THE HUMAN BRAIN Has two major pathways for processing information. The first is via the amygdala, where emotions are processed with the outcome being reflexive responses in the paradigm of fight or flight. It is how the brain operates under stress. The other pathway takes a few more seconds to access and requires a level of calm and focus, so that the information can be processed by the prefrontal cortex where the executive functions reside. When we say that we lose our minds, we refer to being hijacked by the amygdala, which blocks complex thought and convinces us that all information is a fight for our survival. Where the electronic Internet, blogosphere, tweetosphere and other spheres reside is stimulation, by and large, to keep the amygdala aroused and to prevent access to the higher mental functions in the prefrontal cortex. We virtually lose our minds by becoming aroused. But the arousal itself can be addictive. Superficially it feels better than thoughtful contemplation. So, Roger, you are not the one who has become illiterate. It is people who have sold their souls to the electronic universe who blind themselves with primitive emotion and little if any reflective thought and action. We must use electronic media with caution as they can become addictive and affect how we use our brains. If we wish to act with intelligence, we must slow down to give the prefrontal cortex the few seconds it needs to engage. Otherwise, the responses are fight or flight only.
2
Every generation expresses concern or dismay of new ways of living and thinking by the younger generation. The purpose of language is communication. As our species evolved so did language to keep up and communicate. Language is a living and changeable tool for communication. Is there really a difference from moving from telegraphs and Morse code to telephones different from moving from the house telephone to a mobile phone? Both are means of communication. If this a difference from saying "it made me laugh out loud" to typing LOL? Both are language and both are understood in their meaning. No, it's the typical generation gap that creates this feeling of "losing" something as our technology advances. I would say today's technology increases communication in that we can communicate with more people more often. In the past, a friend who lived in another city (even before telephones) who you might "talk" to by letter once a year or even once a month. You would then wait for the return letter. Today, you can "talk" to that person everyday and have a conversation with instant responses. I can remember when I was young being enthralled with Dick Tracy's ability to use his watch to communicate. Today it's a reality. What a wonder technology is! Each generation has their means of communicating and they will continue to do so, regardless of the method or technology they use. See how I am using my computer and online comments to communicate my opinion to all those who care to read it?
1
As a performing musician out here in beautiful California, I witness the "connected" masses up close, just like everyone else, except......When I'm playing in a restaurant, a bar, a nightclub, and the table in front of me with four customers is my tableau. All four are gazing downward into the phone, the tablet, the whatever, no one talking to each other, no one looking about the room at others, and certainly not listening to my music (I play classical guitar and sing in 5 languages.) It's OK, I understand. You have other fish to fry, and I'm just background, but really? You come out to dinner for what? To have an intimate moment with your phone? I turn mine off when I'm with someone, at a restaurant, with friends. Simple courtesy, and.....there is a world that lives, breathes, radiates with life, and wants me in it, how lovely.
8
Cohen writes: “.. American voters..... are changing the lexicon in their anger with the status quo. They don’t care about consistency. They care about energy. Reasonableness dies. Provocation works. ”
This did not start unintentionally by the instinctual masses. The ideological shift in nineteenth century art from the intent to uplift and inspire, to the urge to shock, developed into the new purpose of the Humanities in Universities to defy convention and overturn inherited assumptions. It has now escaped Academia and infected the public realm so that there are no longer instinctive limits on personal behavior.
What those old revolutionaries forgot is that convention and received tradition are what create a culture and a civilization. We are witnessing, not the emergence of a new expression of our culture, but an accelerating dissolution.
This did not start unintentionally by the instinctual masses. The ideological shift in nineteenth century art from the intent to uplift and inspire, to the urge to shock, developed into the new purpose of the Humanities in Universities to defy convention and overturn inherited assumptions. It has now escaped Academia and infected the public realm so that there are no longer instinctive limits on personal behavior.
What those old revolutionaries forgot is that convention and received tradition are what create a culture and a civilization. We are witnessing, not the emergence of a new expression of our culture, but an accelerating dissolution.
2
Thanks Mr. Cohen. What concerns me is the supremacy of the sound bite over analysis. It seems more important how many tweets an issue has generated than what the issue is really about and if it is even worthy of consideration. It’s the triumph of mere efficiency over a fair exchange of ideas. In addition, too many times I have seen people on talk show television walking their rousing twitter language back when given time for lengthier explanation. It does provide them, of course, with their 15 minutes of fame.
The ‘new language of politics’ might be a by-product of the pursuit of material self-interest and globalization so well described in Tony Judt’s book “Ill Fares The Land”, in which he argues for the return of real values to politics. He also addresses the questions you pose “What is a community today? Can there be community at all with downward gazes?”:
“Young people are indeed in touch with likeminded persons many thousands of miles away. But even if the students of Berkeley, Berlin and Bangalore share a common set of interests, these do not translate into community. Space matters. And politics is a function of space—we vote where we live and our leaders are restricted in their legitimacy and authority to the place where they were elected.”
I am a smartphone user and like the fact that it allows for easy connectivity with almost everything but I feel strongly that we still need those obdurate words to be in touch with the affinities of our neighbours.
The ‘new language of politics’ might be a by-product of the pursuit of material self-interest and globalization so well described in Tony Judt’s book “Ill Fares The Land”, in which he argues for the return of real values to politics. He also addresses the questions you pose “What is a community today? Can there be community at all with downward gazes?”:
“Young people are indeed in touch with likeminded persons many thousands of miles away. But even if the students of Berkeley, Berlin and Bangalore share a common set of interests, these do not translate into community. Space matters. And politics is a function of space—we vote where we live and our leaders are restricted in their legitimacy and authority to the place where they were elected.”
I am a smartphone user and like the fact that it allows for easy connectivity with almost everything but I feel strongly that we still need those obdurate words to be in touch with the affinities of our neighbours.
4
The Druids of Ireland resisted early Christian monks' introduction of writing and reading. Throughout a 20-year apprenticeship, they memorized their codes of religion, law, history, farming and artisanal skills.They held that anything could be written down, and therefore writing would destroy respect for truth. Memory, concentration and tradition would be neglected.
They were right, of course. Their learning supported a static, backward-looking society, which was doomed to change.
Taking for granted, or even unconscious of how written learning has underpinned our own lives, we cannot begin to imagine the scope of changes we now face.
They were right, of course. Their learning supported a static, backward-looking society, which was doomed to change.
Taking for granted, or even unconscious of how written learning has underpinned our own lives, we cannot begin to imagine the scope of changes we now face.
6
Things can certainly seem to be as Mr. Cohen describes them when we look around on subways and in cafés. And we are told that politics has been completely transformed, which does seem to be the case in the US this presidential cycle. But then we were also assured that benighted places like the Middle East would never be the same after smart phones (the Arab Spring): the mobile users there would no longer allow themselves to be manipulated.
Somehow, the people willing to use raw power were not listening. They knew that, seduced as we are by our own rhetoric, our squeamishness about the use of force and reluctance to disrupt the games we play would consign us to the sidelines while governments that shape events using unbridled violence got to call the shots. We, in rich countries, can go on fretting about the pace of change, but much of the world is taking note: plus ça change...
Somehow, the people willing to use raw power were not listening. They knew that, seduced as we are by our own rhetoric, our squeamishness about the use of force and reluctance to disrupt the games we play would consign us to the sidelines while governments that shape events using unbridled violence got to call the shots. We, in rich countries, can go on fretting about the pace of change, but much of the world is taking note: plus ça change...
1
This is a lament, despite what Mr. Cohen writes, and it's a brilliant one. Poor humans! Unable to think for themselves. Unable to not scratch that itch that only means profits for some stranger.
Cohen expresses exactly what I've been thinking about for a while now. I'm a high school teacher of honors/AP students who increasingly, do not read. Much of the content they process is in the form of videos or slide shows with short text. Given the vocabulary level and sentence structure, they cannot read a 19th century novel. This is a marked change from my students of 10 years ago. I don't blame this current crop of teens, rather I see them reflecting the post-text society we are becoming. Recently, I went to an auto parts store and a cell phone store for help with problems. In both locations the clerks Googled videos to show me in answer to my questions. A store manager I know only communicates with his staff via Snapchat pictures. Examples are abundant. Text will always be there, but it is losing its primacy.
11
Oh, relax. For openers, neither McLuhan nor the famous last page in Foucault's "The Order of Things," say that reasoned discourse, facts, and the attempt to understand reality simply go poof and disappear. Okay, that's a bit trickier with Foucault, but still.
The struggle's the same as it ever was: to get people to think reasonably about who they think they are and what they're doing, to teach people to look at material reality rather than pie in the sky, to get them to develop a tad bit of self-discipline, to help them work together with others rather than hating and fearing them. And to dissect and to laugh at the bull.
Our prob is that our technologies have replaced the controls that the educated and the powerful had on what was known to the public with a flood of lunacy and lying in which it's very hard to pick out the realities.
You ought to be helping with the picking, not wailing about them kids and they i-Phones. For one thing, I assure you that there was just as much drivel, just as many drivelers, back in the Good Old Days.
The struggle's the same as it ever was: to get people to think reasonably about who they think they are and what they're doing, to teach people to look at material reality rather than pie in the sky, to get them to develop a tad bit of self-discipline, to help them work together with others rather than hating and fearing them. And to dissect and to laugh at the bull.
Our prob is that our technologies have replaced the controls that the educated and the powerful had on what was known to the public with a flood of lunacy and lying in which it's very hard to pick out the realities.
You ought to be helping with the picking, not wailing about them kids and they i-Phones. For one thing, I assure you that there was just as much drivel, just as many drivelers, back in the Good Old Days.
3
Trump's "branding" of Jeb! Bush as "low energy" in the very first debate, and his last tweet on Bush, saying essentially "See, I told he was low energy, now Jeb! is gone and I'm a winner!", remarks completely removed from any prior context, shows how electronic literacy can be substituted for careful political analysis, which requires READING! And it seems to work more often than not. Why read at all? Everything I need to know I can get fro Twitter and Facebook! LOL
1
I have reached that age where young women ask me if I need help crossing the street. I saw television for the first time at the 1939 Worlds Fair and made my living as a trial and appellate lawyer.
Spoken and written words were my stock in trade. Now I have to read and write comments so that I don’t lose by fading vocabulary rife with words I never used like “meta” and “apts.” My land line rings 20 or 30 times a day one or two times with some who needs to talk to us and all the rest someone wanting to sell us something.
I also have a computer phone line the number of which I have never given to anyone which rings incessantly. These are not for communication but to harangue and weedle. Caller ID helps but we often answer: “helo,,,hello.... goodby” before the salesman knows there is an answer.
I feel trampled by technology. My wife has a pacemaker which is read every 3 months by a device connected to our land line. Her new pacemaker needs to be read by a smart pone with a particular apt. So for 4 times a year we must buy and subscribe to a smart phone.
Recorded messages, e-mail notifications which must be checked daily for FOMO. Make a call speak to a machine. Press zero maybe you get a person who puts you on hold in until you hear “if you want to make a call....” Often the voice on the line requires little in the way of vocabulary. My granddaughter (20) has a smart phone, what does she do? Text.
Spoken and written words were my stock in trade. Now I have to read and write comments so that I don’t lose by fading vocabulary rife with words I never used like “meta” and “apts.” My land line rings 20 or 30 times a day one or two times with some who needs to talk to us and all the rest someone wanting to sell us something.
I also have a computer phone line the number of which I have never given to anyone which rings incessantly. These are not for communication but to harangue and weedle. Caller ID helps but we often answer: “helo,,,hello.... goodby” before the salesman knows there is an answer.
I feel trampled by technology. My wife has a pacemaker which is read every 3 months by a device connected to our land line. Her new pacemaker needs to be read by a smart pone with a particular apt. So for 4 times a year we must buy and subscribe to a smart phone.
Recorded messages, e-mail notifications which must be checked daily for FOMO. Make a call speak to a machine. Press zero maybe you get a person who puts you on hold in until you hear “if you want to make a call....” Often the voice on the line requires little in the way of vocabulary. My granddaughter (20) has a smart phone, what does she do? Text.
2
Another ancient here. Although I guess I recognize Mr. Cohen's discomfort, then again, I'm not really sure what he's on about. Are we somehow entering a new dark age I haven't heard about? Slavery, once endemic in all societies World-wide, is virtually non-existent, lifespans across the globe are longer than ever, more people everywhere can read and write than ever before, literally millions people in far-flung corners of the World communicate on a regular basis all the time (and please, "young people" communicate just fine, it's just talking on the telephone that's gone out of style). Seems to me it's the age-old ideas that are still causing trouble: greed, religion, lack of resources, fear of the other. All of these problems have been with us since the dawn of history and likely before. That people used to sit in the parlour, listening to the children play Schubert and discussing Wordsworth didn't forestall the colonization of India or mitigate the plight of Appalachian coal miners one jot. Let's face it, there's less disease, less war, and greater literacy and access to education than there's ever been in the history of the species. Sorry if everybody looking at their phone makes you feel left out
2
It's dangerous in some unknown way: in the coming smartphone democracy, it won't be who votes, but which app counts the votes most efficiently (ie. not need to worry about hanging chads) Next step: Gulag-app, approved by Joe Stalin.
I lost it ! There is a beauty to language and the art of good speech. President
Obama has the gift of speech; I remember great speeches, with uplifting words
that soar and lift your spirits. Today's talk is ugly, mean, and shows itself in
non communicative language, these verbal clicks on a little machine, short, with
little content. Are we fostering an inability to appreciate the beautiful in life; the
glorious sounds of Beethoven, or Brahms. I remember Churchill's speeches on the radio as a child; the wonderful books of William Manchester who writes so
wonderfully; aren't we losing something today if we let go of all that? This
abbreviated lingo gives birth to the inarticulate if overused. Mr. Cohen, I'm with you on this subject, we have too much disconnect in life now, it's everywhere and you see it in politics - ergo: Trump who has the vocubulary of a lowlife cursing and inarticulate, is this what we've become? This is strength? Ugh!
