As my mother used to say, how much information does one person need?
I wonder what price we pay nowadays as a result of having a device or app or a something to tickle every fancy. Whether we stunt or lose our ability to imagine. The kind of imagination it took when all we had were a few radio stations...and the glow from the dial.
[Note: This was first posted on my Facebook page, June 11, 2009.]
A Facebook friend recently posted an I-don’t-get-it message about Twitter. He speaks my mind, and we’re not alone in our resistance.
He reminded me of an article I read recently (OK, on-line) by Michael Winerip in the New York Times. Winerip and I came right after the generation for whom radios and telephones were still slightly novel. It’s from our parents and grandparents that he and I learned to appreciate the simpler basics.
Why? Because there’s such a thing as too much stimulation. I know I function better when I force myself to slow down. To pick up the phone…or, better yet, a pen and paper. When I let myself breathe.
There’s nothing new under the sun. In an Aug.27, 1786, letter to Peter Carr, Thomas Jefferson extolled the virtues of taking a walk…provided your priorities are in good order:
Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks. Never think of taking a book with you. The object of walking is to relax the mind. You should therefore not permit yourself even to think while you walk. But divert your attention by the objects surrounding you.
Let me know what you think. Just don’t try to Tweet me.
DOUG
PS: Michael Winerip used to write for The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal, back when that really meant something.
Every innovation conveys both advantages and penalties. Wireless communication frees us from the tyranny of geography, but also compromises some of the barriers we’ve relied on to carve out some privacy for ourselves. The solution is to have conscious control of the “off” switch.
1Well Doug, “As my wife is fond of saying, that was then, this is now.” She usually says that when talking about something I thought we had agreed about… But there is another change I didn’t see coming: there are about 75 million “Millennials” (Born 1977 – 1998), including our two sons – who cannot get ENOUGH information, preferably all at the same time. Multitasking is IN: texting, social networks and loud music are taking the place of the birds that chirped in the woods on those long solitary walks. Their weapons are iPods, cell phones and the internet. Sometimes I wonder if my kids permit themselves to think while they text. Back to the letter of 1786: their attention is diverted by the objects surrounding them – but probably not what Jefferson had in mind. Doug, it is like Flash Gordon – but for Real!
2