I was polled last night (and boy, was that painful...no wait, that was a dream I had last night...) by someone from USC doing a study to determine the extent of which internet usage has been changing peoples' lives.
Normally I don't participate in telephone polls - we hardly ever get any of those calls, for one, and for two, they take too much time and I have better things to do, like watch American Idol or clean out the lint trap in the dryer.
But this one sounded legit, and interesting. He bombarded me with questions about e-mail usage, time spent on the web, what I use the web for, if it has changed the amount of time I spend on other activities, etc.
Two items in particular intrigued me. The first was if I though that cell phones, pagers, BlackBerries and the like have improved or been a detriment to society. I had a speech at the tip of my tongue, as this is a pet debate subject of mine, but unfortunately all he was desired was empirical data: improved, a detriment, or neither. The truest answer I could give him was "neither." Because I feel that both of the other alternatives are true at the same time. While improving some kinds of communication - more people can work away from their offices, allowing greater flexibility, easier travel and telecommuting, which saves energy and gives working parents a break, (in fact I typed the first draft of this on my Palm Pilot via a wireless keyboard, so I could write in the kitchen and keep a watch on the coconut macaroons I had in the oven.) Cell phones are handy in emergencies and give peace of mind to people with children, ailing family members, traveling spouses, etc. There have been many times (particularly over the past year) when a cell phone could have saved time and worry for me and my husband. We even had one for a short time, unfortunately (or fortunately) not long enough for it to become a habit before it met its watery demise in our flooded basement.
On the other hand, I regret the loss of a certain pace of life they have made obsolete. I could pluck so many instances of rude cell phone behavior out of my memory I could fill a month's worth of blog entries. There was the woman on the train having a very loud conversation with someone about a mutual friend's recent birth experience, including details that nobody should ever have to hear about on the Hudson Line, or, come to think of it, ever. Worse, she kept losing her connection, calling information to get the number (hadn’t figured out the “redial” function yet, apparently), and then shouting the same details again, because the other party hadn't heard them the first time. Or the second. In fact, I don't think there was a person in Westchester County who didn't know how many stitches this poor woman needed for her episiotomy.
Then there was the bat mitzvah of my husband's cousin's daughter, where a man helped us silence some rude kids who were talking loudly in the back of the room during the service, but when his cell phone rang, he took the call. Cell phones and the other devices have intruded into leisure time so insidiously that some of us don't remember what life used to be like and how we ever got along without them. I remember glorious long jogs on country roads, free of telephones, free from the yoke of responsibility, reveling in the fact that nobody in the world even knew where I was. Not anymore. I see so many joggers with cells attached that I wonder: are we ever truly free? Have we lost our privacy? Silence? Time for contemplation? The invisible barrier between work life and family life? I hope not. I hope it's merely overexcited by potential at the moment, and that eventually the pendulum will swing back again. Not into Luddite-ville, because as the cliché goes, you can't put the genie back in the bottle, but into some happy compromise. Where cell phones stay in the car when you go to the beach. Where BlackBerries and pagers are turned off during meal times. Where you can go to a play or concert or movie and some pre-recorded announcement doesn't have to remind people to switch their phones to vibrate, if you must have it on at all.
Remember when we didn’t have to remind people to be considerate to each other? Anyone?
It's a dream, but a small one.
The other item in the poll that intrigued me was a section on how the internet and e-mail have effected how you communicate with friends and family. It disturbed me when I answered that e-mail has allowed me to communicate more frequently with my family. When did this faceless medium become a replacement for face-to-face? The ease, I get. Easier to type some keystrokes than to play phone tag with someone's answering machine, or to turn off American Idol to have an actual conversation, or to try to align everyone's schedules like an astronomical chart in order to find the two-hour slot on that Sunday in June when everyone can get together.
And I noticed, as I answered more questions, that I rarely, if ever, e-mail my neighbors. If I want to talk with one of them, I call, or walk (which I will again when I get strong enough to tackle the hills up here in the Highland Alps) or drive over to their houses. But what I truly found disturbing when he asked the number of people I regularly e-mail whom I've never met face-to-face. (You know who you are, and you still owe me lunch ;)) I was once involved with an entire writing group - we'd share our creative endeavors, the most tender shoots of our psyches, but we barely knew more than each other's screen names. It's kind of strange, when you get down to it. But intriguing. Not in a "You've Got Mail" sort of way (what a waste of Tom Hanks) but in a human way. The better part of human communication is non-verbal. How do you get around that in writing? Letter-writing is a different animal. Personality comes from the paper, the handwriting, the human effort that went into the communication. A bunch of keystrokes is a poor, but unfortunately common, substitution. Still, it’s allowed me to communicate with more people more frequently and frankly, saved a portion of my sanity during this long illness.