Obama has the gift of speech; I remember great speeches, with uplifting words
that soar and lift your spirits. Today's talk is ugly, mean, and shows itself in
non communicative language, these verbal clicks on a little machine, short, with
little content. Are we fostering an inability to appreciate the beautiful in life; the
glorious sounds of Beethoven, or Brahms. I remember Churchill's speeches on the radio as a child; the wonderful books of William Manchester who writes so
wonderfully; aren't we losing something today if we let go of all that? This
abbreviated lingo gives birth to the inarticulate if overused. Mr. Cohen, I'm with you on this subject, we have too much disconnect in life now, it's everywhere and you see it in politics - ergo: Trump who has the vocubulary of a lowlife cursing and inarticulate, is this what we've become? This is strength? Ugh!
4
We are not alone !
Having just read the headline on CNN "Can Trump be beat?" every word of which, and its construction, made me immediately look for something to actually read, this was a breath of fresh air. Fogey-ish, but fresh.
Having just read the headline on CNN "Can Trump be beat?" every word of which, and its construction, made me immediately look for something to actually read, this was a breath of fresh air. Fogey-ish, but fresh.
Aping jargon is not all it's cracked up to be. Using cyber-technology to reach an audience is not a bad thing. One must be happy they are reading.
That we have multiple sources to research a subject and inform our opinions, at our fingertips, is a good thing. We do not have to rely on the "leading" commentator anymore, we can inform ourselves--if we take the time, and can discern between provocation and balanced reporting.
I'm not yet convinced the portable phone is Faustian. Our brains are hard-wired, through our eyes, to be drawn to bright light, hence the added inducement for checking the phone constantly, besides the FOMO factor.
But business and romance are still primarily conducted face-to-face, even if the face is seen on Skype. Perhaps people are losing their ability to read faces and body language through use of Smartphones, and perhaps they are losing certain conversational skills.
I think the larger concern, between tapping keys as opposed to writing, and clicking calulators as opposed to solving mathematical problems on paper, is that one loses a vital cognitive learning loop that is created only when the hand writes.
Writing stimulates cells at the base of the brain called the reticular activating system (RAS). The RAS acts gives extra importance to what one is focusing on at the moment--whatever you're writing, not tapping, is conveyed to the cerebral cortex by the RAS for extra attention. Tapping bypasses the RAS.
Intelligence comes from writing.
That we have multiple sources to research a subject and inform our opinions, at our fingertips, is a good thing. We do not have to rely on the "leading" commentator anymore, we can inform ourselves--if we take the time, and can discern between provocation and balanced reporting.
I'm not yet convinced the portable phone is Faustian. Our brains are hard-wired, through our eyes, to be drawn to bright light, hence the added inducement for checking the phone constantly, besides the FOMO factor.
But business and romance are still primarily conducted face-to-face, even if the face is seen on Skype. Perhaps people are losing their ability to read faces and body language through use of Smartphones, and perhaps they are losing certain conversational skills.
I think the larger concern, between tapping keys as opposed to writing, and clicking calulators as opposed to solving mathematical problems on paper, is that one loses a vital cognitive learning loop that is created only when the hand writes.
Writing stimulates cells at the base of the brain called the reticular activating system (RAS). The RAS acts gives extra importance to what one is focusing on at the moment--whatever you're writing, not tapping, is conveyed to the cerebral cortex by the RAS for extra attention. Tapping bypasses the RAS.
Intelligence comes from writing.
2
Isn't it lovely when you're talking with someone and their phone nudges them? So nice to have them stop, mid word, and answer the darned thing. When that happens, I simply walk away...and cross the person off my list of "friends". I don't mind new technology. I appreciate the convenience of owning a phone I can carry with me, a computer where I can do my shopping and banking and a car that pretty much drives itself. I do mind taking second place to someone who calls during a visit with friends.
3
Words have been not only emptied of their original meaning but prostituted into meaning their very opposite of what they were meant to mean and denote and managed to,convince the many of their, new, meaning and worth.
Consider democracy! Is it really a Democracy where money plays what seems to have become the final arbitrator: money !
Is a nation state born out of the colonization of the land it coveted and proceeded to empty it via a dislocate, dispossess, disfranchise and subjugate strategy of its indigenous population and deny them the right of return to homes and homeland via patently racist land ownership and return laws specifically and uniquely meant to give a veneer of legality to blatantly political objectives ; could such a nation state be deemed a Democracy despite its overly colonialist birth and racist orientation ?
Words have seized to mean what they were originally coined to mean!
Is it really equality in front of the law when the final verdict is the output of the efforts of better, and far better paid, lawyers with the ability to go on that money confers and corresponding inability to go on for lack of means!
Modern life has deprived many words of their intended meaning and what is being use d now are words whose users are fully aware that they no longer mean what they were intended to mean ...in what is really a play with meaningless words
Consider democracy! Is it really a Democracy where money plays what seems to have become the final arbitrator: money !
Is a nation state born out of the colonization of the land it coveted and proceeded to empty it via a dislocate, dispossess, disfranchise and subjugate strategy of its indigenous population and deny them the right of return to homes and homeland via patently racist land ownership and return laws specifically and uniquely meant to give a veneer of legality to blatantly political objectives ; could such a nation state be deemed a Democracy despite its overly colonialist birth and racist orientation ?
Words have seized to mean what they were originally coined to mean!
Is it really equality in front of the law when the final verdict is the output of the efforts of better, and far better paid, lawyers with the ability to go on that money confers and corresponding inability to go on for lack of means!
Modern life has deprived many words of their intended meaning and what is being use d now are words whose users are fully aware that they no longer mean what they were intended to mean ...in what is really a play with meaningless words
3
Smart Phones? Ha! I bailed out of the modern world with the advent of Cable TV. (As the Boss noted, there were "57 channels and nuthin on.")
These days I hang out in the garage and wrench on several vintage motorbikes and my old pick up truck. I plan to give to them to my grandson.
I can't work a smart phone and I don't post on Facebook. But when the power grid goes down, and the internet is out, all the stuff in the garage still works fine. And the woodstove keeps the house warm.
I am thankful for my low tech existence. Tweet me in the next life.
These days I hang out in the garage and wrench on several vintage motorbikes and my old pick up truck. I plan to give to them to my grandson.
I can't work a smart phone and I don't post on Facebook. But when the power grid goes down, and the internet is out, all the stuff in the garage still works fine. And the woodstove keeps the house warm.
I am thankful for my low tech existence. Tweet me in the next life.
6
Is it churlish to point out books are technology? Or that the smart phone is a kin of Gutenber's moveable type, just more agile and flexible? Scale and speed are the norms of the day, one might think, but these are conceptually similar to the scale wrought by the adoption of agriculture (another technology) when hunters gathered, settled and established villages that grew into the megalopolises we now know. I submit change is ever with us, and those who are disturbed by it don't stop to consider how the very changes they took for granted in their youth were disturbing the peace and order of their elders and proto farmers.
Sadly, Mr. Cohen doesn't consider how the technology is enabling good, such as new methods of organization, community building and empathetic embrace. Of course it's easy to focus on how "the kids" seem locked into their screens and conclude they are more aloof than ever, but more difficult to acknowledge that "the kids" have always been somewhat alienated because of insecurity or just simple social dynamics (see: nytimes.com/2015/08/02/education/edlife/making-friends-in-new-places.html). As with most things, the prejudices and fears we carry affect the way we experience the world.
Abandon your FOMO, Mr. Cohen. Look back along the sweep of history, appreciate its wondrous complexity, and sing along with your beloved Grateful Dead: "What a long, strange trip it's been." Or you can just go sit on your porch and yell at the kids to get off your lawn.
Sadly, Mr. Cohen doesn't consider how the technology is enabling good, such as new methods of organization, community building and empathetic embrace. Of course it's easy to focus on how "the kids" seem locked into their screens and conclude they are more aloof than ever, but more difficult to acknowledge that "the kids" have always been somewhat alienated because of insecurity or just simple social dynamics (see: nytimes.com/2015/08/02/education/edlife/making-friends-in-new-places.html). As with most things, the prejudices and fears we carry affect the way we experience the world.
Abandon your FOMO, Mr. Cohen. Look back along the sweep of history, appreciate its wondrous complexity, and sing along with your beloved Grateful Dead: "What a long, strange trip it's been." Or you can just go sit on your porch and yell at the kids to get off your lawn.
3
TLDR
8
In Heritage of Our Times, the great utopian philosopher Ernst Bloch analyzed the coalition of reactionary forces that brought Hitler to power. Broadly speaking, he separated them into two groups: the subjectively non-contemporaneous and the objectively non-contemporaneous.
The former consisted of those who subjectively felt alienated from modernity while the latter (paraphrasing Bloch) were those who belonged to pre-modern social classes. Of course, individuals could be both subjectively and objectively non-contemporaneous, and I think we see this, for example, in the angry nationalists of the U.S. and Europe. On one hand, they dislike losing their privileged position in an increasingly diverse and tolerant society, and on the other, they're increasingly excluded from the modern world (e.g. from meaningful employment, from financial security, etc.).
In either case (or both), the marginalization engendered by a world that leaves people behind is experienced traumatically, with anxiety, anger, etc. It's very hard to be rational about one's emotional, even visceral reactions.
All of this is to say that while I think "smartphone era politics" may have some explanatory force, perhaps we should return to Bloch's formulations in order to understand why contemporary politics are so angry and so ugly.
The former consisted of those who subjectively felt alienated from modernity while the latter (paraphrasing Bloch) were those who belonged to pre-modern social classes. Of course, individuals could be both subjectively and objectively non-contemporaneous, and I think we see this, for example, in the angry nationalists of the U.S. and Europe. On one hand, they dislike losing their privileged position in an increasingly diverse and tolerant society, and on the other, they're increasingly excluded from the modern world (e.g. from meaningful employment, from financial security, etc.).
In either case (or both), the marginalization engendered by a world that leaves people behind is experienced traumatically, with anxiety, anger, etc. It's very hard to be rational about one's emotional, even visceral reactions.
All of this is to say that while I think "smartphone era politics" may have some explanatory force, perhaps we should return to Bloch's formulations in order to understand why contemporary politics are so angry and so ugly.
1
I don't have a smartphone. I don't even have a cheap cell. I have enough problems keeping away from the computer every hour or so to see 'what's new'. If it wasn't for being a political junkie, I'd just throw it out the window. But I have a high need to 'know'. Maybe it's because I'm old(er) and really just don't want the hassle of learning it. I also don't want to be tracked by anybody - but especially the government. I don't want my personal life on a phone that could be hacked.
I am surrounded by books in my house. I love books. I have enough books to read if I live to be a hundred. So why do I just read the computer? It's a marvelous device and, as you say, Roger, an insidious thing. Our society is being changed very quickly because of all these devices, especially the smartphone.
What I'm waiting for is (1) teleportation OR (2) driverless car. But I worry about hacking the driverless cars. Every new invention brings with it new problems. These devices are not making us smarter or happier. And we think we can't live without them.
I am surrounded by books in my house. I love books. I have enough books to read if I live to be a hundred. So why do I just read the computer? It's a marvelous device and, as you say, Roger, an insidious thing. Our society is being changed very quickly because of all these devices, especially the smartphone.
What I'm waiting for is (1) teleportation OR (2) driverless car. But I worry about hacking the driverless cars. Every new invention brings with it new problems. These devices are not making us smarter or happier. And we think we can't live without them.
7
"Feelings of boredom, loneliness, frustration, confusion....."
Maybe what these people need more than a glance at their phones is a real, leisurely conversation with a proximate human being. Maybe they need to touch others with a gentle hand on the forearm or shoulder, someone to hug and be hugged in return without sexualizing the exchange, or someone to offer a tissue when they cry. You know, real human contact that answers the deep longing for connection that a quick text can never hope to replicate.
Maybe what these people need more than a glance at their phones is a real, leisurely conversation with a proximate human being. Maybe they need to touch others with a gentle hand on the forearm or shoulder, someone to hug and be hugged in return without sexualizing the exchange, or someone to offer a tissue when they cry. You know, real human contact that answers the deep longing for connection that a quick text can never hope to replicate.
4
"It has not been for nothing that the word has remained man's principle toy & tool; without the meanings & values it sustains, all man's other tools would be worthless." Lewis Mumford
As Mumford said, Roger, the city should be for lovers & friends. Maybe it's time for you to box up your papers, crate your books & find your own Amenia somewhere. And then the electronic media will take on a new meaning for you.
As Mumford said, Roger, the city should be for lovers & friends. Maybe it's time for you to box up your papers, crate your books & find your own Amenia somewhere. And then the electronic media will take on a new meaning for you.
1
Technology came close to destroying the newspaper -- until it saved it. Why subscribe to NYT when you could watch the news it would report the next morning on TV tonight? Then the survivors of the declining print press realized that they too could join the technological revolution. Why wait until tomorrow to read what journalists and columnists have to say about what's going on in the world when you can read it as soon as it's written on your computer or smartphone -- while pretending to work? Technology has given new life to an old craft, the best practitioners of which have consistently proved themselves more adept -- and more timely -- at reporting and analyzing the news than their electronic competitors. Now all that we the inexorably, addictively distracted readers have to worry about is the inevitable takeover of the remains of the "newspaper" industry by the monoliths of the "media" world. Did someone say Rupert Murdoch?
"Reasonableness dies. Provocation works. Whether you are for or against something, or both at the same time".
Welcome to "quantum politics" !
Welcome to "quantum politics" !
1
"Can there be a community of downward gazes?" Yes, sure, a community of slaves.
3
This is nothing new. People have been saying this for hundreds of years: xkcd.com/1227 whenever new technology comes out, everyone says it's ruining our lives, whether it is or it isn't. Even Ancient Greek philosophers said writing was ruining our lives by making it so we didn't have to remember anything.
2
The history of communication is the journey of human race from caves to modern world - the communication language and media changed many times in this journey - marks on the sand, arrangement of stones, simple sound, proto languages, skin and burkas, paper, printing press,......We can not think that the audible and written communication methods are the finality of this journey.
