... $1.48... here's a dollar... umm... 48 cents... that's one quarter... uhh... one, two dimes... uhh... three pennies." I think this had exhausted his brain cells because I then had to remind him to give me a receipt.
I don't want to put him down because he was a nice guy, but come on! If you want to work as a cashier, making change should be a basic task. This is another one of these instances where the technology has become a crutch; the employees place too much reliance on the computerized register to give them the amount and the transaction is completed by merely swiping a credit card.
I'll bet he didn't greet you or say thank you, either. People used to lose there jobs if they didn't do this.
shareNo, he was actually friendly and seemed like a decent guy. I kind of felt sorry for him.
This is just another indicator of the degradation of our society. That's what I find irritating.
Still, I don't believe that I ever saw anybody walk into traffic or down a stairway while starring at their smartphone.
And I don't see any problems with social media either.
It is not like everybody has to share everything.
You never heard about the two guys who walked off a cliff playing Pokémon Go? You would think the second guy would have have the first one scream and would have at least looked up:
https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/15/health/pokemon-go-players-fall-down-cliff/index.html
ha, i actually almost walked into traffic 3 or 4 years back when i was trying to queue up a podcast on my phone! in my defense, i had glanced up and was certain i had the proper signal, but i must have either not looked properly or it had changed very quickly, because i almost killed myself & pissed quite a few drivers off.
that said, i think smart-phones are a brilliant advance and an incredible improvement in our lives. having that tech in our pocket at all time is an incredible gift. i used to have an apartment cluttered with tons of dvds & cds & lps, and now i live a life free of all of that, because all that stuff is beamed to me by electrons. that's something that i dont' think gets appreciated enough.
& it's not just all that physical media. all kinds of things have collapsed into that phone. practically the entire inventory of radio shack now exists on that little piece of tech.
so i say give the smartphone its proper due.
I give you credit here for being honest and having the courage to post your experience. But I must ask this question...was that podcast really worth risking your life?
I agree that there is too much clutter; I am in the process of downsizing, too. I have a laptop computer with an added external hard drive and a few DVDs and Blu-ray discs. Eventually that will be the extent of my media collection with the exception of a handful of hard-copy books that I plan to keep.
as long as there have been humans, they have done silly, goofy things and occasionally goofed their way into death.
with all due respect, i think you are falling victim to the 'Great Forgetting' in your belief that someone we are collectively becoming dumber or more insane.
the world pre-internet & smart-phone was not nirvana, and i would never want to go back to it.
i think some of the concerns people have about social media are probably worth taking seriously. i've read some of what jonathn haidt has written about that, for eg, & i think he makes a legit case that it may be leading to increases in anxiety among teens & so on. fair enough. that's worth thinking about.
but i think in the main digital technology has been an incredible blessing, it's made our lives easier, more efficient. it's imposed costs too. fine. there's no free lunch, and in every area of life there are trade-offs.
but i think smartphones are super-neat, a technological marvel and they've improved my life in a very real way. and they're part of a really remarkable revolution in the way that we've dematerialized our economies. if you're interested, the book 'more from less' by andrew mcafee has some great insights on that topic.
if you don't like them, then fine. you're entitled to your preferences. the glory of living in a relatively free country with a free market is that you get to curate your life however you see fit, and it doesn't hurt me or anyone else one little bit!
"I think you are falling victim to the 'Great Forgetting' in your belief that someone we are collectively becoming dumber or more insane."
Yes, this has been an opinion for thousands of years, but in the past we didn't have electronic social media as part of the equation. That's what makes it worse today. You mentioned increased anxiety in teens. Is it any wonder this is the case when cyberbullying now exists? Don't like somebody? Then go spread rumors and photoshopped pictures of them all around the globe within minutes. And studies have shown that addiction to social media has created false expectations resulting in lower self-esteem in teens, sometimes leading them to suicide.
"...but I think in the main digital technology has been an incredible blessing, it's made our lives easier, more efficient."
I'm all in favor of new technology when it is for the benefit of humanity. It's good that important tasks like banking or filing tax returns can be accomplished in a simpler, more streamlined manner. But this "making life easier" approach has begun to cross the line. More people are expecting instant gratification without exerting any effort. This is why we have cashiers who can't make simple change, like I mentioned above.
