Dear
paranoid androids,
I have
spent the last four hours reading some very interesting literature. I’ve left
it late, as I usually do, because I was outside with real people, in the sun. I
applied sunblock too late, so the slight sunburn I have caused myself has made
me drowsy. I didn’t realise the time, because my BlackBerry was in the car. I don’t
have a watch – well, I do, but the battery ran flat about six years ago. I had
left my iPad at home to charge, because the new ones take nine painfully long
hours to charge.
My dear
androids, the vicious cycle you are stuck in, the “cycle of responsiveness”
that comes from being “on” (Perlow 2012:6-7) has not left you stranded and
fighting for air. You are able to put down the Instagram, you can step away
from the Galaxy S3 and the Smart TV…you can even close the laptop, program the PVR to record Law
& Order, and walk away. Perlow[i]
(2012:8) notes that people resent the way professional and personal lives are increasingly
merging, and that people fail to realise that they are indeed their own worst
enemies. Granted, I am not a CEO
of a multinational corporation, but even the super-rich faceless CEO has henchmen. But, since I am not, nor are many people CEOs,
Perlow (2012:4) suggests a process called “predictable time off”. Perlow’s
(2012:4) PTO system dictates that people work together in order to be ergonomic
worker bees, instead of frantic badgers, clawing the walls of their cubicles in
a desperate attempt to escape their self-imposed chains. My iPad was left on charge because I used it
last night to record the podcast I co-host.
I co-host, because I don’t have the
technical knowhow (self-imposed ignorance or not) to edit the audio, so one of the co-hosts does it. I have created, albeit on a
micro scale, a “predictable time off” (Perlow 2012:4), because while he edits,
I am in charge of Twitter marketing (which I am admittedly rubbish at, because
I am not always on).
People whimper
that they feel they are always connected, which Perlow (2012) details. They whine
that they never have down time where they are completely and utterly
unreachable. But I have never had an
issue just turning my phone off, or shutting down my iPad. I don’t get nervous
twitches when I don’t check my Facebook newsfeed, or my Twitter timeline when
wake up. I don’t find myself gasping for the sweet relief that comes with
knowing that someone I haven’t seen in a decade checked into a restaurant that
I have never been in 5 minutes ago. I don’t have the attention span to deal
with Facebook, which deals with a 99% drivel statistic. That being said, my dear
androids, I have just finished reading the introduction to Rheingold’s
(2012) Net Smart where he discusses
the loss of attention we, as a digital citizenship, suffer from. I felt a bit
bad that I was losing concentration. Not for the fact that I couldn’t concentrate, but for the pure
fact that if people (kids specifically) cannot concentrate, we just need new
ways of reaching them. We are, as Rheingold (2012:2) suggests, in an age where
we are overloaded with information.
But I believe that it is a generational
problem. Kids of the future, I believe, won’t have the same agitation that
comes with the constant connectedness, nor will they struggle to sift through
information, like we do now. Rheingold (2012:16) argues that we need to be
taught how to be aware of the credibility, or lack thereof, at school level. I don’t
know anyone at school anymore, but I believe they are not being taught how to
distrust Wikipedia. With that in mind, Wikipedia is a fantastic platform. The
Internet in general is an incredibly powerful tool, but for research purposes,
Wikipedia holds a place dear in my heart. Rheingold (2012:22) argues that tools
like Wikipedia need to be used responsibly, and it is impossible to argue
against the usefulness of Wikipedia – collaborative knowledge accessible to
anyone with an Internet connection. Obviously, dear androids, it is hardly
credible, but Wikipedia can function
as an invaluable starting-point. As does Facebook, Twitter and all the other
social media platforms. I am able to see what people are planning on the other
side of the planet. I can see what games my grandmother (yes, my grandmother) is playing. I can access
the same people I haven’t seen in a decade that checked into the restaurant,
now 15 minutes ago. They are, most likely, ordering drinks and starters by now.
If they are good looking starters, they might upload a photo via Instagram.
They might not. Either way – I don’t really care. But I could if I wanted to.
Marche
(2012:sp) asks whether the constant connection to these social networking
platforms, Facebook specifically, is making us lonely. The ambient intimacy
afforded to us by these platforms, Marche (2012:sp) argues, is contrasted with
a sense of disconnectedness from real life. But, Marche (2012:sp) continues, as
does Perlow (2012:8), that it is self-imposed. Machines, Marche (2012:sp) and
countless others argue, do not decide what they do with us. We decide how we
use our technology. We are not Heidegger’s (in Feenberg
2002:7) standing reserves if we don’t want
to be. The fetish of reading the newsfeed on Facebook will only make you
miserable when you see that Binki is with someone too fabulous to have a name,
and they are in Budapest. Again. Why don’t you close the laptop, and go to
Budapest instead of lying in a slightly damp heap of your own reTweets.
My dear
paranoid androids, it’s called an off button. If you don’t like it – turn it
off.
Virtually
yours,
Desré.
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