Technology has made it possible to make the visual images as new way of communication - Facebook, Whatsapp, Twiter, YouTube,....there are many mechanism. Human received more than 70% of their information through his visual sense organ - eye. Eye is a wounder instrument we have and the spectrum of signals it can accept is vast compared to other sense organs. Accepting visual system of communication increases the depth of the communication and its richness. Let us prepare ourself to this shift in our culture - visual communication language and life oriented around this system of communication is the future of human journey.
Technology has made it possible to make the visual images as new way of communication - Facebook, Whatsapp, Twiter, YouTube,....there are many mechanism. Human received more than 70% of their information through his visual sense organ - eye. Eye is a wounder instrument we have and the spectrum of signals it can accept is vast compared to other sense organs. Accepting visual system of communication increases the depth of the communication and its richness. Let us prepare ourself to this shift in our culture - visual communication language and life oriented around this system of communication is the future of human journey.
The words of Buffalo Springfield echoed across the decades as I read this.
"There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, now, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down"
"There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, now, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down"
8
There is hope to bridge the gap between...let's face it. The older folks and the younger ones. Yes, Roger the new world is kind of scary and the vernacular used in it may not be up to snuff...but it truly is our new world and us oldies (yes I am one also) have to be able to find our niche in the technological world that is before us, or we will be the sweet old guys,shuffling around, asking people how to check our e-mail. Also I have one word about reading. KINDLE! The Kindle is the best thing to happen to technology since music was recorded. I have found peace finally:)
It will be ok Roger:)
It will be ok Roger:)
3
I think Mr. Cohen has all the right words and uses them well enough to help me get what he's writing. Thanks for that!
1
The web killed my old journalism job, but it also allowed me to set up my own subscription-based publication at minimal cost. (Finally, I have the corner office!) When someone moves your old cheese, look for a wheel of Camembert!
5
My daughter, at my grandchild's dance recital was on her phone nonstop. Yes she took some pictures, then back to texting her buddies. I looked at her with reproach, and she said "mom, I wish I had a chip in my head". Yikes.
1
I share your illiteracy and millions of older Americans do too. It is an illiteracy, in light of globalization and the Internet, that already has undone the factory worker, the welder, the ... Nobody will be spared. The lawyer that is replaced by the wisdom of artificial intelligence, the doctor that is replaced by the vast medical knowledge in the databases, the teacher that is transformed by Wikipedia, the journalist that is transformed by instance gratification and social media, the politician by YouTube, and yes the financial analyst on Wallstreet by the Blockchain algorithm. It feels like when my skill as a blacksmith in my former life 200 years ago became irrelevant. Good news: Borne out of the confusion will be a new set of skills and values that our children will appreciate better than we the elderly.
2
I don't own a smartphone. I've never had a cellphone. When I would tell this to people 15 years ago, they would say, "Oh, you should get one. They're really convenient. Five years ago, people thought I was a brain cancer conspiracy theorist. Today, people regard me with deeply suspicious looks and even pity.
I don't hate the technology (obviously). I read the article in the paper today, and decided to comment on it before my classes started (I'm a philosophy professor at CUNY). And unlike Cohen, I do lament how technological connectivity is dis-connecting us from each other.
Case in point: 10 years ago, when I walked into my classroom, students were always huddled in little groups, sometimes talking about the course, sometimes not. But they were talking. Now when I walk into my classes, each student is huddled over their device. The room is silent.
I once assigned a student (who seemed incapable of NOT texting in class) to write a paper on a day without her smartphone (think Plato's cave). She couldn't do it...
I don't hate the technology (obviously). I read the article in the paper today, and decided to comment on it before my classes started (I'm a philosophy professor at CUNY). And unlike Cohen, I do lament how technological connectivity is dis-connecting us from each other.
Case in point: 10 years ago, when I walked into my classroom, students were always huddled in little groups, sometimes talking about the course, sometimes not. But they were talking. Now when I walk into my classes, each student is huddled over their device. The room is silent.
I once assigned a student (who seemed incapable of NOT texting in class) to write a paper on a day without her smartphone (think Plato's cave). She couldn't do it...
33
Mr. Cohen, it seems that many of the greatest innovations in centuries have begun to destroy us. And, as they become even more ubiquitous they may have the capacity to take away our humanity ... and eventually all of us.
11
You are not alone in your illiteracy about clickbait and all the vomitrocious vocabulary of the cyber-widget world, dear Roger! FOMO is the byword of our dreadful hinge of history and to try to "friend" people we couldn't care less about or even wish to know at all, we have fallen prey to those with "addictive delirium" about mitigating human feelings of loneliness, boredom, disconnection, and all the anxieties of this new Age of Anxiety. For those of us who grew up reading and never stopped, who have books "to read" stacked on our night tables, borrowable books waiting in our beautiful public libraries, we still adore reading books made of paper and turning real pages. Some of us who remember the birth and bloom of television only get by with a PC, perhaps a laptop or desktop and a cellphone. One can turn them both off for the quietude and meditation upon which life insists. I am not as certain as you that cross-platform content is beautiful. As a family we inculcated great love of reading in our children and our grandchildren for which I give thanks and am filled with gratitude. Reading opens worlds. FaceBook does not. There is something brave and good to be said about illiteracy of today's cyber toys that will be obsolete as whale oil and corduroy roads before we know it! Remember the television sets with a teeny tiny circle of a screen set in a humongous big wooden box? Nothing plastic in those days. Plastic is the byword and curse of our age.
6
Cyber-induced illiteracy has another manifestation that is even more foreboding: handwriting his no longer a required skill. A neighbor--book-loving, dynamic primary school teacher in her mid-70s, whom the Seattle school system keeps luring back to the schoolroom-- tells me that teaching "manuscript" is optional. Manuscript? What does that mean? Just as it sounds: manu - script, i.e., writing by hand. Children are expected to start acquiring computer skills in first grade. The teacher need only teach manuscript if she/he feels it is needed so that a child can write his/her name and simple communication. We now longer milk cows sitting on a stool with a bucket nearby. Guess "manuscript" falls in that same obsolete category.
Everyone has a voice now, before it was just teachers, priests, doctors and writers/journalists that owned knowledge and language and now those structures have been upended. As uncomfortable as you may find it Roger, it is a good thing, it is a liberating moment, the whole world is writing!!
4
You confuse having a voice with actual communication. They aren't the same. Sure, we have the opportunity to exchange more information than ever but too often there is only noise.
1
I am an instructor of undergraduates in a community college, and the addiction to technology is startling. I have a rule that all gadgets have to be turned off and out of sight during class (once a week for nearly three hours). This is so difficult you would think I was prying the bottle from the hands of alcoholics. During the class break (15 minutes) everyone grabs for their phones, and they spend the entire time looking down at them. Some of them don't even get out of their chairs. They don't speak to one another, and rare it is for someone to actually get to know a fellow student or engage in casual conversation. Some of them are unable to make eye contact with me or each other. It's a dreary world we're making for ourselves.
20
I see this at the Community College where I am a Student. Many of my classmates are Jonesing for a digital fix. The twitch and the under the table approach catches the Instructor's eye.
This comment and the one from Skaid worry me the most. Very little person to person interaction.
I have walked around downtown Manhattan and in the tourist areas, at the street corners, when the light turns green, no one moves. That would require looking up. It amazes me.
I have walked around downtown Manhattan and in the tourist areas, at the street corners, when the light turns green, no one moves. That would require looking up. It amazes me.
What a wonderful piece! And I read it first this morning on the old fashioned platform: the actual newspaper that arrived at my door. Although I thoroughly enjoy catching up with the news on my Times app on my tablet at various times during the day, there is still that special time I allow myself early in the morning to peruse and occasionally spend significant time with a particular article or story. To delight in the language and languish in a particular piece. We do miss that opportunity in the click and blink of the electronically fed news culture. Than you for this Mr. Cohen.
8
If Jesus had had a smart phone, would he have had more disciples? Would Tiberius have demanded his phone be cracked postmortem (sic)?
3
@Barbyr: Probably Jesus would have had more disciples. They would have "liked" him on Facebook.
1
Technology is simply a communication channel. Like anything, it can be used or abused. It's what you personally make of it. I agree that many people seem to abuse social media as a stand-in for real relationships. They create a persona, posing to the outside world as someone they aspire to be rather than are. But that has always been the case with some people with low self esteem, hasn't it?
I seem to remember in the 60's parents lamenting about the amount of time teenagers spent gossiping on the phone with their friends. This too shall pass - just remember virtual reality will be coming soon. You will be able to virtually travel to a new planet or anywhere in the world without leaving your couch.
I seem to remember in the 60's parents lamenting about the amount of time teenagers spent gossiping on the phone with their friends. This too shall pass - just remember virtual reality will be coming soon. You will be able to virtually travel to a new planet or anywhere in the world without leaving your couch.
3
It's not the devices but the control.... something gained, something lost. A time of 'revolution' where the good gets tossed with the bad... a time of a redefined humanity, not based on what's in our individual or collective best interests, but on what can be sold, what addictions can be bestowed.
It's not 'dumb (read 'old')' versus 'smart (read 'new')'. There is a qualitative component that we are still free to evaluate, though the culture may insist that 'old' is inferior.
BUNK.... much of the new is de-humanizing, narrowing. It feeds on our fears and our conceits. It's 'selfies' versus 'grandeur', cgi versus nature.
Facebook, and it's ilk, are not your 'friends'....
It's not 'dumb (read 'old')' versus 'smart (read 'new')'. There is a qualitative component that we are still free to evaluate, though the culture may insist that 'old' is inferior.
BUNK.... much of the new is de-humanizing, narrowing. It feeds on our fears and our conceits. It's 'selfies' versus 'grandeur', cgi versus nature.
Facebook, and it's ilk, are not your 'friends'....
5
So ah Roger there, now that you've acknowledged you are soaked in this new world up to your ears ... What are you going to do about it?
And those darn newfangled autos! They scare the horses!
Someday can we please stop complaining about tools? Use or do not use; there is no whine.
Someday can we please stop complaining about tools? Use or do not use; there is no whine.
1
Is there support for the idea that Something(s) Old is normally lost when Something New is gained?
3
Addictive delirium, perhaps; unknowable dangers, perhaps not.
I think the dangers are well-known by now: a certain shallowness of the mind, the inability to regulate emotions, an unwillingness to be uncomfortable, and a high cost (phone+Internet+smarthome subscription+maybe cable).
Future generations will marvel that this generation gave up the world for that tiny phone screen. I can't wait until we're past this moment.
I think the dangers are well-known by now: a certain shallowness of the mind, the inability to regulate emotions, an unwillingness to be uncomfortable, and a high cost (phone+Internet+smarthome subscription+maybe cable).
Future generations will marvel that this generation gave up the world for that tiny phone screen. I can't wait until we're past this moment.
4
I like what Jim Kay says below.
Roger Cohen is one of the best. Today's column is something of a fantasia.
Our instruments transform our habits, yes.
At the same time, a kind of madness abroad, frustration, dissatisfaction.
Roger Cohen is one of the best. Today's column is something of a fantasia.
Our instruments transform our habits, yes.
At the same time, a kind of madness abroad, frustration, dissatisfaction.
1
"They don’t care about consistency. They care about energy."
In other words, they think about a fantasy, or yearn for simple solutions. Illusions.
In other words, they think about a fantasy, or yearn for simple solutions. Illusions.
Mr. Cohen, if you are 'illiterate', we should all be so lucky. In reading the letters of Iris Murdoch, a voracious writer, she is failing in mind by the winter of 1995, and rushing to send 'A Message to The Planet', the title of one of her later works.
'Why am I so tired? I hope I am not giving up', she writes on her old typewriter to a lifelong friend in February 'Thank you so much for remembering my birthday and for the delightful spotty jaguars. I love them and you! I expect you have been away in many far lands, being the Queen of Esperanto. I admire your energy and your care for others. I feel there is some magic in Esperanto, it belongs to the whole world. I have so occasionally heard you speaking it (Not understanding of course). Alas, I have lost languages that I once knew. I wish I could start it all again'.
To another, 'I am afraid that I am not up to ashes on rose-bed!. I hope you are not working too hard. I have just finished a novel (Jackson's Dilemma, her last although she keeps writing). I think I don't really know what it is like!'.
We need more Thinkers and Word children like you, Mr. Cohen, and call it 'Living on Paper' if you will, letters from Iris Murdoch edited by the brilliant scholars Avril Horner and Anne Rowe.
'Why am I so tired? I hope I am not giving up', she writes on her old typewriter to a lifelong friend in February 'Thank you so much for remembering my birthday and for the delightful spotty jaguars. I love them and you! I expect you have been away in many far lands, being the Queen of Esperanto. I admire your energy and your care for others. I feel there is some magic in Esperanto, it belongs to the whole world. I have so occasionally heard you speaking it (Not understanding of course). Alas, I have lost languages that I once knew. I wish I could start it all again'.
To another, 'I am afraid that I am not up to ashes on rose-bed!. I hope you are not working too hard. I have just finished a novel (Jackson's Dilemma, her last although she keeps writing). I think I don't really know what it is like!'.
We need more Thinkers and Word children like you, Mr. Cohen, and call it 'Living on Paper' if you will, letters from Iris Murdoch edited by the brilliant scholars Avril Horner and Anne Rowe.
"one thing young people don’t do on their smartphones “is actually speak to one another.”
My daughter explained to me that her wonderful new smart phone with which she was so pleased did everything well, except as a phone.
It had little volume and a poor pickup. It was hard to talk on it. This was not a big problem in a "phone" to her mind. It was the least of its functions.
Better if I text her. Since I don't text, email her. This from someone who has never stopped talking since she started to babble in her first year.
The people who made the phone evidently had the same values, and expected this was not a problem. They must have known you can't talk on the thing.
My daughter explained to me that her wonderful new smart phone with which she was so pleased did everything well, except as a phone.
It had little volume and a poor pickup. It was hard to talk on it. This was not a big problem in a "phone" to her mind. It was the least of its functions.
Better if I text her. Since I don't text, email her. This from someone who has never stopped talking since she started to babble in her first year.
The people who made the phone evidently had the same values, and expected this was not a problem. They must have known you can't talk on the thing.
