Since when is it not okay to be bored; to sit quietly and to silently watch the second hand on a clock, sighing in despair, wishing that you had something, anything to do besides just sit there? Why do people have an incessant, insatiable need to be DOING something constantly; talking, moving, eating and, most importantly, for my dissection here: phone manipulation. See, at first I thought that it was just talking on the phone, chattering away with friends, acquaintances, business associates, family, whatever; I get it, you have to check up on people and accounts and appointments. Fine, I have three children and I check up on them as well. But what flabbergasts me, what confounds me, what drives me to want to hurl a foreign object at someone's head is this compulsion that people have with texting and, even more than that, of putting their heads down to check their email, facebook, my space (does that even exist anymore?), to play games, to send jokes, to download videos, to get xrays, I don't know. I'm seeing an entire culture of people, a race of what used to be human beings with their posture hunched forward, their eyes glossed over and their hands in a text death grip. It makes me sick. I guess I could understand if it were important which I know sometimes it is, but there is no way, no fucking way that the cell phone zombies out there have anything of even the slightest interest or intelligence to say and if they do, they'd be doing something more productive than typing in "lol, omg, rotflmao, j/k, c u byotch." For you skeptics out there or for those of you who have just grabbed your Blackberry to type in, That bitch has gone off her rocker again, listen to this, let me make my case here and if you don't agree, like I've told you, I don't care, don't read on and take your cell phone and shove it up your ass.
I went to the movies last week, by myself and no, I'm not a complete loser; yes, I have loser like qualities, but I actually enjoy sitting quietly in a dark theatre in an adult movie, not having to make small talk or pander to some child's relentless need for attention or snacks. So, I'm sitting, eating my popcorn, smiling at the screen when all of a sudden, "Whiiiiizizz" this freaky sound and the screen goes dark. Clearly a problem, so we sit for about 30 seconds and nothing, another minute and nothing and then, the phones begin to light up. I notice two or three and then ten and then the whole theatre is lit up within 60 seconds, people texting furiously, beginning to talk to their significant others about the dilemma of the movie not coming back on. I'm considering laughing at first until I see that this is becoming a real problem in and of itself. Less than a minute or two later and one of the AMC employees comes in and announces that there is a tear or what not in the film and they are going to get it fixed as soon as possible and if anyone would like a refund that they are welcome to go to the front and if not, they are welcome to stay and wait. Hell, I don't have anywhere to be so I just sit and watch the melodrama as it begins to unfold. Now people are talking rather loudly on their phones and kids are playing games and the texting is so rampant that I can hear fingernails clicking on keyboards. I just sit and the longer I sit, the more amused and annoyed I become at the thought that people cannot just sit still anymore; that there is a need, not a desire, but an actual need to be entertained constantly. Why is silence oppressive? Why can't people relish in the quiet? Why are we plagued with an inundation of technology whether we want it or not? I don't oppose technology, but I do oppose a dependency on it, for anyone.
My husband bought me a Nook last year for my birthday which was a very thoughtful gift considering the amount of reading that I do and the convenience was wonderful I thought. Want a book? Download it and read it instantly. But I was fundamentally opposed to the idea of reading off of a screen. I didn't like it at all and I hate having to scroll to get to the end of a page, but most of all I hated not having the book in my hands, the pages themselves and the opportunity to savor the idea that in awhile that my hands and eyes would become part of the product that I held in my hands. I just didn't feel that way with the computer screen that ensconced my lap. So I returned it and bought the real thing instead. If I ever win any money, I will build a library and rest assured, it will not be digital...
The art of conversation and of imagination is being squandered, brushed aside and many might argue that the development of technology encourages imagination and is built by imagination. Points worth considering, but if you are not a person who is building new ideas or programs or if you are not working for a software company or are part of a design team, then shut up. You know what I'm talking about here; I'm talking about the kind of creativity that comes from sitting and thinking and then imagining scenarios that may involve you or may not. I'm talking about people who sit across from one another and not once check their phones or their IPADs or their whatever the hell they are checking while they eat dinner with you. Look into my eyes, smile at me, tell me a joke, point to the painting on the wall or at the man at the next table who has inadvertently spilled ketchup on his tie. Say something silly or stupid, but do not under any circumstance tell me that you have to "get this" and then pick up your phone. Because you will have instantly lost my respect and possibly my interest and most certainly, my friendship. Of course I realize that a new generation is being weaned on programming and that it is part of our future, the constant need to "update," but I will never understand choosing that over real people and real situations and the chance to be with people rather than in cyberspace. I mean, I like facebook, I like chatting with people who I don't get to see anymore because of geography or lack of time and I love that I can send them a message quickly or set up a date or whatever, but I will never understand the constant addiction of those who sit in front of the screen for hours on end and who wait for an opportunity to LOL. I don't get it and I'm guilty of it, but maybe by acknowledging it, I am more aware of it and will try to minimalize it too. What would Alduous Huxley say? Brave New World indeed.
