I got my first cell phone in the early nineties, when I was working in New York. I traveled back and forth on weekends to my home in Baltimore and moved around in Manhattan between my office in Soho and our showroom on 59th Street. The staff wanted to be able to consult with me wherever I was - a crisis could arise at any time - and so our IT man insisted I have a cell phone. It was one of the first flip-ups, a Motorola, as I remember, with a somewhat fragile areal that had to be pulled up from the body of the phone. I didn't really use it much but it was in the early days of mobile phones, before we became dependent on instant communication. I was often irritated when I saw patrons in a restaurant in New York, talking on their phone instead of talking to the person sitting across the table, who may have been on his phone as well. And it was especially irritating when on the train I would hear people talking loudly on their phones and saying the most mundane things. "I'm on the train, now." Or, "We're just passing Philadelphia." Or, "I'm just getting out of the train in Baltimore." I wondered how important that information really was. Thank God for the quiet car.
Like so many of us, I've succumbed to the lure of Facebook. And as in the early days of phones, I wonder now how important the information posted there can be. Do I really want to know where someone is - at the car wash, waiting in the airport, having dinner at such and such a place - or hear some shared inane comment on the human condition, or see a copy of what someone else has said on some other media network, all punctuated by the proliferating commercialization of business posts, or games like Candy Crush or Word With Friends? No. Not really. But it is addictive. I've posted some inanities. I read the stuff. And I play the games. And I'm ashamed of myself. How much better to write a letter (or now an email) or call someone up (on my ever-present cell phone) and have a real conversation? Oh for the good old days.
I know. I'm an old fogy. I admit it. But I'm inclined to think that this era of burgeoning communication is not communication at all but merely noise, and that we are not growing closer together but just further apart. How sad.
Stay tuned.
Like so many of us, I've succumbed to the lure of Facebook. And as in the early days of phones, I wonder now how important the information posted there can be. Do I really want to know where someone is - at the car wash, waiting in the airport, having dinner at such and such a place - or hear some shared inane comment on the human condition, or see a copy of what someone else has said on some other media network, all punctuated by the proliferating commercialization of business posts, or games like Candy Crush or Word With Friends? No. Not really. But it is addictive. I've posted some inanities. I read the stuff. And I play the games. And I'm ashamed of myself. How much better to write a letter (or now an email) or call someone up (on my ever-present cell phone) and have a real conversation? Oh for the good old days.
I know. I'm an old fogy. I admit it. But I'm inclined to think that this era of burgeoning communication is not communication at all but merely noise, and that we are not growing closer together but just further apart. How sad.
Stay tuned.
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