7
The plus side of the argument is that thanks to mobile connectivity people in remote corners of the world now have access to information, education, and economic opportunity that was denied them in the past. Communication and knowledge is no longer the purview of an elite among global inhabitants. That is a very good thing and the harbinger of more good things to come. Words do still matter, of course, but the means of discourse are not frozen in time and we have very good reason to be optimistic. Roger's lamentations are akin to mourning the loss of all that useful horse manure once automobiles became commonplace.
8
The problem is not means of discourse, but depths of discourse. When news articles are replaced by twitter feeds, it is questionable how much meaningful information is really available whether in remote corners of the world or major cities.
3
It never cease to amaze me how many otherwise intelligent people allow the tools of modern technology to turn them into tools.
12
Tangential to your superbly written reflection but somewhat related anyway, I offer "progress in search of a purpose" - a summation that has recently been floating through my mind. Why? - In response to the backdoor on my new SUV that opens and closes by pushing a button - disengaging me from the almost equally easy manual act of lifting and pushing down. In response to the hundreds of cable channels struggling to fill their immense dilution with anything meaningful. In response to the new ductless AC unit I had installed last summer whose control panel contains 25 buttons - really 25! - when all I want is on/off and cooler/warmer. Maybe we have reached the point where we basically have enough, and what has been referred to as "progress" is now more about creating needs rather than filling them. Which begs the question - what are our real needs at this point in time?.
8
The internet? The smartphone?
The effect of such should probably be considered, first, in perspective of the historical environment in which they arose--post WW2, cold war environment (great theme of capitalism, democracy/communism, and prior to that great theme of capitalism, democracy/fascism/communism). Second, the ultimate effect of such should be considered from the most advanced and stable nations of the world, because there, ironically, resistance to disruptive effect of such is strongest whether naturally (by stable and given social order) or by design of power which has best means and capacity to thwart disruptive effect.
The big question in an advanced democracy such as the U.S. is why was the internet allowed to freely flourish in the first place (being born as military technology--and we all know the military is obsessed with control), and why it has not had much of a disruptive effect so far on society (the "establishment" political and economic has survived quite well). It becomes difficult to tell how much spying and control and thwarting of people is going on by powers with the resources to command net and how much impotence of change in society is caused by people shunted onto computer devices and just stumbling over one other in "safe, like a video" chaos, crashing hopes by crashing web sites rather than making significant changes online or off in real society.
Internet, yes. Great freedom, many geniuses in all fields more apparent? If not, then why?
The effect of such should probably be considered, first, in perspective of the historical environment in which they arose--post WW2, cold war environment (great theme of capitalism, democracy/communism, and prior to that great theme of capitalism, democracy/fascism/communism). Second, the ultimate effect of such should be considered from the most advanced and stable nations of the world, because there, ironically, resistance to disruptive effect of such is strongest whether naturally (by stable and given social order) or by design of power which has best means and capacity to thwart disruptive effect.
The big question in an advanced democracy such as the U.S. is why was the internet allowed to freely flourish in the first place (being born as military technology--and we all know the military is obsessed with control), and why it has not had much of a disruptive effect so far on society (the "establishment" political and economic has survived quite well). It becomes difficult to tell how much spying and control and thwarting of people is going on by powers with the resources to command net and how much impotence of change in society is caused by people shunted onto computer devices and just stumbling over one other in "safe, like a video" chaos, crashing hopes by crashing web sites rather than making significant changes online or off in real society.
Internet, yes. Great freedom, many geniuses in all fields more apparent? If not, then why?
Clueless and ignorant. This is the only way to judge Roger Cohen after this article. Just
because information is available and almost instantaneous, does not make
decisions correct or accurate. The op-ed writers of the New York Times
are read for their insights and interpretations, not how they get their information. This information is a source of history One example: the war on ISIS. If Roger Cohen can not interpret this terrorist organization for his
readers, maybe it is time to call it quits. Maybe he can write an historical work
on Nazi Germany, where he would not need any new devices, and the pressure of time is gone, and he will not have to please the editors of the
Times, or its readers. Tempus fugit. If Winston Churchill had your attitude,
Great Britain would not exist today.
because information is available and almost instantaneous, does not make
decisions correct or accurate. The op-ed writers of the New York Times
are read for their insights and interpretations, not how they get their information. This information is a source of history One example: the war on ISIS. If Roger Cohen can not interpret this terrorist organization for his
readers, maybe it is time to call it quits. Maybe he can write an historical work
on Nazi Germany, where he would not need any new devices, and the pressure of time is gone, and he will not have to please the editors of the
Times, or its readers. Tempus fugit. If Winston Churchill had your attitude,
Great Britain would not exist today.
Same here, I am a reader and I do not feel illiterate for not being a user.
Every new language I learn is an adventure, nothing less.
Today's IT literacy is nothing more than a language.
Living in a smart home is all well but as long as there is a power off button I feel fine.
Still, here we do have a number of functions the government wants us to keep on all the time.
Anyway, no big deal, just consider yourself lucky to be able to learn new things and new languages as this is what makes you feel alive.
It was the German chancellor for which the term #Neuland was coined.
It means that she was not really acquainted with new technology and the techno babble.
So what, she still is the most powerful woman in the world.
Every new language I learn is an adventure, nothing less.
Today's IT literacy is nothing more than a language.
Living in a smart home is all well but as long as there is a power off button I feel fine.
Still, here we do have a number of functions the government wants us to keep on all the time.
Anyway, no big deal, just consider yourself lucky to be able to learn new things and new languages as this is what makes you feel alive.
It was the German chancellor for which the term #Neuland was coined.
It means that she was not really acquainted with new technology and the techno babble.
So what, she still is the most powerful woman in the world.
1
"[voters] don’t care about consistency. They care about energy. Reasonableness dies. Provocation works."
This would seem to be most true of Trump voters. Let's not forget though, that he has still only won 35% of the (shrinking) Republican party's primary voters.
That means 65% voted for Not Trump.
Some hope there, I think.
This would seem to be most true of Trump voters. Let's not forget though, that he has still only won 35% of the (shrinking) Republican party's primary voters.
That means 65% voted for Not Trump.
Some hope there, I think.
3
I'm so glad you said that; trumpet is addicted to polls & percentages as an expression of his self worth yet in the end it's the number of votes you get that matters & it's not over till the fat lady sings.
Roger and all of us who write and read comments: I will soon turn 84 and can tell you that what I call my 10th Life is so much richer thanks to the laptop and Smartphone and high quality Swedish WiFi than it would be without them that I see this as no contest.
You are still writing very well and a study of the 1000s of comments you have received in 2015 should show you that we are able to read and converse as never before.
The New York Times Comment system makes it possible for me here in far-from New York Sweden to see what my fellow Americans are reading and thinking, at least a sample of them.
Why don't you get the Times to do a study of the commenters?
And in closing, thanks to the Comment Review Board editor who sent a very nice reply last night after he had read my Email pointing to a comment-world problem.
You know enough right words already Roger, just use them.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen-USA-SE
You are still writing very well and a study of the 1000s of comments you have received in 2015 should show you that we are able to read and converse as never before.
The New York Times Comment system makes it possible for me here in far-from New York Sweden to see what my fellow Americans are reading and thinking, at least a sample of them.
Why don't you get the Times to do a study of the commenters?
And in closing, thanks to the Comment Review Board editor who sent a very nice reply last night after he had read my Email pointing to a comment-world problem.
You know enough right words already Roger, just use them.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen-USA-SE
4
My son and his wife just took a vacation to New Zealand and other far off places. I was able to see them and communicate daily if I had wanted to do so. I love the new technology...and I'm almost 84 as well. Aren't we lucky to have seen so much change in daily living? I like today better than when I got out of bed on a freezing morning, ran down the stairs from an unheated Kansas winter bedroom and stood over a vent from the coal-fired furnace to thaw out...and I never liked washing dishes. However, I do not understand the young people who walk around like robots, staring at the phone in their hand. Too much, too much.
2
I have teenagers who come visit my elementary school classroom after school. They are very social (they would not visit me otherwise? - I do have free wi-fi), they are also constantly checking and updating and texting.
And you have to 'like' the pictures of your friends, and they have to 'like' yours, constantly. It's exhausting just to watch.
In July I'm going backpacking by myself for five days. I can't wait for the quiet.
And my books will be on a Nook or a Kindle.
And you have to 'like' the pictures of your friends, and they have to 'like' yours, constantly. It's exhausting just to watch.
In July I'm going backpacking by myself for five days. I can't wait for the quiet.
And my books will be on a Nook or a Kindle.
2
I'm sure someone would have argued against the introduction of language because it would destroy the immediacy of experience and the directness of communication--if that argument could have been made at the time.
And which tribal chieftain argued against the introduction of writing among his people because it would destroy memory? (He was right, of course.)
Printing not only threw a lot of scribes out of work--it greatly diminished the experience of hearing books read aloud (until just recently, with the rise of audiobooks).
All of these losses came with compensatory gains that made them worthwhile. The smartphone and social media have huge benefits as well as inconveniences. And we can look forward to the day when we can mourn their obsolescence in the face of yet newer communication technologies.
And which tribal chieftain argued against the introduction of writing among his people because it would destroy memory? (He was right, of course.)
Printing not only threw a lot of scribes out of work--it greatly diminished the experience of hearing books read aloud (until just recently, with the rise of audiobooks).
All of these losses came with compensatory gains that made them worthwhile. The smartphone and social media have huge benefits as well as inconveniences. And we can look forward to the day when we can mourn their obsolescence in the face of yet newer communication technologies.
1
Mr. Cohen, perhaps when I see your smiling picture on a Happy Meal box, I will better understand your Eulogy for the Past.
How about those family night's out, or in some cases even at home. Its now easier for everyone to just text each other, rather than everyone trying to talk, above the din, at the same time. Well, that really did used to be some fun times. And of course, the many memories of funny past stories and family silliness.
When I am out somewhere, and it seems like everyone else has a phone to their ear--but not me--I wonder who they are talking to, and why couldn't it have waited until they were through with their meal. Methinks that there is really no one on the other end of the "line" or, perhaps, signal.
Humankind has just turned-over its intellect to a piece of plastic/metal, some wires and a battery.
http://thetruthoncommonsense.com
How about those family night's out, or in some cases even at home. Its now easier for everyone to just text each other, rather than everyone trying to talk, above the din, at the same time. Well, that really did used to be some fun times. And of course, the many memories of funny past stories and family silliness.
When I am out somewhere, and it seems like everyone else has a phone to their ear--but not me--I wonder who they are talking to, and why couldn't it have waited until they were through with their meal. Methinks that there is really no one on the other end of the "line" or, perhaps, signal.
Humankind has just turned-over its intellect to a piece of plastic/metal, some wires and a battery.
http://thetruthoncommonsense.com
7
If you want to get a bunch of people in a community to talk about, say, whether a new school should be built or the old one remodeled, than you have to have them sit down and talk. Real talk, not everyone sitting around with their head up their smartphone. Give and take, listening, talking, weighing, developing trust. It takes practice, learning to disagree without zero-sum, learning to acknowledge others. No different than my university classes. We learn how to talk, how to actively listen. Can't be done with smartphones. And I second whoever mentioned Sherry Turkle's Reclaiming Conversation.
2
I'm 60 and thoroughly enjoy the world that technology has opened up for those who chose to endure the learning curve that it takes to use these devices. My wife and I love to converse over dinner or wherever and if a question arises re. a subject we just pull out the smartphone and look it up. It's fun and actually adds to the conversation. There is a world of information at your fingertips. Much better than encyclopedias, which were wonderful but quickly outdated. There are no reasons that people can't still have their personal relationships while enjoying the information that technology affords us.
18
Donato,
You are older. You were raised in a society that had human contact at its center before every aspect of life was commercialized. The younger generation has grown up with technology and smartphones. They may well lack both the social skills and attention spans to engage in meaningful relationships and exchanges. You are able make the tool serve you. For far too many, checking their phones relentlessly, they serve the tool. That makes all the difference.
You are older. You were raised in a society that had human contact at its center before every aspect of life was commercialized. The younger generation has grown up with technology and smartphones. They may well lack both the social skills and attention spans to engage in meaningful relationships and exchanges. You are able make the tool serve you. For far too many, checking their phones relentlessly, they serve the tool. That makes all the difference.
4
Feelings of boredom, loneliness, frustration and confusion? It appears that the outlets available for relief of these syndromes are hardly limited to smart phones and tablets. As today's story of James B. Dalton in Kalamazoo might suggest, guns may also provide relief from the ennui of lost interpersonal contact.
Mr. Dalton apparently slew people at random. The victims were trageted for no other reason than where they hapoened to be standing or sitting at the time he took aim. He didn't know any of them. He bore no personal grudges against any of them. It is said that he went people hunting between stints as a Über driver.
Perhaps Mr. Dalton had no words, no friends, no smart device to conbect with otger human beings. As a result, maybe his action was his last recourse for actual human contact. Who knows? Not I. But his final contact came at an atrocious human cost, and it represents a condition that warrants our close attention.
www.endthemadnessnow.org
Mr. Dalton apparently slew people at random. The victims were trageted for no other reason than where they hapoened to be standing or sitting at the time he took aim. He didn't know any of them. He bore no personal grudges against any of them. It is said that he went people hunting between stints as a Über driver.
Perhaps Mr. Dalton had no words, no friends, no smart device to conbect with otger human beings. As a result, maybe his action was his last recourse for actual human contact. Who knows? Not I. But his final contact came at an atrocious human cost, and it represents a condition that warrants our close attention.
www.endthemadnessnow.org
2
During the earlier part of my life, I was a reader. I'd check out as many books as I could carry from the library, often more than once per week. As I got older, my reading was divided between fiction and things like xeroxed articles from journals, technical manuals, and trade publications. I gradually accumulated more and more pieces of paper, bound or stapled into chunks, and stacked on shelfs, desktops, the floor, the spare bedroom, and the garage.
At a certain point, however, those piles of xeroxed articles became computer folders filled with PDFs. The books became e-books, and the trade publications became websites. I still spend a great deal of time reading and writing, but those masses of paper are gone! The spare bedroom can now have a bed in it! Life is better.