I've encountered people who act like they can't survive without their phones... they can't put the idiotic things down for more than a few seconds. I consider these devices to be intrusive and an invasion of privacy, which is one of the main reasons why I won't own one. My life does not revolve around some silly electronic gadget.
i agree that a lot of those issues around anxiety and bullying deserve to be taken seriously, but i would still come back and say that i feel like you're diving into this pool of pessimism and negativity that isn't completely warranted.
i say that for two reasons:
1) those things may not be as bad as we assume. lots and lots of people over the years have believed that the new generation was facing things that were the worst things ever. loosening sexual morays, satanic messaging, violent video games, all kinds of things were supposedly tearing us apart and corrupting kids. maybe it is different this time. i'm willing to take these things seriously. but i'm not willing to just accept that it's real and as serious as the people say without actual evidence.
2) you're leaving out all the good things the tech brings. you're all downside, no upside, and there is an upside.
for eg... adolescence can be a painful & lonely time for a lot of people. for some people, life is painful and lonely as an adult, too. for all the bad things social media & all the things that come with tech may bring, they can do a lot of good too. i won't bore you with my personal problems, but i will absolutely tell you if i'd had access to the kinds of things kids have now, my own adolescence would have been much less painful and lonely. i'm fine with parents not allowing their young kids phones mostly, but in some cases i think they can be a great lifeline. it would have been for me, definitely.
and i'm happy to confess that i am one of those people who would be lost without his phone. it is a lot of things to me - it's the thing that gives me the voices in my head the 5 or 6 hours a day i listen to podcasts. it let's me read the book i have on the go, & it nicely synchs up with my laptop version so i don't lose my place. it tracks my jogging/walking/biking miles. it keeps the apps i use to reread the marvel comics i enjoyed when i was a kid. it lets me have access to endless music & the criterion channel & shudder and all the streaming services i use when i'm out somewhere and have some time to catch a bit of a movie. it lets me log into my twitter app any hour of the day no matter where i am and see what the biggest brains in the world are arguing about.
i wouldn't die without my phone, but my life would be much less rich without it. it's a fantastic tool & i'm very grateful for it.
1) "...maybe it is different this time." Like I said above, electronic social media wasn't part of the equation in the past. So yes, this time around things are definitely different. The side effects are manifesting themselves sooner and spreading more quickly than in the past.
2) Nice sales pitch. You wouldn't happen to work for one of the cell phone companies, would you?
I can do everything you listed on my laptop computer or TV. I don't need the constant noise and sensory stimulation to be able to function. I spend part of my day online and prefer the remainder of the day to be quiet and without intrusions. It's called balance.
And Twitter is another time-waster and invader of privacy.
i'm not selling anything. i'm being completely sincere.
You obviously have this persistent rant in memory and post it when you are triggered.
shareSomebody has to say it. I post this because I'm concerned about the direction our society is headed.
Call it a "rant" if you wish. If we don't turn things around now I can only imagine what the next two decades are going to bring.
Totally agree.
shareIt was pretty cool actually, the 80's were better still but the 90's was still fun. We did have cell phones by the way and the internet existed it was just dial up.
It's pretty amazing to think though that one point if you were out you really were out, no way of being contacted.
Oh the horror!!!
shareYou'd be fine because that would be your norm.
This is like saying you'd never survive in the caveman days...
Future people, with chips grown in their heads will say the same thing about our time
🙈
the 90s ....nice memories...
I grew up in the 90s and never used the internet til the year 2000. Bet not many can say that. In some ways I miss a lot of stuff from back then. Like just calling your friend and asking him to come over to your house to spend the night. Then he comes over and you actually socialize with him and then you watch a movie on your parents' TV. Then you and him get up the next morning and watch cartoons on FOX Kids. Those were the days.
Now a days as an adult nobody has that much time to spend with me. And I don't have time for that either as I work 40 hours a week. But at least I am a successful working person. Things could be worse.
“Or going out with pals and someone gets separated and having no means to message them.”
The easy way around this was to designate a time and place to meet, in case you got separated, or if the group decided to break off for some reason.