Apr
29
2013
There were electrical outlet stations scattered in the airplane terminal. Everyone today has I Pods, cell phones, laptops. And they were being used. That was a sight you would not have seen twenty years ago.
Mar
24
2013
We have become dependent on cell phones. I remember a few years ago we were having a family reunion at a park somewhat equidistant from one sister and our house. I remember my other sister expressing some reservations about meeting there: she was concerned about getting cell phone reception there. Almost everyone has a cell phone today and check it constantly. Most people can’t conceive going anywhere with out. In fact, others get somewhat nervous and anxious when they don’t have one with them or they are in a “‘dead” zone and have no reception. All you have to do is go to a mall: most of the teenagers have their cell phone glued to their ears as they walk around and shop afraid they will miss something. I think it is downright impolite to be sitting at a restaurant and the person with you takes a call.
Mar
23
2012
It is easy to take technology for granted. Our modem went out. And all of a sudden I could not go online, check my mail. It was going to be a few days before I receive a new modem from Century Link. And I was feeling something was missing and I could not wait until i received the replacement modem. I took it for granted, that I could go online every day. Fifty years ago there was no Internet or even an affordable home computer. And I don’t have one of those fancy cell phones that are really computers. I never forgot my sister balking to go into an area if there was no cell phone reception. The world is really connected. And it makes no difference. Wars are going on all over the world. Communication has not really improved.
Jul
29
2011
Somehow I need to talk less. I need to give my wife more empty spaces. I forget this all too often. I do not have to repeat myself unless it is evident she did not hear me or understand me. All this is very hard for me. I know I have to work on it.
Less is always more. It is too easy to fill up the blank spaces with words. I have to give my “other” a chance to reflect on my words. All this takes time. Communication is not immediate. This age of cell phones and other technology gives this illusion that communication is instant. It is the hardest thing in the whole world. It is work.
When I believe I am being perfectly clear in my communication with my wife, I find out I wasn’t.
Jan
19
2010
I do not believe communication is better because you can do it almost instantaneously. Communication is as hard as ever. There are more wars going on in this world as ever.
Sure with the internet a message can be sent around the world in seconds. So what! It is just quicker to make mistakes in judgment. Cell phones keep getting more sophisticated. The saturation time has not changed. You can absorb data no quicker.
Everywhere you go others can be seen with cell phones attached to their ears as if they grew there. They really are a great distraction– one of many today.
True communication is always better face to face. And it takes time. And effort and the ability to listen to each other carefully and well. None of that is any easier.
Maybe, even harder. There is the delusion true communication is occurring. It is as hard as ever. That has not changed at all in this world of almost instantaneous communication.
May
5
2009
The question posed by the title seems odd: it is a paraphrase from the book “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau. The exact quote states “We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.”
This book was written over one hundred and fifty years ago. Thoreau later on the same page asks, “Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life?”
His statements are more apropos than ever. We live in a world of instant communication. A tragedy in a different part of the world thousands of miles away occurs and the news reports it right away.
If you go to a mall you would think the cell phones of teenagers are glued to their ears.
What Thoreau was asking was do we use the technology at our disposal usefully or does it control us. This question is more relevant than ever before today.
In the days of sophisticated cell phones (and computers) that can almost do anything you have to ask is it all necessary. Teenagers got along fifty years ago without cell phones (and parents still kept track of them).
Not too long ago I was in a car that was navigating by GPS and its directions were wrong and the driver almost did not believe I knew the right turn to make.
You have to wonder how much true communication is really taking place? I still prefer talking to others face to face. Yes, I will use a cell phone occasionally. Nevertheless it does not run my life.
Now every household has a computer, multiple cell phones, a microwave and all kinds of other technology. And I do not care that cell phones can almost do anything except dance.
Thoreau was really asking another question, also, the need to go faster and faster and no one asks the questions why is this speed so necessary and why do we want to go there. We can fly across continents quicker than ever before but so what.
The world has become smaller but not really. True communication is usually not instantaneous. The new technology has not really made this any easier. It only gives the illusion it is. And don’t be fooled. It takes commitment and effort to truly understand another human being.
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