As for social networking, to me the key is to pick and choose. I choose to do very little of it. I enjoy it, pretty much, but I'd rather read my current e-book.
My point is that the situation is more complex than it would appear to be, based on certain opinion pieces that tend to blast things wily-nilly that are new, mostly because they haven't aged sufficiently.
At a certain point, however, those piles of xeroxed articles became computer folders filled with PDFs. The books became e-books, and the trade publications became websites. I still spend a great deal of time reading and writing, but those masses of paper are gone! The spare bedroom can now have a bed in it! Life is better.
As for social networking, to me the key is to pick and choose. I choose to do very little of it. I enjoy it, pretty much, but I'd rather read my current e-book.
My point is that the situation is more complex than it would appear to be, based on certain opinion pieces that tend to blast things wily-nilly that are new, mostly because they haven't aged sufficiently.
1
Quite the enjoyable vent, Mr. Cohen. Yes, volume drowns truth, and the Berning passion of extremism trumps moderate views.
TV killed the radio star; the internet killed reason.
TV killed the radio star; the internet killed reason.
2
Ah, this article is a gem. We are still out here! We readers!
But I suspect literacy -- as "we" know it -- will slowly go the way of classical music. Still beautiful, still capable of singular transcendence, but with a specialized and a dwindling portion of the population who understands what the heck those we find so wonderful about it.
It is sad to live at the dawn of the post-literate age -- an age in which careful words and care for words are unnecessary because of the immediacy of information, entire oceans of immediate information, pre-formatted, pre-digested, and arranged into an interactive listicle.
But words will endure. Just like nothing can ever replace Brahms.
But I suspect literacy -- as "we" know it -- will slowly go the way of classical music. Still beautiful, still capable of singular transcendence, but with a specialized and a dwindling portion of the population who understands what the heck those we find so wonderful about it.
It is sad to live at the dawn of the post-literate age -- an age in which careful words and care for words are unnecessary because of the immediacy of information, entire oceans of immediate information, pre-formatted, pre-digested, and arranged into an interactive listicle.
But words will endure. Just like nothing can ever replace Brahms.
34
I have no smartphone. I have no social media presence (excepting the conscientiously moderated one here at the Times which I am using to make this comment).
I strive to maintain real relationships with real people. I read. I write. I think. I argue.
I give thanks for the miracle of my life and my self awareness.
No machine can ever do more than obfuscate or corrupt the beauty of that which is real and true. The real life, not the virtual life, will always be the essence of the life fully lived.
But things are changing, changing in dark and uncertain ways at a great many levels. The tectonic plates of history are on the move and they will not soon rest.
How this will turn out, I cannot guess. But as I read your piece I heard the echo of Yeats pounding in my brain:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
I strive to maintain real relationships with real people. I read. I write. I think. I argue.
I give thanks for the miracle of my life and my self awareness.
No machine can ever do more than obfuscate or corrupt the beauty of that which is real and true. The real life, not the virtual life, will always be the essence of the life fully lived.
But things are changing, changing in dark and uncertain ways at a great many levels. The tectonic plates of history are on the move and they will not soon rest.
How this will turn out, I cannot guess. But as I read your piece I heard the echo of Yeats pounding in my brain:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
4
This sounds more like a lament over losing control of one's medium. But no worries, Mr. Cohen! Your support staff at the Times made sure a link to your article appeared in my in-box, virtually insuring I would read it.
In the good old days, it probably would have ended up under the cat litter, unread.
In the good old days, it probably would have ended up under the cat litter, unread.
2
I wake up in the morning at the crack-of-dawn and go downstairs with this good girl. Lying in the driveway, each in its own separate plastic wrapper, are three all-paper newspapers: the Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Dallas Morning News. I carry two of the papers inside, and good girl carries the third. Squirrels are hopping around the oak trees overhead. Good girl drops her paper at the door and goes out back to do her morning business. If the sun is shining, she finds a warm spot and goes back to sleep. I have one of those old dumb cell phones without a screen that still works, but I couldn't tell you right now where it is. I tried calling the number, but can't hear it ring, so it could be out-of-juice or lost somewhere in America. Good girl and I
have no Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram, just an old bread toaster that has no apps. That's fine. We like it that way.
have no Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram, just an old bread toaster that has no apps. That's fine. We like it that way.
4
Thanks, Mr. Cohen. I feel less alone after reading this. But although I'm no optimist, I, like others commenting here, think you might take heart at the prospect that this is just one of those moments in history when something new has arrived and dominates, seemingly to the detriment of past norms, only to have people eventually discover that some of the old ways (modified by new tools) are still the best ways. Yes, the damage to language and communication is undeniable, but I don't lay the blame for that entirely on these silly gadgets. The blame lies as much with frenzied capitalism and the inevitably vacuous value system it perpetrates. We are increasingly a nation of illiterate magpies primarily because we value nothing except the ephemeral and the monetary; the convergence between that and all these digital toys was admittedly unfortunate. But at the end of the day, many if not most will realize that there are a few things that truly matter. I believe that real journalism will survive in whatever format because it has to in order for the democracy to survive. (And if journalism and the democracy don't survive, these types of problems will be the least of our worries.) I believe people will find the digital relationships currently comprising their human interaction lacking, and the pendulum will swing back towards people interacting again with people. And of course if I'm wrong on all counts, there's always the time-honored fallback of 'who cares - I'll be dead by then.'
1
I think the pace at which we live affects the content and depth of our thinking, and I think new technology tends to hurry that pace. I am putting aside the issue of distraction, which new technology also exacerbates. This columnist's writing seems to me to flow to a particular beat, one which seems deliberate and slow. I can see how it would be a challenge to keep that beat in the midst of today's style of communication. An analogy for me would be how some native cultures, including in our own country, manage to hold onto old rhythms, despite the influx of new, more modern ways centuries ago. It can be done, but it isn't easy.
4
Hilarious & jumbly sweet. Yes, I am forwarding the link to friends. But later, I plan to read it out loud to a friend, when we will savor each spoken and well conceived word.
1
Such an interesting way you have of describing your anxiety about not being able to keep up with technology. I sense your frustration in not even being able to express in your own language why this is so, and how you are forced to speak in alien language of techno speak, with which you aren't entirely comfortable.
I was a language major and spent 10 years abroad in a European country, overcoming my inability to fully articulate before eventually achieving fluency.But today it's becoming harder and harder to maintain fluency when the descriptors keep coming at you and forcing you to absorb new expressions and words.
There seems to be a definite correlation between the increase in arcane concepts and the decrease in public civility. Is it because nobody reads anymore and the beauty of the English language is lost in Twitter isms and emoticons? Is this why audiences cheer and shout when Trump swears, yells about punching people, and pretty much uses every vulgarism there is. Interesting word vulgarity: it used to mean "of the crowd" or "not aristocratic" until it changed its meaning to indicate unacceptable public discourse.
I find it interesting how quickly the unacceptable becomes acceptable, even with the media. History will look back at Trump and wonder at what point the language of anger morphed into a language of mob speak that nobody even questions any more.
I was a language major and spent 10 years abroad in a European country, overcoming my inability to fully articulate before eventually achieving fluency.But today it's becoming harder and harder to maintain fluency when the descriptors keep coming at you and forcing you to absorb new expressions and words.
There seems to be a definite correlation between the increase in arcane concepts and the decrease in public civility. Is it because nobody reads anymore and the beauty of the English language is lost in Twitter isms and emoticons? Is this why audiences cheer and shout when Trump swears, yells about punching people, and pretty much uses every vulgarism there is. Interesting word vulgarity: it used to mean "of the crowd" or "not aristocratic" until it changed its meaning to indicate unacceptable public discourse.
I find it interesting how quickly the unacceptable becomes acceptable, even with the media. History will look back at Trump and wonder at what point the language of anger morphed into a language of mob speak that nobody even questions any more.
22
Our rudeness started long before smartphones. Smartphones and digital social media just expedited it more quickly and anonymously. Our rudeness began when our leaders stopped being professionals with civility. Their lack of decorum and espousing hatred between our people for decades has led to Trump being so popular. TV ratings thrive on drama and conflict so they are to most blame for our brutish behavior. I believe that reinstating courses in civility and ethics in our elementary schools would help tremendously in restoring a public with decency, empathy and intelligence.
1
"You have to respect American voters. They are changing the lexicon in their anger with the status quo. They don’t care about consistency. They care about energy. Reasonableness dies. Provocation works."
Sorry Roger, these things have always worked! Freud wrote about this in 1922 "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego" (available in ebook format for free from Amazon) and Hitler made very effective use of this knowledge-despite it being "Jewish" knowledge.
Perhaps it's you, Roger; aging and finding your thinking falling behind.
Sorry Roger, these things have always worked! Freud wrote about this in 1922 "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego" (available in ebook format for free from Amazon) and Hitler made very effective use of this knowledge-despite it being "Jewish" knowledge.
Perhaps it's you, Roger; aging and finding your thinking falling behind.
6
jim kay: How mean can you be! Surely you can have some respect for words, for
literature, for history (which comes to us with words), Phooey to this new idiot
language which is barely a language. It's a cop out for proper, good speech.
and for the ability to think via learning, education. I don't respect American voters
right now - have no idea who they are, or what they're made of. I see lemmings
going out to sea with Trump leading them into dark waters.
literature, for history (which comes to us with words), Phooey to this new idiot
language which is barely a language. It's a cop out for proper, good speech.
and for the ability to think via learning, education. I don't respect American voters
right now - have no idea who they are, or what they're made of. I see lemmings
going out to sea with Trump leading them into dark waters.
2
Jim Kay, like so many would-be pundits, you probably missed Mr. Cohen's tongue-in-cheek, ironic commentary--primarily because you haven't gleaned, by reading, the nuances rife in the last 500 years of English literature.
For haven't-read-much readers such as you, Mr. Cohen's article is a plaint, embracing not only his vast experience of communication, in all forms, but that of the future too. His wistful observations are those of an orchestra conductor forced by circumstance to live on top of a construction site, in the presence of constant white noise; our musician is mindful of the significance of a city's productive cacophony, but struggling to maintain the beauty of a symphony while overwhelmed by the clash of hammer on steel competing with his next-door neighbor's first attempts at drumming.
Master wordsmith Roger Cohen celebrates effulgence of educated, honed language, while simultaneously horrified by and marvelling at communication's newest surges of expression.
For haven't-read-much readers such as you, Mr. Cohen's article is a plaint, embracing not only his vast experience of communication, in all forms, but that of the future too. His wistful observations are those of an orchestra conductor forced by circumstance to live on top of a construction site, in the presence of constant white noise; our musician is mindful of the significance of a city's productive cacophony, but struggling to maintain the beauty of a symphony while overwhelmed by the clash of hammer on steel competing with his next-door neighbor's first attempts at drumming.
Master wordsmith Roger Cohen celebrates effulgence of educated, honed language, while simultaneously horrified by and marvelling at communication's newest surges of expression.
2
When things start to change, panic is not a useful response. Nor is "this is different so it must be bad."
I respect the response of Erasmus, who wrote "Immortal God, what a world I see dawning. Why can I not be young again?"
I respect the response of Erasmus, who wrote "Immortal God, what a world I see dawning. Why can I not be young again?"
8
I am typing this onto a video display, of course. Next to me lie several books and magazines waiting to be read.
9
Do they wait longer today than they once did?
Take heart (I think), the current state of affairs is likely to be quite temporary. Even the young can't keep up with having 20 different ways to communicate, every friend with a different preference. The messaging trend d'jour is even beginning to become maddening to them. It's the downside of every technological revolution, a period of over abundance and confusion driven by mass amounts of startup funding. When cars were new, there were no standards and lots of chaos. Hundreds of brands coming and going, almost all long-ago bankrupt. Though the future of media will look different, some core facts will still shape its final form. Advertising dollars are a finite resource, as is the human attention span. People are only willing to directly pay for media that delivers the highest quality and or entertainment value. Chaos has its mental and physical limits.
12
What a ride of joy! To be part of this evolution and able to wonder how it will all play out! Think of the ancients who relied on oral storytelling to pass along their cultures and knowledge and musings. All that changed with Gutenberg and, oh, the fears then about changes to language. Then came the Internet and the fear that some would be "left behind," and that love of language would suffer. Just the other day, however, while riding on a city bus, I watched an elderly man of an ethnic minority sitting in a seat for the handicapped and busily texting away for blocks and blocks. I was overcome with joy at this sight. Imagine! Here was the intersection of the past and the future-buses and texting. I wondered if this man had ever enjoyed writing in his schooldays as much as he seemed to be loving his texting now. I rejoiced that technology may have opened language portals for many more people. What a joy ride this is!
3
When the history of this era is written, I doubt that Roger Cohen's op-ed piece today will be regarded as a refractory lens through which the brave new world we have entered will hereafter be viewed. Quite honestly, this whole thing about 'smart-technology', is highly overrated. Much of the stuff we see is a source of enormous distraction, and we waste huge amounts of time doing it. When you think about it, the gains are very small compared with the effort involved. We don't need to consult a GPS map to know that were stuck in traffic. The idea that we can place on order online and have a package from somewhere else in the world arrive on our doorstep tomorrow morning is really an affectation and a conceit, and anything short of a heart transplant can probably wait a week or two. That transitory sense of pleasure that we get from ownership of something new quickly fades, and now we need something else to keep that level of interest and excitement going. It's an addiction with a huge learning curve.
I disagree that scriveners rued the day the printing press displaced them. Entirely apart from sore fingers, eyestrain, and sore backs, much of what they did allowed little creativity or virtuosity; and boring and inefficient. Typewriting was an improvement, but not by much. Computerized word processing, now with speech recognition, was even better, but the downside is that professional persons also need secretarial skills, yet another distraction, learning curve, and time waster.
I disagree that scriveners rued the day the printing press displaced them. Entirely apart from sore fingers, eyestrain, and sore backs, much of what they did allowed little creativity or virtuosity; and boring and inefficient. Typewriting was an improvement, but not by much. Computerized word processing, now with speech recognition, was even better, but the downside is that professional persons also need secretarial skills, yet another distraction, learning curve, and time waster.