So. Enough impersonal keystrokes from me. How do you feel about this? What has the internet done, good and bad, for you?
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5 comments:
I loathe cell phones. Having said that, I love the fact that SG has a cell phone, because I can call her when we're both at work and get her no matter where she is. But I loathe cell phones in the hands of other people... which, of course, makes it that classic conflict -- Something I Like When I Use It, Something I Hate When Other People Have It. Like, you know, a George Jetsons flying car would be. If you have the only one, and can just zip over gridlock and ignore inconvenient road layout to get where you are, it's a fantastic boon. When everyone gets them, you get gridlock in the sky... not to mention the frequent Death From Above scenarios, as engine trouble with a flying car does not simply mean you stall by the side of the road, it means you fall out of the sky like a cottage sized meteor and crush whatever you land on.
What's interesting to me is that Japanese firms have developed 'cones of silence' mechanism that will effectively jam all cell phone use for a radius of around a hundred yards. These things are the size of a pack of cards and fairly cheap to manufacture; nearly everyone could have one if they wanted one... except they are illegal in the U.S. The last thing the wireless companies want is some ingrate Luddite like you or me walking around in a cell phone free zone at will. But I'll tell you, if I had the opportunity to buy one of these on the black market, the only questions I'd have is 'how much do you need'?
Of course, the wireless addicts will just sniff and say "If you don't want a cell phone, you don't have to have one", but, as you point out, it's not MY cell phone that bothers me, it's YOUR cell phone. Which is why, at the very least, I wish businesses (especially movie theaters) would buy heavy duty jammers and set them up on their own prenises. They might lose some business, but I suspect they'd pick up a few more.
nmarxx?
First, the poll proper: She Who Must Be Obeyed will confirm that it’s a little-known fact that I signed on at a polling firm for about a week, “back in the day”. One thing I took away from the experience was how procrustean the answer grid was. Shades of grey need not apply, nor can one prorate your answer according to percentages. It also gave me a greater sympathy to those who labor on the lines, because your performance reviews are directly tied in to how many “completes” you can rack up in a day. When time permits, we happily play along. When the questions take a decided slant, I’ll begin to question the poor sod on the other end, especially when they begin to throw around terms that are highly subjective, without adequately defining them, or if they cite statistics without reference to the source (ask us about our efforts to ban dihydrogen monoxide – a leading killer worldwide!).
On to the technical aspects: Because of our current living arrangements SWMBO and I use email as our primary form of communication. It’s also the only way to reach my brother, as he neither answers his phone, nor returns calls. My sister is a different story. Telephone tag is still the order of the day, down to the point of simply leaving the message “Tag – you’re it!”, and hanging up. Yes, I’m guilty of emailing friends upstairs or down the hall, rather than leaving this cocoon and knocking on their doors. Cell phones, though, are where we draw the line, though my Hunni is cracking. There are times when a human being requires solitude (even those of us who are energized by the company of others), and a cell phone is simply too intrusive (“Mine,” let alone “Yours”!). It betrays our over-inflated sense of importance (or, more likely, our insecurity). While many genuinely need to be available at the first hint of emergency, most of us have the luxury of being less tied to our jobs. In the case of frequent travel, aging parents, or other situations a cell phone can be a comfort and even a blessing. Still, there’s a reason phone booths used to be fully enclosed – it’s because our business is between ourselves and whomever is on the other end of the conversation. Besides, one has difficulty imagining Clark Kent changing in a flip phone…
Nsldlmf - were't they that Croatian family who moved to Napanoch when Husband and I were kids?
Highlander:
Sign me up for one of those devices! I wouldn't want to make a complete "cone of silence" as I would just like to shut down certain people who are being particularly irksome. Kind of like those laser pens. Hee hee heee....
Preacher:
Yes, I believe I remember Husband speaking fondly of old Mr. N.
I kept wanting to give qualitative answers to the guy on the phone but it was clear that he kept wanting stats. Leading to ridiculous exchanges like:
Him: How many times do you check your e-mail during the week?
Me: Oh, I'd say ten to fifteen.
Him: No, I need a definite number.
Me: Well, if you wanted a definite number, then you should have said so.
The whole thing took about a half an hour. But I was bored and American Idol wasn't on. :)
It's not the cell phones, it's the people who use them. Maybe manufacturers should require buyers pass a test before they're given a temporary permit. If they use it responsibly, they could be given a CPOL (cell phone operator's license).
Do I really owe you lunch?
Pote,
I agree with you...then they'd be licensed to carry concealed. Unfortunately there's that darned bill of rights thing going on...oh, if we only ran the world! l)
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