a digital hiatus
I’ve been on a digital hiatus. Digital vacation? Whatever you want to call it.
Trying my best to avoid the internet, be it email, social media, blogging, even reading the news. Hell, I haven’t even watched TV in like two weeks.
Ok, that’s a lie. I saw the news at a friend’s house recently. I didn’t know anything they were talking about. Also local news sucks. It’s too kitschy, in my opinion.
It’s definitely been weird. I’m usually five steps behind when it comes to things regarding pop culture, but now it’s even been national/world news. I don’t think I like it. Not just not knowing what is going on in the world. I don’t like that I depend on this virtual connection in order to learn what is going on in the world.
I’ve read tons about how social media, etc. has caused the ‘millennial’ generation (also HATE I’m classified into this – I always considered myself part of Gen-Y!) to become disconnected with the world. We are constantly on computers, mobile phones, smart phones, other various devices like the iPad, the Kindle, the Nook, handheld gaming systems, etc. But it is also not just millennials – it is everyone. Except people like my friend’s grandmother who refuse to learn the internet before death – she told him, ‘If there is internet in heaven, I will learn it then.’
And while I’m totally intrigued by digital/mobile technologies and augmented realties, I feel disgust at the same time.
Granted, there are lots of things about myself that contradict this disgust with technology. For instance, I’m sitting in an office on a Macbook, with two iMacs and a PC on the desks, an iPad, an iPhone, and two digital printers surrounding me.
As a photographer, I’ve always lived my life through the viewfinder of a camera. Now it’s through the screen of my iPhone when I use that as my camera. I’ve simply replaced one tool of technology with another.
But still. If we come to rely on only these forms of technology, be it whatever form, what will we do when they are taken away?
Last fall, when Hurricane Irene knocked out power behind TU for about a week, the third day I went to Starbucks. The entire place was filled up with people – kids, teens, adults, students, business professionals, all kinds of people – jacked in to the wireless and every possible plug available, charging their laptops, their phones, their lives.
Is that what we’ve become? A species jacked in to wires and outlets and signals?