6
There are big differences between babble and information just like there are big differences between pseudo-science and real-science. Today's hyper-connectivity has enabled the quick and easy dissemination of babble and pseudo-science alongside information and real-science. If we took every item posted on FB or every tweet sent out, we'd be inundated and drowning. We need to learn to sift the chaff from the grain. I am hopeful that more and more Americans will acquire those skills in the future.
25
You poor man. Only 60, but already disconnected from the opportunities to read and write richly (and think, deeply and critically) via media that are not owned by a few rich people.
10
A great article by the only reason I continue to pay to read the biased NYT. Mr. Cohen. Aside from that, yes, simple observation when I am out and about reveals, 90% of people have their heads down fiddling with a smart phone. I admit I love the internet using a laptop, to research topics of interest where as before, one had to go to the library, and usually we never did get there. Visitng a physcian and getting a diagnosis really revealed so little, as the verbal was quick, with intentional Physcian speak words. Now you can go home and find out in detail, about your circumstance. Website like the MAyo Clinic and The Cleveland Clinic are good for starters. As for hardcover books, that for me exude a warmth, and if fiction, take me away, I still love to read.
22
Words can be used however people use them but when they do not use them the same way as in the past and new words are created for lack of an adequate vocabulary, the meaningful values of words can be short lived. We end up with communications which are only good for a limited time before they become less and less clear and understandable. Pretty soon we find relating what happened last year is difficult to express except by expressing a translation in this year's words. Language is always vulnerable to this kind of loss of resolution over time, which is why people speak French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian instead of Latin.
2
Do we speak in more or less words today than we did in yesteryear?
Throw away your phone. Pour yourself a tall, stiff drink. Sit down with a good book. Take a nap.
You will feel better. Works for me every time.
You will feel better. Works for me every time.
20
Thanks Roger for this.
I have a word of advice, from one older reader (or user, or consumer eyeballs or whatever) to another: Learn to talk with your mouth full. I attended a course last week, a mandatory refresher. The instructors stated at the outset and many times during the classes that the real education came from us sharing and talking to each other and bringing our acquired experiences to bear on the material. And that did successfully happen. But during each break, everyone in the class but two of us got out their phones and absorbed themselves for the entire 10 or 15 minutes.
So we actually did get some socializing done during lunch. People can't hold a handcrafted exotic sandwich with special sauces and condiments on it and drool over their phones at the same time.
So as long as you're cool with talking with your mouth full, you can have real people back to communicate with. I know you were taught not to do that, but consider this Disruption 101. Get a word in edgewise when people are too covered with a gooey sandwich to pay homage to their One True Love.
I have a word of advice, from one older reader (or user, or consumer eyeballs or whatever) to another: Learn to talk with your mouth full. I attended a course last week, a mandatory refresher. The instructors stated at the outset and many times during the classes that the real education came from us sharing and talking to each other and bringing our acquired experiences to bear on the material. And that did successfully happen. But during each break, everyone in the class but two of us got out their phones and absorbed themselves for the entire 10 or 15 minutes.
So we actually did get some socializing done during lunch. People can't hold a handcrafted exotic sandwich with special sauces and condiments on it and drool over their phones at the same time.
So as long as you're cool with talking with your mouth full, you can have real people back to communicate with. I know you were taught not to do that, but consider this Disruption 101. Get a word in edgewise when people are too covered with a gooey sandwich to pay homage to their One True Love.
4
Sadly, communication has become just another profit center. All these devices
and the bandwidth and the myriad gadgets to instantly convey . . . . not much.
But the worst, worst, worst part of all of it is that there is no eraser. All this "stuff" stays there forever and ever. Just think if there was a world wide Delete Day !
and the bandwidth and the myriad gadgets to instantly convey . . . . not much.
But the worst, worst, worst part of all of it is that there is no eraser. All this "stuff" stays there forever and ever. Just think if there was a world wide Delete Day !
12
yep - once you put something on the internet - it stays there forever and ever
or five years - whichever comes first.
or five years - whichever comes first.
Roger that, Roger! From an earlier era when "Roger" meant "received and understood."
It's ironic that the same technology that has broadly shortened our attention span to just long enough to provide a simplistic message, A = B (and we should be angry-or happy about it), has also opened up the world of information, with Wikipedia alone providing post-doctorate level information when one drills down to links, references and other sources. And then the reader actually can go on that site with new insights that will (if validated by the Wiki community) become source material for a few, or a few million, others.
We are also provided with blog platforms where one can take the results of their research, combine with personal insight, and write an article that can potentially be read by that handful of those who do read past the first paragraph. My own recent article, was read by only a handful, "Donald Trump, the fictional one, deserves to be elected President." but among them was one man who wrote this comment about it quoting me with: "When the world seems stacked against people, they will congeal around one who offers, not a political solution, but an alternate reality. "I find this brilliant.
This was enough to keep me going.
AlRodbell.com
It's ironic that the same technology that has broadly shortened our attention span to just long enough to provide a simplistic message, A = B (and we should be angry-or happy about it), has also opened up the world of information, with Wikipedia alone providing post-doctorate level information when one drills down to links, references and other sources. And then the reader actually can go on that site with new insights that will (if validated by the Wiki community) become source material for a few, or a few million, others.
We are also provided with blog platforms where one can take the results of their research, combine with personal insight, and write an article that can potentially be read by that handful of those who do read past the first paragraph. My own recent article, was read by only a handful, "Donald Trump, the fictional one, deserves to be elected President." but among them was one man who wrote this comment about it quoting me with: "When the world seems stacked against people, they will congeal around one who offers, not a political solution, but an alternate reality. "I find this brilliant.
This was enough to keep me going.
AlRodbell.com
" where volume drowns truth" might be a symptom of the democratization of media, but not necessarily the drowning of truth. It can be, but it need not be. Perhaps most at stake is individual ideation, where people are payed to believe they represent the truth in some 'truth container' in their mind, when in fact no such container exists, and no such person exists.
Sometimes, writers can capture the truth, and riding it like a bull, rush in epiphany for short bursts of time, only to lose hold and fall again. That does not change.
Now, more can ride the bull. And often as not, as one pontificates, some other man or woman, somewhere, has caught the bull before you can speak. This is chaos for a hierarchy, but no less than it once was.
What is needed is space for those moments to be captured, and aid to make them shine as communication.
Sometimes, writers can capture the truth, and riding it like a bull, rush in epiphany for short bursts of time, only to lose hold and fall again. That does not change.
Now, more can ride the bull. And often as not, as one pontificates, some other man or woman, somewhere, has caught the bull before you can speak. This is chaos for a hierarchy, but no less than it once was.
What is needed is space for those moments to be captured, and aid to make them shine as communication.
1
Lamenting the smartphone era is akin to yearning for the age of stone implements, fire, hunting and gathering. And it confuses the tools with the tool makers and users as being of primary importance.
Beginning with the biological DNA genetic evolutionary natural selection of the fittest dusky furless upright walking animal mammal primate apes in East Africa about 180-200, 000 years ago to dusky Barack Hussein and Michelle LeVaughn Robinson Obama occupying the White House is pretty "smart".
About 3-4% of modern European DNA is Neanderthal. And about 1-2% of modern Asian DNA has a similar heritage. There are more ethnic Han Chinese on Earth than there are any other ethnicity. But there is no Neanderthal DNA in the most ancient and diverse young growing modern human populations on Earth living in Sub-Saharan Africa. Pretty smart.
They do make smartphones for dumb people.
Beginning with the biological DNA genetic evolutionary natural selection of the fittest dusky furless upright walking animal mammal primate apes in East Africa about 180-200, 000 years ago to dusky Barack Hussein and Michelle LeVaughn Robinson Obama occupying the White House is pretty "smart".
About 3-4% of modern European DNA is Neanderthal. And about 1-2% of modern Asian DNA has a similar heritage. There are more ethnic Han Chinese on Earth than there are any other ethnicity. But there is no Neanderthal DNA in the most ancient and diverse young growing modern human populations on Earth living in Sub-Saharan Africa. Pretty smart.
They do make smartphones for dumb people.
1
"But I am certain that cross-platform content has its beauty and its promise if only I could learn the right words to describe them."
Don't bother - The results are palpable!
From Jefferson to Trump the downwards spiral is almost at it's nadir.
Momma Earth will finally get a good long rest.
Don't bother - The results are palpable!
From Jefferson to Trump the downwards spiral is almost at it's nadir.
Momma Earth will finally get a good long rest.
5
I understand Roger's concern that his private views are now too common for review. Everyone is jumping in before they bother to read to the ending. I have to say I was held still until the final certain. I did not look away, once, because I've got AdBlock!
3
Now I'm seeing Roger as Joan's son's dad and think he must find a pretty French thing to call Mother.
1
When Owen was about 4yrs old he saw a URL on a roll of paper towels, and punched it into his computer. He arrived at the website of the paper company where smiling women introduced him to several other products.
Next trip to the store, he prompted his mother to buy items he had seen on the website.
Now, that's communication!
Next trip to the store, he prompted his mother to buy items he had seen on the website.
Now, that's communication!
7
The smartphone is a device to create stuff. It's a great invention. You can make videos, write poems, create collages, draw, take pics, share pics, read the NYT, read a book, group text all your high school friends, share op-ed articles, audio record your children singing, play a video game, use as a flashlight, store thousands of songs, bluetooth those songs for family at Thanksgiving dinner, google map your way to the new restaurant, measure your caloric intake, measure your steps in a day, schedule a Uber pick-up, get food delivered, make a music video, make music...
Why we complain about this awesome device is beyond me. Enjoy it. Be thankful you have it. And foster community by sharing more of your creations on that smartphone.
Why we complain about this awesome device is beyond me. Enjoy it. Be thankful you have it. And foster community by sharing more of your creations on that smartphone.
2
Wow. Now there is somebody who totally doesn't get it.
For a more thorough, thoughtful, compassionate and knowledgeable examination (than Cohen's) of the same thing, in what is the most frightening book I've seen in decades (including those examining the details of climate change), read Sherry Turkle's new book "Reclaiming Conversation." She's a prof at MIT, psychologist who's spent a career examining human's relationships to technology. She knows whereof she speaks.
For a more thorough, thoughtful, compassionate and knowledgeable examination (than Cohen's) of the same thing, in what is the most frightening book I've seen in decades (including those examining the details of climate change), read Sherry Turkle's new book "Reclaiming Conversation." She's a prof at MIT, psychologist who's spent a career examining human's relationships to technology. She knows whereof she speaks.
17
@skweebynut: you peeked my interest. After reading your post I read a NYT review of the book you mentioned, review written by novelist Jonathan Frazen. Great points made; I'll read the book.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/books/review/jonathan-franzen-reviews-...
If these phones squash empathy or dull the imagination I am, of coarse, against that. But, maybe there are examples of people using them creatively, where they become a tool for our imagination? Maybe there are example where the inform empathy and create better citizenship? Maybe they foster conversation and enable more face-to-face get togethers? They are tools we are learning to use. Mistakes are being made, for sure. But good things are happening too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/04/books/review/jonathan-franzen-reviews-...
If these phones squash empathy or dull the imagination I am, of coarse, against that. But, maybe there are examples of people using them creatively, where they become a tool for our imagination? Maybe there are example where the inform empathy and create better citizenship? Maybe they foster conversation and enable more face-to-face get togethers? They are tools we are learning to use. Mistakes are being made, for sure. But good things are happening too.
2
Look! Up in the sky. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's an icloud, ready to be yelled at by Mr. Cohen. I guess he got tired of yelling at the kids to get off his lawn. At least he didn't blame the Germans for creating this new technology.
5
February 22 2016
Words active actionable processing for the goal. Life's as much fragments narrative - and then that something give reason out of conscious choice - tentative. As well for as it is truly known all is about the historic record that becomes our smart character’s actualizing from one decision then on and on. We don't chose to read the New York Times - the journalist chose the readership and all then is fit for the society we earn and live right.
Thanks Roger....
jja Manhattan, N. Y.
Words active actionable processing for the goal. Life's as much fragments narrative - and then that something give reason out of conscious choice - tentative. As well for as it is truly known all is about the historic record that becomes our smart character’s actualizing from one decision then on and on. We don't chose to read the New York Times - the journalist chose the readership and all then is fit for the society we earn and live right.
Thanks Roger....
jja Manhattan, N. Y.
2
Indeed, short attention span and an inability to truly listen (that is, be silent and take things in) or look around are crowding out a lot of useful information. Excluding wisdom from people not in the multitasking bubble means a lot goes missing. It's annoying not to catch people's eye walking down the street too.
I do think political ignorance - being conned into thinking things can be changed by some "hero" without the hard work of working together - is easier with the isolating worlds and constant distractions of social media. There are ways in which knowledge is better, but others in which the slow work of taking stock has vanished. The Arab Spring didn't last.
My primary concern is broad-based ignorance about climate change, how serious and immediate it is becoming as we go elsewhere decade by decade (almost 4 now). Despite social media, there is nothing useful in unskeptical "skeptic" climate science denial.
Consuming and wasting at an ever accelerating pace, exploiting and dumping more and more "helpful" chemicals, is dangerous.
Social media gives a free pass to marketing, and preference for 2D cosmetics and cleaning products over the messy business of real life has neutered too many people.
Thinking someone else will make it OK and easy will end up making it hard, and suffering will be immense.
As long as people prefer free stuff and cheap excitement, the Roman circus will continue. And that's what Trump has helped to make it: a gladiator show.
I do think political ignorance - being conned into thinking things can be changed by some "hero" without the hard work of working together - is easier with the isolating worlds and constant distractions of social media. There are ways in which knowledge is better, but others in which the slow work of taking stock has vanished. The Arab Spring didn't last.
My primary concern is broad-based ignorance about climate change, how serious and immediate it is becoming as we go elsewhere decade by decade (almost 4 now). Despite social media, there is nothing useful in unskeptical "skeptic" climate science denial.
Consuming and wasting at an ever accelerating pace, exploiting and dumping more and more "helpful" chemicals, is dangerous.
