A few weeks ago, I was sitting rather lonely in the Union Starbucks drinking a cappuccino. I had nothing else to do and nothing to occupy my mind except for my coffee and the earth tone-colored walls.
I felt strange. Everyone around me was doing something – surfing the Internet on a notebook computer, checking their iPhone, texting, listening to music over headphones – while I just stared at the wall and looked around occasionally.
People aren’t technological only in cafés. Folks use these devices while they eat, walk, sleep, study and sit on the crapper.
The Washington Post published a feature article online yesterday reporting new findings in people’s addictions to smartphones. A
Pew Research study shows that a significant number of people in public places like parks, libraries and even church are connected to the Internet in some way.
It’s really getting a little out of hand, although we’ve known this would happen for years. Before the ’90s and before the advent of the World Wide Web, Marshall McLuhan wrote about the global village and the effects of being able to view tons of miscellaneous information all at once through electronic technology.
This ability can result in serious problems. McLuhan went so far as to say it could signify the time of the Antichrist. According to a scholarly journal article available on MSU’s library database, McLuhan said, “When electricity allows for the simultaneity of all information for every human being, it is Lucifer’s moment.”
Of course, the obvious problem is that people don’t read books anymore. We’ve gone from the printed word to small sound bites of information over YouTube, Twitter or CNN.com. If your political worldview comes from short headlines on the Internet or from the Fox News Channel, you might have a problem.
But we all have a problem. We’re just too shallow. As a friend of mine said a few days ago, we need to stop and take a look around. Look at nature, for goodness sakes. We’ve created a lot of helpful technology, but I don’t think we know what it’s doing to us. Instead of using technology for good, too many people use it to scam people.
Furthermore, sites like Facebook and Google give us their services in exchange for our privacy. Facebook sends targeted messages based on your information, and Google Mail reads your e-mail in order to tailor their ads. The Internet allows us to widen our horizons, but at the same time, it cripples us. It gives us limitless possibilities to be tricked into believing something false.
And it makes us anti-social.
Music consumers have been antisocial ever since the Walkman. With the iPhone’s capability to serve up music and every other digital need, consumers are just more anti-social.
Or perhaps it’s me who’s anti-social. Although I’m guilty of spending large amounts of time surfing the Internet, I’ve realized when I’m in school, I don’t log onto Facebook as much as many others. I have an iPod Touch I got for free, but I never use it. I rarely feel the need to take my laptop out of my apartment. It can take me up to a week and a half to respond to e-mail messages that aren’t pressing. Also, I’ve only owned one cell phone in my life – an old Nokia I can’t even text with.
But I am still guilty, just like you probably are too. I spend far too much time reading dumb, meaningless crap on the Internet or watching random movies on Hulu and far too little time reading books. I’ve read a couple of books over the past year and half of some others. I haven’t even read some famous classics everyone should have read by my age. All my knowledge and information is shallow.
Matt Watson is a graduate student majoring in Spanish. He can be contacted at [email protected].