The Septuagenarian's Final Thoughts

 When deciding on how to wrap up the final blog, I asked my father to tell me which era he thought was better, and which was harder and to elaborate on his thoughts. He sent me this email:

The prohibition era was bad; the Internet era is good.

Thanks, Dad, for being so descriptive. Not that he lived during Prohibition, he fancies himself to be somewhat of a comedian, but he has been adamant on saying how much he appreciates this era now. A time with smart phones and tablets he sees as being a better time because of the greater accessibility to knowledge, people, everything. I am surprised he thinks it as such because I was certain he would decide that the simpler time was the better time.

Some things that we have lost out on as a society that we had in earlier times are;

• the joys of family dinners, 
• first dates where a person doesn't already know everything about the other because they checked their facebook profile, 
• face to face, one to one, genuine interactions with one another

And some things that are gained and that certainly make enrich our lives are;

• Real time updates for weather alerts and other breaking news
• Contact with people around the world at any hour
• "Global village" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_village_(term)
• Having a world of knowledge at our fingertips.

Before I jump into my DeLorean...

...and go back to a simpler, easier time as it might seem that I'm itching to do, let me explain myself.

Walking around on campus I overhear bits of conversation that goes something like, "Yea, he friended her, can you believe that?" "Oh my god, he might as well have just publicly poked her, that's so rude." "I know, and to think we just went FBO."

WHAT????? I am guilty of this jargon as well, it has worked itself into our every day discourse, but what does it mean? We are obsessing over virtual actions. Is that wrong? Some would say no, because virtual actions can be seen by some as capable of ruining relationships, (online flirting, dating sites, craigslist's infamous personals section...), but all of this is adding unnecessary complications into our day to day life. So from the social media standpoint, we have gained an obsession and paranoia about ours and others' actions online, and analyze them without pause.

So what do you think, would school have been harder then, than it is now? Minus the computers and the internet and all our technologic goodies? Sure, it is a godsend to have computers that facilitate and make writing papers a snap, and to have huge databases of sources and journals that we can access at any time and from anywhere, but with that comes all of the distractions that our culture has become so keen on multitasking with. Multitasking seems to be less and less of a fortuitous skill, and more of a hindrance because so often when we multitask our brains will focus on one part over the other and our work therefore suffers. A better way to sell yourself at an interview today might be to say that you have the ability to sit down, focus and concentrate on one task at a time!

It is scary for me to realize that I have a very difficult time trying to imagine a life without a cell phone, it literally seems impossible, I mean, how could people reach each other? What if their car broke down? In our overly technology crazed time, it does indeed seem like a time without instant access to others and the web would be impossible to live in, but you can't miss what you never had (Those in the 60s wouldn't have known what they were missing). 

I think it is important to stop and compare the two periods, periodically (haha) and realize all the great inventions that are available to us, and where we actually are today so that we don't end up in goo, realizing that we have just been living life in the Matrix.

Post Script: For some odd reason the beginning of the blog has a formatting error, I apologize I have tried to remedy it and can not figure out why it is not uniform. Ohhh technology, right? ( ;) )