Social media gives a free pass to marketing, and preference for 2D cosmetics and cleaning products over the messy business of real life has neutered too many people.
Thinking someone else will make it OK and easy will end up making it hard, and suffering will be immense.
As long as people prefer free stuff and cheap excitement, the Roman circus will continue. And that's what Trump has helped to make it: a gladiator show.
8
Roger,
I guess I am a dinosaur. I grew up looking forward to going to the children's section of a Carnegie library (which my small home town demolished).
I was at the vanguard of the technology movement with a PC on my desk in 1979. I made my living with desktop computers ushering in new systems and ways to communicate for a number of companies and organizations.
I am one of "the pushers" that made what has become the phenomenon you talk about happen.
That said, I had a strong sense of MANNERS drilled into me by my mother. Old school things like children referring to their parents friends as Mr. Bob or Mrs. Jane. I was told to sit up straight at the table with both hands in my lap except while in the actual act of eating. I was told to pay attention to someone when they are talking.
You get the idea.
My mother also taught me to focus on a project and see it through when I lost interest. I was not allow to not finish a book I had started.
My point is that the "Smartphone Era" is nothing but an era of allowing bad manners and 1/2 done work. It is a technological excuse to act as cover for a lack of people raising their children with manners and discipline.
In my case I have a regular old non-data cell phone. I have an IPad which I only buy data card for on the months I really need it.
My childhood training allows me to take the best that technology has to offer and ignore the rest.
I guess I am a dinosaur. I grew up looking forward to going to the children's section of a Carnegie library (which my small home town demolished).
I was at the vanguard of the technology movement with a PC on my desk in 1979. I made my living with desktop computers ushering in new systems and ways to communicate for a number of companies and organizations.
I am one of "the pushers" that made what has become the phenomenon you talk about happen.
That said, I had a strong sense of MANNERS drilled into me by my mother. Old school things like children referring to their parents friends as Mr. Bob or Mrs. Jane. I was told to sit up straight at the table with both hands in my lap except while in the actual act of eating. I was told to pay attention to someone when they are talking.
You get the idea.
My mother also taught me to focus on a project and see it through when I lost interest. I was not allow to not finish a book I had started.
My point is that the "Smartphone Era" is nothing but an era of allowing bad manners and 1/2 done work. It is a technological excuse to act as cover for a lack of people raising their children with manners and discipline.
In my case I have a regular old non-data cell phone. I have an IPad which I only buy data card for on the months I really need it.
My childhood training allows me to take the best that technology has to offer and ignore the rest.
8
I believe part of the problem is that too many people get their news only from social media. This, to me, seems like a lazy way to seek information. I love my smartphone because in my pocket I have The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Reuters, AP News, my local newspapers, PBS, The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine and many more available to gain fresh insight and information on a daily basis. Furthermore, I have the Kindle App and ebooks loaned from my local library for free to get truly in-depth. As I see it, the problem lies in the fact that if it's not reported on a Facebook feed, then people make the claim that a particular story isn't being reported at all. Or people only read the headlines in their feed and comment away without ever really reading the article. But is this a new phenomenon? Somehow, I doubt it.
7
I can only speak for myself but one reason I've become attuned to sensationalism, short attention spans, and the visual smartphone era is that I'm tremendously bored. I'm not sure boredom was such an issue in prior generations. When the news media quotes Trump or creates a spectacle out of political debates, that's because the viewership is bored, and craves some entertainment. Why am I bored? Maybe because I'm a single adult, but I suspect a lot of other people in the modern era are in the same boat.
8
Study history.
7
I believe boredom is caused by detachment from the immediate moment and our immediate surroundings. Try mindfulness meditation. I was amazed to find that the real world is 3D.
It's good to be old. No Facebook. No Twitter. No Linkdin. I can't even remember to take the phone with me when I leave the house. My kids chastise me for not being attached to it like a limpet bomb to the hull of a troop ship. How in the world can they reach me any old time? How do I buy groceries without the aid of a phone and its note-making capabilities? Yes, how in the world?...
My reply is the old gag, Which pencil is at the center of Hamlet's torment, 2B or not 2B? Nothing yet has come along that tops pencil and paper. No batteries required.
My reply is the old gag, Which pencil is at the center of Hamlet's torment, 2B or not 2B? Nothing yet has come along that tops pencil and paper. No batteries required.
35
To fill his time in the Yuma Penn, William Flake began a prison diary of his punishment for polygamy until someone stole his pencil. Short story.
1
And you can tell your children that you got to do things when you were young without having to worry that somewhere there was a permanent record of it!
Limpet bomb and troop ships??!! Yes, you are old.
1
Whatever the disruptive change potential of technology it can never undermine human bonds, nor the human urge to communicate. For, if prior to the evolution of words and language if the symbols and gestures were the communication tools for the early man, it's the digital signs and chip processed word language to communicate with the preferred members of the virtual community. Tomorrow it might be a different vehicle of communication and the form of community. But the realm of ideas and the human urge to communicate would always be there.
4
Today's 'need' to be constantly in touch, to try to absorb as much information in as short a time as possible, with as many 'friends' as possible, is a fad, an escape of shorts, to avoid introspection and reasoned thought and action. A poor replacement of knowledge, and of understanding, and certainly of the wisdom to know grain from chafe. The upheaval we see and feel nowadays, with information technology exploding, and exposing 'business as usual' as evil, and feeling left behind, has become collectively and emotionally a drive to change for the better. Unfortunately, humanity doesn't get better in a linear fashion, as it has its ups and downs in a restless world upside-down. You may feel illiterate in some ways, but when words are expressed poetically (even if written in prose), there is hope for redemption. We are social animals, desperate for attention, and belonging, and transcending; this, at least partly, by communicating with words, opposite (transient) evidence notwithstanding.
2
I don't look at my smartphone 221 times a day. Only a fraction of that. I do something most people seem to be unwilling to do, especially under 30's: turn off the notifications. So my phone leaves me alone. It isn't always beeping at me. I check it periodically during the day.
But I agree with one idea in the article: younger people have adopted a mindset of "I post, therefore I am". Personal validation seem not to come to them from behavior, but from posting. Experiences haven't happened if they haven't been posted.
But I agree with one idea in the article: younger people have adopted a mindset of "I post, therefore I am". Personal validation seem not to come to them from behavior, but from posting. Experiences haven't happened if they haven't been posted.
6
When I die, I expect all who attend my funeral to ignore any words spoken; instead, the attendees will be staring at their phones, searching for what they consider to be meaningful.
2
You're gonna drop a podcast?
Some of us are annoyed as the young whippersnappers have forced newspapers to get rid of text (or at least hide it) in order to fill their home page with large, high-resolution photos. A picture is worth 1,000 words, as the aphorism goes. Actually, a picture takes up as much disk space as 500,000 or so words, plus a LOT of space on the home page, crowding out text.
And that text is a) no longer edited; b) hard to find; and c) not all that informative, being taken from the official information offices in support of whatever the government of the area where the newspaper publishes wants.
As Fred says, there are very few real journalists these days.
http://fredoneverything.org/who-are-boehner-and-pelosi-a-slough-of-irrel...
And that text is a) no longer edited; b) hard to find; and c) not all that informative, being taken from the official information offices in support of whatever the government of the area where the newspaper publishes wants.
As Fred says, there are very few real journalists these days.
http://fredoneverything.org/who-are-boehner-and-pelosi-a-slough-of-irrel...
2
Roger, I would encourage you to attend a high school or college speech/debate tournament, either here in the U.S. or overseas to get some perspective from highly technological young people with the ability to communicate ideas and share them with others before their peers and a group of tough judges.
Not only is this occurring in the U.S. with non elites and every race and religion represented, one of the hotspots for speech and debate is right in the Silicon Valley where parents want their kids to study Liberal Arts and become effective communicators in public forums.
This is not limited to the U.S. either. Overseas, in China, North Africa and the Middle East, debate is highly valued and structured academic debate is taking off thanks to the recognition that being on a smart phone all day is not how one advances in this world where globalization and democracy itself must be considered as issues worthy of debate beyond some online chat room.
Do yourself a favor, Roger. Next time you're in Rabat, Casablanca, even Benghazi, New York, Washington or Sioux Falls treat yourself to a view of the future with these bright and articulate young people. Their yearning for expression cuts across every dividing line of class, race and religion.
Not only is this occurring in the U.S. with non elites and every race and religion represented, one of the hotspots for speech and debate is right in the Silicon Valley where parents want their kids to study Liberal Arts and become effective communicators in public forums.
This is not limited to the U.S. either. Overseas, in China, North Africa and the Middle East, debate is highly valued and structured academic debate is taking off thanks to the recognition that being on a smart phone all day is not how one advances in this world where globalization and democracy itself must be considered as issues worthy of debate beyond some online chat room.
Do yourself a favor, Roger. Next time you're in Rabat, Casablanca, even Benghazi, New York, Washington or Sioux Falls treat yourself to a view of the future with these bright and articulate young people. Their yearning for expression cuts across every dividing line of class, race and religion.
7
Really, Roger, the kidz are alright. Only now you can tell when they aren't interested, Mrs Cleaver.
1
By far, the most important element of my education...both in high school and at university...was speech and debate training. It taught me to read, to research, to organize, to find persuasive arguments, to listen carefully, to analyze, to document, to grab and hold a listener's attention and to choose words carefully and economically. I have used these skills (and augmented them with a constant quest for creativity and the ability to conceptualize) every day of my working life. If you haven't been fortunate enough to have these experiences you should lament the FTYHMO...Fact That You Have Missed Out!!! P.S. Learning to touch type helped as well.
Ladies and gentleman, as a Washington lawyer, steeped in the art of semantics and passive aggression, allow me to decode Roger Cohen's column.
Cohen is lamenting the rise of technology, and social media in a passive-aggressive rant against his nemesis, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.
Mr. Trump boasted at a rally in Atlanta over the weekend that his Twitter account is like "owning the NY Times without the lawsuits." The crowd roared in approval.
Trump has redefined American politics and presidential elections in a way so revolutionary that historians (and I have a degree in American History) will be saying "Barack who?" in a few years. Trump has used social media to save hundreds of millions of dollars on campaign ads and has reached the broadest audience possible, as young people are tethered to our smartphones, and the news media often just reports what they read on their Facebook or Twitter feeds as opposed to actually working. Shoe leather journalism is dead folks.
So Trump has mastered social media and uses it as a blunt force weapon to control the traditional media and his message.
And Cohen is pouty pouty all about-y.
Cohen is lamenting the rise of technology, and social media in a passive-aggressive rant against his nemesis, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.
Mr. Trump boasted at a rally in Atlanta over the weekend that his Twitter account is like "owning the NY Times without the lawsuits." The crowd roared in approval.
Trump has redefined American politics and presidential elections in a way so revolutionary that historians (and I have a degree in American History) will be saying "Barack who?" in a few years. Trump has used social media to save hundreds of millions of dollars on campaign ads and has reached the broadest audience possible, as young people are tethered to our smartphones, and the news media often just reports what they read on their Facebook or Twitter feeds as opposed to actually working. Shoe leather journalism is dead folks.
So Trump has mastered social media and uses it as a blunt force weapon to control the traditional media and his message.
And Cohen is pouty pouty all about-y.
3
I’ve often felt that London streets in winter can be unhealthy for the mind, and not just for the fogs that bring pollution that robs minds of oxygen.
As to downward gazes, nothing is forever. Downward gazes used to characterize the typical Manhattan resident, until the clean-up-after-your-dog-or-be-flayed-publically laws came about. Then, for a long time, New Yorkers discovered that vistas existed at eye-level and above. Now, like everyone else, they’re absorbed again staring down, this time at a screen. But soon enough we’ll be able to superimpose what we now require smartphones to display on the inner corneas of our eyes, and we’ll have a generation of people stumbling about with blank expressions on their faces as they employ this new means of checking their email and the latest porn offerings.
Roger has outdone himself today. He reminds me of the character Gore Vidal invented in his historical novel “Burr”, a young man in 1830s New York who wrote a weekly column under the nom de guerre “Old Poltroon”, who was supposed to be an ancient curmudgeon who cantankerously but entertainingly kvetched about how the city had changed for the worse since his distant youth. Only the young can write the old humorously: those of us already there or approaching it, like Roger and me (we’re both 60) don’t find it funny at all.
But this column is exceptional in its helplessness. Life doesn’t need to end simply because you refuse to live it looking down.
As to downward gazes, nothing is forever. Downward gazes used to characterize the typical Manhattan resident, until the clean-up-after-your-dog-or-be-flayed-publically laws came about. Then, for a long time, New Yorkers discovered that vistas existed at eye-level and above. Now, like everyone else, they’re absorbed again staring down, this time at a screen. But soon enough we’ll be able to superimpose what we now require smartphones to display on the inner corneas of our eyes, and we’ll have a generation of people stumbling about with blank expressions on their faces as they employ this new means of checking their email and the latest porn offerings.
Roger has outdone himself today. He reminds me of the character Gore Vidal invented in his historical novel “Burr”, a young man in 1830s New York who wrote a weekly column under the nom de guerre “Old Poltroon”, who was supposed to be an ancient curmudgeon who cantankerously but entertainingly kvetched about how the city had changed for the worse since his distant youth. Only the young can write the old humorously: those of us already there or approaching it, like Roger and me (we’re both 60) don’t find it funny at all.
But this column is exceptional in its helplessness. Life doesn’t need to end simply because you refuse to live it looking down.
19
'I feel depressed having recently broke up with my boyfriend and uncomfortable walking in the street of New York'. This from a young woman in a large convenience store, working long hours, whom I approached for direction. 'Please do not make eye contact at your age, I cautioned, with people in a big City when passing each other by'.
At my age past 60, I can afford to look about with interest, and many nods, on occasion, some smiles are exchanged. Out of the blue, a stranger may say 'hello' for no particular reason in the sun, and many a conversation has begun with our younger ones, who may think I am a teacher and non-threatening.
Gone are the days, long before tablets and smart phones existed, where I kept my head down, and tried to make everyone and myself invisible. A relief, and when a young man, a cabbie and familiar face, drove me to the train the other day, I wished him a happy weekend. 'My weekend is over', he replied, and I reminded him that he does not work on Sundays. 'You remember me!, he exclaimed. 'Of course, I am not senile yet!'.