I read a piece of fiction not long ago entitled Feed and although it is a piece of adolescent fiction, I found it terrifying and right on target. It was published 5 or 6 years ago and the plot involves future (teenagers) and a society in which a "feed" is inserted into your head when you are young, a constant stream of information that updates and changes and advertises constantly and which, NEVER shuts off, not even when you are sleeping. This society has become so accustomed to being plugged in 24/7 that they don't even realize that they are being controlled and brainwashed, that is, until the protagonist decides that he no longer wants the "feed" and then the plot ensues. Fascinating, very 1984, but in an even more overt manner as a chip is actually implanted rather than an idea. Well, not just any idea, "Big Brother" is an idea that still terrifies many of us, even into, now, 2011... My point here, you know what it is, if we literally lose our minds to technology, then what happens to our imagination, our creativity, our spontaneity, our love for time and space and quiet? Why must my children be constantly "doing" something in the form of technology? Because when they aren't, they are behind, out of it, not keeping up with everyone else.
I went to get my toes done today; a real privilege that I haven't enjoyed in some time and I relished the thought of sitting quietly for half an hour, reading my book... to my chagrin, well, to my absolute disgust, as soon as I walked in, as there were only three other customers in the salon on this rainy day, the manager turned on the three televisions that are mounted on the walls; don't even get me started about televisions in public places; turning us into a society of fucking zombies, I swear, but I digress. So, I go and sit down, trying to ignore the movie that is on, which, by the way, is completely inappropriate for a salon that allows teens and children and there are subtitles which show all of the words (and we all know how much I love the word fuck and its companions) that children should not be hearing, let alone seeing. In the section of the film that showed while I was there, I heard: dry humping, dick sucking, fucking me in the ass and getting off. Now, I'm no prude but need I remind you that I came into the salon to get my nails done, not to masturbate or to have my thoughts inundated with images of Christina Applegate dry humping her onscreen husband, okay, whatever, back to what I was saying. So, I'm sitting there, trying not to rage about the televisions when a woman across from me whips out her phone which probably wouldn't have bothered me so much if her fucking piehole wouldn't have started screaming into the abyss. She was so loud that even the manager stopped what he was doing and stood up to look at what the circus clown was freaking out about. "I told you I can't meet you at 6, I need to get there later, how about 7..." and the one sided conversation went on for 2 or 3 more minutes before my ears started to bleed, well, figuratively speaking, but then she snapped the phone shut and we all breathed a collective sigh of relief, at least for the 30 seconds that she sat there until the phone rang and she picked it up, only to start talking again. This woman had no volume control and would most certainly have been evicted from every library or schoolroom on the planet just for the shrill tone in her conversational voice; dear Lord, if that was her speaking voice, I hope that she has no family because if I were her kid, I'd have run away by then, "Yes and then I told the saleslady that it should have been only 29.95 not 32.95..." I could feel my eyes begin to roll back in my head and as I gripped the armrest a little tighter I could feel my colon begin to clench. I wanted to say something, I was going to say something, even if it meant that I would embarrass myself and eveyone around me. She had set my teeth on edge and I couldn't let it go, but then, thankfully, the manager went up to her and asked her to please speak more quietly, not to stop speaking which would have been my preference, but to speak a bit more softly and this woman didn't take offense; she seemed a bit embarrassed actually and she bid her counterpart goodbye and hung up the phone, apologizing to the manager for her tone. He smiled and she didn't use the phone again. Much more diplomatic than how I would have handled it, but that's why I'm not the manager... the rest of the hour was uneventful.
I wish that I could give reasons for my hostility, but I really don't have any other than what I've said in regards to our inabilities to sit still and our fostering, our nurturing of conditions like ADHD with the self induced saturation of short bits of information constantly flying at us, through us, becoming a part of us. I think being bored and learning to cope with that notion is a real skill because sometimes, you just are and that's perfectly okay. You cannot expect to be entertained all of the time nor should you want to be. Or if you do, what happens when that doesn't work out for you? Hell, I don't answer my phone half the time because I don't want people to know where I am. I want to be left alone and that is getting more difficult these days.
As a teacher, it infuriates me that in a two hour class that people cannot stay off their phones. I realize that not everything that I have to say is interesting or even all that important, but this is college for crying out loud and you paid to be here and to learn something. So put the fucking phone away and pay attention because the next time that I see the top of your head as you pretend like you are not texting in my class, I'm going to whip out a can of spray paint and give you some new hair color, count on it. Are we going to be thankful for opposable thumbs just so we can text "K, thnx, Yup." Wouldn't our ancestors be proud?
I wonder what my childhood would have been like if I hadn't had to climb trees or sit on the porch bored beyond reason or without walking to the library to get books. I wonder if I wouldn't be so averse to the technological quicksand in which we reside if I'd grown up like my children are, in a world where it is abnormal to be without the latest, the greatest, the most recent... I already know the answer and I don't like it, but it is something that I have to consider, that we all have to consider. I do so love my Ipod though...lol...
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