From the internet, to camera phones, to instant messenger, technology has certainly become a staple in our everyday lives. However, devices that were meant to make life a little bit easier, and were intended to provide us with a high level of convenience, often cause alarm, frustration, and separate us from each other.
I recall when “surfing the web” was a big deal. There was such a vast ocean of information and knowledge available at anytime. And although you probably had to travel to the public library to get to a computer that had significant internet capabilities, you could search through stockpiles of information infinitely faster than you could running through the library-at Carl Lewis’ speed-looking things up. It may have even been to your benefit to read The News on the web because you could browse through the topics that interested you, and cut out the 20 minutes of T/V news “fat.” Books that you wanted to review, prior to purchasing, were also available on the internet. In order to find a particular book, all you had to do was log on to your favorite search engine (ie altavista.com, yahoo.com, lycos.com), and type the book title in. “Hits” would appear, and the website that you wanted to investigate was just one click away. You’d click on it, read what you wanted to read, and go on your merry way.
Well, that was how it was supposed to be. Unfortunately, the selfsame day that “Al Gore” gave birth to the internet, it was corrupted by people who had nothing better to do than to spoil its existence for everyone else.
You couldn’t just type in (and in many cases still cannot) a book title and expect to get Hits concerning that book only. In fact, before many of the major search engines changed their program algorithms, if you typed in “Little Women,” in search of Louisa May Alcott’s novel, you’d return loads of Hits that had nothing to do with four March sisters, and everything to do with sisters making out with each other, their brothers, and their little cousins. Pornography had permeated the internet in ways that many weren’t aware of initially. Parents would often leave their children to play on the web, or maybe even look up a book like “Little Women” for a book report, only to have their kids be witness to countless pages of sexually explicit filth. Now, with viruses rampant, and pop up windows abounding, the frustration continues in many other ways.
Since I entered college, I watched photography evolve from 35mm film camera’s with elaborate zoom lenses, to “throw away” cameras, to digital cameras. And though the digital cameras certainly have their advantages, there are a couple things that still bug me about them. And as I mentioned before in my series about technology, if a new technological device can’t provide me with everything that its predecessor provided me with, then it is technologically placebo. With respect to digital cameras, the biggest problem I have is the so-called “lag time.” That is the time it takes for the camera to actually take the picture after the button has been pressed.
We all know that with film cameras, this wasn’t a big problem. You tell everyone to say “cheese,” press the button, and it’s a done deal. Now, you have to wait through a succession of warning flashes before the camera gets its mind right and actually takes a picture. This often leads to many people moving or not smiling when the actual photo is being taken, or the cameraman taking shots of the floor because he didn’t realize that the real picture hasn’t been taken yet, and pulls the camera down after “taking the picture.” What that translates into is people having to re-situate themselves in front of the camera in order to do it right (as if that isn’t a hard enough task the first time). Honestly, I at least think there should be a standard warning flash sequence for all digital cameras so that we can eliminate that problem.
Finally, there’s this thing called Instant Messenger. IM is easily one of the most addicting devices technology has to offer. You can get on IM to check to see who else is signed on, and end up communicating on there for 4 hours straight; it’s crazy like that. However, I’ve noticed that IM is quite possibly the worst way to communicate with people.
Communication is dominated by body language and vocal tone. I know that I can understand people speaking a different language pretty well just by watching their gestures, facial expressions, and by listening to the pitch in their voice. You get all of that in person, some of that over the phone, but none of that with Instant Messenger. I know that there have been multiple times when a statement that I “IM’ed” somebody with was completely misunderstood (I’m sure, however, that had I said the statement over the phone, and certainly in person, that it would have been taken as I had meant it to be taken.). So, then I have to explain, in my most pristine language, exactly what I meant. How annoying!
To overcome this, standard IM talk has been established. To express that we think something is funny, we type “lol,” or laughing out loud (which one of my female friends once misinterpreted as “lots of love”). If its really funny, we might type “ROFL” or “lmao.” I find this interesting because how many times are you really laughing out loud when you find something mildly amusing? Probably almost never. In fact, lol is almost as common as “um” in a verbal conversation. Also, if you’re really Rolling On The Floor laughing, maybe you should see a shrink...jk :o)
Abbreviations like btw, bf/gf, and the world’s longest running lie, brb (when you know that you have zero intention of “being right back”), are all apart of this family of communication, if you can call it that. And there is even a family of facial expressions that you can now use to express how you are feeling on IM. Choose one, and the person on the other side will indeed understand you.
I also think its funny how people sometimes describe their every waking moment on their away message. And in a world where stalker’s for real exist, you’d think that people wouldn’t put their personal information out in the open, but sure enough, check a few profiles, and you’ve got easy access to someone’s life. The funniest thing about away messages is everyone’s attempt to amuse the viewing community. People try their hardest to put up an away message that will garner some responses, and are ever-so frustrated when they return to their empty computer screen.
Finally, I think that IM is one of the most separating devices out there. I know, from experience, that friends sometimes go from lunches, to phone calls, to buddy lists. Instead of calling someone, you figure that you can just put them on your buddy list, and talk to them online. Unfortunately, after a while, you just don’t talk in person or over the phone anymore (or certainly not as frequently). Once you’ve gotten past the excitement of finding out that Sally Sue is also on IM (big surprise, right?), IM becomes an afterthought as well.
Be honest, how many of your “buddies” do you really engage in conversation? I have over a hundred “buddies,” and probably talk to less than 10 on a regular basis (although I do check all away messages and profiles frequently).
And in all my disgust with technology, I find myself using it all: Email, the internet (as evidenced by my blog), digital cameras, and certainly Instant Messenger. I use them not because they’re exactly necessary, but because society has created an atmosphere that makes them seem necessary (and if they work like they’re supposed to, they can provide comfort and convenience). I fought the notion of owning a cell phone for years. Then, when I finally broke down and got one 2 years ago, my world changed. That day, and every subsequent day, I had to have my celly or I was a lost individual. That’s the strange thing about it, the week before I had no problem navigating through my life without one. So though it still isn’t exactly necessary, I sure feel like it is.
In the final analysis, I just find it interesting that technology is supposed to make more time for us to do things like hang out with friends, sleep more, enjoy life. Technology is supposed to uncomplicated things. From instant potatoes to the George Foreman grill, everything is supposed to be much easier for us, and we should be able to enjoy our lives at our leisure. However, it seems like the more technology advances the less time we have, and the more frustrated we become. Funny, huh?
-Maelstrom
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