Sunday, August 15, 2010

THE SHORT LEASH

At work I face twin computer screens (from twin computers). My younger associate has FOUR screens, one of which is tuned to CNN. Of course I go everywhere with my Blackberry. Yesterday I went outside to the pool and partly due to the heat, left the Blackberry inside the house. As I approached the door, I felt 'wrong' somehow, and realized it was due to the loss of connectivity.

To what? I guess to the swirl of social and infomedia which have become omnipresent and important. That sense of connectedness, no matter how illusory, has become an important part of life today. Are we really 'connected' to the 'friends' on Facebook? Maybe some. Maybe not.

Our radio cluster's sales manager of internet is 26. The associate mentioned above is, I think, 28. THEY GREW UP ON COMPUTERS. They can type without looking at the keyboard.

I remember being a small kid when one Christmas Santa brought me a "typewriter" in which there was a wheel you had to turn to each letter. Almost a manual Selectric, except it was a wheel, not a ball, and you had to do everything physically. I didn't like it. Imagine how far we've come from that perspective! What would an 8 year old of today do with that toy? His or her world is keyboards and mice.

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