This Haitian reminds me a bit of a young Marlon Brando, and the people who look much the same to my eye, are part of a large roaring mob applauding the likes of Donald Trump, or some other celebrity.
In the meantime, life is looking up.
At my age past 60, I can afford to look about with interest, and many nods, on occasion, some smiles are exchanged. Out of the blue, a stranger may say 'hello' for no particular reason in the sun, and many a conversation has begun with our younger ones, who may think I am a teacher and non-threatening.
Gone are the days, long before tablets and smart phones existed, where I kept my head down, and tried to make everyone and myself invisible. A relief, and when a young man, a cabbie and familiar face, drove me to the train the other day, I wished him a happy weekend. 'My weekend is over', he replied, and I reminded him that he does not work on Sundays. 'You remember me!, he exclaimed. 'Of course, I am not senile yet!'.
This Haitian reminds me a bit of a young Marlon Brando, and the people who look much the same to my eye, are part of a large roaring mob applauding the likes of Donald Trump, or some other celebrity.
In the meantime, life is looking up.
Those in power greatly profit by people being distracted and stupid, and the technology that is the means to this end is greatly praised accordingly.
Miss Ley:
You have a nimble mind that can see a young Brando in a Haitian face.
You have a nimble mind that can see a young Brando in a Haitian face.
I love your column, but tying the smart phone to the political turmoil we are seeing is too far a reach for me.
A lot of the anger of the American voter is simply a reflection that no effort was made to hold to account those that caused the financial melt down.
Had the administration prosecuted and jailed bankers - as a previous administration did after the S&L crisis - you would see a very different race now.
Smart phones or not.
A lot of the anger of the American voter is simply a reflection that no effort was made to hold to account those that caused the financial melt down.
Had the administration prosecuted and jailed bankers - as a previous administration did after the S&L crisis - you would see a very different race now.
Smart phones or not.
16
Tell the Arabs it was just the Spring. I think Hitler made the most of a well connected radio system.
2
Agreed. Smartphones do not somehow disconnect us from any reality and cause mass political hysteria. The disruption on both left and right is caused by the most Marxist of grounds: it's the economy, stupid. Globalization has trashed jobs, the 1% has engineered its worst possible effects while throwing faux interpretations of what's going on to the public, and people are, ironically, gravitating toward people who use words to get straight at truth about the past: the Iraq War was a disaster and Wall Street has destroyed most of us economically. Now, all we need are some clear words connected to nature and physical reality about what the solutions might be, and how we might agree on them . . .
Don't worry about it. Big brother isn't watching you.
1
I am a terrible when it comes to spelling & to expressing my thoughts, words when spoken cannot be changed.I am no longer frustrated by the inability to find a Parking space at the Super Mart. Now with the Cel phone, I let my wife out at the entrance of the store & park my car in the last lane in the last parking spot which is always available, & wait for her to call me to pick her up.Spell check on my computer enables me to write without the fear of shoeing hoe illiterate I am, & the back space prevents me from putting my foot in my mouth.I find I'm becoming a better speller & a better thinker, & I'm having a ball expressing myself in the New York Times, it's opened a new world for me. The printed word is far from dead, at least for this reader it has become my life's endeavor.
4
This is nice but self-defeating and actually wrong. I am 79 and a lifetime writer and started out with an Epson HX20 in 1980 and never looked back. Words matter more now than ever. This is the era in which Charles Sanders Peirce logic will come to fruition And where the quality of messaging will determine whether the knee-jerk reactions of neo-Luddites will prove correct or whether a universality never dreamed of before will emerge. People who have been around and are not inclined to pessimism are banking on the latter.
2
Stephen, this is, I believe, the first reference in a Times comment Chares Sanders Pierce. I had a Professor who had been a student of Pierce. I wrote a paper that contained a small and not terribly well-reasoned critique of a point by Pierce. It received the following comment from my professor: "Don't f**k with CSP!!" I smiled recalling this about thirty years later. I also recalled that "Pierce" is properly pronounced as "purse.":-)
2
@Richard Green I must have gone to school well before your time. When I'd submitted some riff on a particular historian's view of events in Europe during the runup to WWI, I too received the paper back with a professorial comment. But it was just a picture. Of a shovel.
"Reasonableness dies. Provocation works."
This was literally true in the lead up to both the First and Second World Wars and the communication technology was not the cause of either.
This was literally true in the lead up to both the First and Second World Wars and the communication technology was not the cause of either.
3
It's been true since Adam delved and Eve spanned, my visionary gentleman. I so want to go on Craig's new history show off.
1
At 68 years old I do have a smartphone and it has its uses, although reading on that tiny screen is not a favorite activity. There are so many factors that influence basic literacy and later academic achievement. I do not sense any moral high ground for those who do not take part in Facebook or Twitter, although I am a non-participant in those arenas.
There are data suggesting that, relative to a century ago, illiteracy rates have dropped significantly. At the same time, with the rise of childhood use of computer screens, attention spans are dropping and that factor might well negatively impact future academic achievement: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3610761/ .
Personal stories are fine and sometimes make people more comfortable or connected, but they do not provide too much of a look at the whole picture. There are many sorts of data showing the problems with too much reliance on computer screens for early childhood learning.
As to the remark, "you have to respect the American voter" and the attendant discussion, I remain unconvinced. Not that my approval is either desirable or determinative. That "energy" can be destructive. People need to be able to slow down their thinking and consider details beyond 140 characters. People need to be able to consider evidence outside their preferred political sphere. Keeping up with the twitterverse is not a convincing sign of knowledge or wisdom, whatever the utility for divisive political campaigns.
There are data suggesting that, relative to a century ago, illiteracy rates have dropped significantly. At the same time, with the rise of childhood use of computer screens, attention spans are dropping and that factor might well negatively impact future academic achievement: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3610761/ .
Personal stories are fine and sometimes make people more comfortable or connected, but they do not provide too much of a look at the whole picture. There are many sorts of data showing the problems with too much reliance on computer screens for early childhood learning.
As to the remark, "you have to respect the American voter" and the attendant discussion, I remain unconvinced. Not that my approval is either desirable or determinative. That "energy" can be destructive. People need to be able to slow down their thinking and consider details beyond 140 characters. People need to be able to consider evidence outside their preferred political sphere. Keeping up with the twitterverse is not a convincing sign of knowledge or wisdom, whatever the utility for divisive political campaigns.
68
I really think that in many ways the fundamental driver for our electronic/social media obsession is loneliness.
It is both ironic and sad that the perceived "cure" in reality so often accelerates the condition.
It is both ironic and sad that the perceived "cure" in reality so often accelerates the condition.
86
Loneliness and I would also say, boredom. Boredom is much higher in the population than before.
2
If anyone's bored with access to the internet, they just enjoy being so. It's a calling. They are the ones calling while driving home from work. I hate that!
There used to be a jest, now stale, on the matter of discretion. One ended a conversation where a confidence had been exchanged by saying 'I will only write to the NY Times about it'. Roger Cohen has made a confession to his readership about Humanity on the verge of a lost for words? A subjective interpretation, and yet I welcomed his reminder of the importance of communication in a technological era, where we are taught to become brilliant computer experts without having been taught to think well.
Some of us may have suffered growing pains and written on paper at an early age our feelings of loneliness, only to realize much later that it was about fear. Fear of having to go through this business of living, aging and dying. There may come a time in life where one addresses 'Loneliness' and makes an attempt to befriend it with some enlightened laughter.
Some of us may have suffered growing pains and written on paper at an early age our feelings of loneliness, only to realize much later that it was about fear. Fear of having to go through this business of living, aging and dying. There may come a time in life where one addresses 'Loneliness' and makes an attempt to befriend it with some enlightened laughter.
Actually, I look to a land line that tolls for no one, it's just robo calls trying to sell some credit protection. I keep the clam shell cell phone turned off in a drawer and only pull it out when I need to go somewhere they don't have pay phones, anymore. $80 bucks a year. 2G is fine with me.
Roger, you can't be a kid again, but you can learn to adapt. I FINALLY went with Firefox to enjoy the beauty of AdBlockPlus, you must go there!
I agree it's very disturbing, but have you ever been to Beeden? I can never go back to a time my life felt safe and secure, but thanks to some sweet German kids, I can ride a bike around the last town to hail my healthy mother. Germany didn't fall for all Google was trying to sell, no Street Views access. I wander where ever they let me, Sicily.
Yup, those are ancient water buffalo in what was once a large black lagoon below an abbey which Wagner viewed to write his silly ring tones.
I'll spare you the story about the church built to Nazi specs that took a toll on Mom daily. Here's a video of both the ride around and that too loud Third Reich Bell sound. Call me crazy, but I got back to the Blies without having to die to get there. We're just transitioning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgBbLJLy4cc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK4JDqGzpu8
Roger, you can't be a kid again, but you can learn to adapt. I FINALLY went with Firefox to enjoy the beauty of AdBlockPlus, you must go there!
I agree it's very disturbing, but have you ever been to Beeden? I can never go back to a time my life felt safe and secure, but thanks to some sweet German kids, I can ride a bike around the last town to hail my healthy mother. Germany didn't fall for all Google was trying to sell, no Street Views access. I wander where ever they let me, Sicily.
Yup, those are ancient water buffalo in what was once a large black lagoon below an abbey which Wagner viewed to write his silly ring tones.
I'll spare you the story about the church built to Nazi specs that took a toll on Mom daily. Here's a video of both the ride around and that too loud Third Reich Bell sound. Call me crazy, but I got back to the Blies without having to die to get there. We're just transitioning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgBbLJLy4cc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK4JDqGzpu8
2
One trait that all the presidential candidates from 2016 class share is that they are detached from reality.
It’s an unbelievable amount of delusion they display in their public speeches. If the optimism could solve all the problems, we all would be the optimists. It’s prerequisite, but it’s just the bare minimum for the presidential job.
One has to understand the basics of mathematics and faith to successfully lead a country.
It’s not even worth wasting the words on any other candidate except Trump and Sanders.
Even those two candidate that inspired the enthusiasm among the young voters are not remotely qualified of leading America.
Trump is extremely proud that he gained $8 billion in the personal wealth during the period his country sank $19 trillion in debt. In 2002 in the interview with Howard Stern he was for invasion of Iraq but he opposed it in 2003. What are the candidates that change their opinion so widely good for?
Sanders is aware that we are in the colossal national debt, but he would provide the universal health care and free college to everybody. The basic mathematical principle is if in debt, slash the spending.
America is in the permanent war but there is no single candidate brave enough to say it publically. We are in the conflict with the Arabs, the Muslims, the Sunnis, the Shiites, the Russians, the Chinese, and just wrapped up a half-century conflict with catholic Cuba.
What’s the alleged conclusion? They are wrong and we are right.
It’s an unbelievable amount of delusion they display in their public speeches. If the optimism could solve all the problems, we all would be the optimists. It’s prerequisite, but it’s just the bare minimum for the presidential job.
One has to understand the basics of mathematics and faith to successfully lead a country.
It’s not even worth wasting the words on any other candidate except Trump and Sanders.
Even those two candidate that inspired the enthusiasm among the young voters are not remotely qualified of leading America.
Trump is extremely proud that he gained $8 billion in the personal wealth during the period his country sank $19 trillion in debt. In 2002 in the interview with Howard Stern he was for invasion of Iraq but he opposed it in 2003. What are the candidates that change their opinion so widely good for?
Sanders is aware that we are in the colossal national debt, but he would provide the universal health care and free college to everybody. The basic mathematical principle is if in debt, slash the spending.
America is in the permanent war but there is no single candidate brave enough to say it publically. We are in the conflict with the Arabs, the Muslims, the Sunnis, the Shiites, the Russians, the Chinese, and just wrapped up a half-century conflict with catholic Cuba.
What’s the alleged conclusion? They are wrong and we are right.
Great column. I'm going to post it to Facebook.
2
I have a framed warning on my waiting room wall about the mess the younger generation is making of the world. It's from Hesiod, 4th century, B.C.
2
The title of this piece is simply wrong. It's NOT about smartphone politics, it's about smartphone society. Can it be changed?
2
Really well done essay. I don't understand either. But I do understand that understanding is no longer the point. Being part of the machine is the point. We don't have to understand; we are understood. We used to be products and creators of a culture, of all the good & bad, conflicting voices & institutions that made a thing called "culture." Now we are profiles, audiences, statistics, clicks. We, as much as the gadgets, are products of the companies that took the place of culture, that structure everything from the messages that are replacing relationships to the information that has replaced knowledge. We don't have to understand. We are understood.
3
I think that everyone over a certain age has at one time or another entertained thoughts such as yours. I also think there were people who said the same things about television, radio, telephones, electricity, railroads, and every other significant technological change in history. We all know that change is inevitable (OK, not Republicans) but we are also active agents who can make choices. I recently came home from a week's trip to Cuba where I could not use my iPhone and chose not to use my laptop. It was nice to be unplugged all week - people ought to give that a chance sometime.
3
There is an old joke about how many Virginians it takes to change a light bulb. The answer: doesn't matter--they'll spend the rest of their lives talking about how much better the OLD light bulb was. Back in the 1960s, McLuhan described what (with a 60s imagination) he called the "global village." The novelist Orson Scott Card described, as background, the implications of that "global village" long before the Web and smartphones became reality. My point is that we are always playing conceptual "catch-up" to social-technological revolutions like this: while they are foreseeable, NOBODY is out front trying to manage a transition--remember, Congress killed the Office of Technology Assessment in the 90s, which was designed to address this. It's why newspapers and print media (and journalism) are STILL trying desperately to shoehorn their business models into an informational environment which no longer supports them, and are failing miserably. Really, who's looking at what democracy does--or should, or could--look like in the era of smartphones, social media, and widespread (often false) "information"? This "moderated" comment thread is an attempt to shovel back the tide, isn't it?
1
It's interesting that, from what I hear, many of the people who invented computers and smart phones and all the techie gadgets we use today are folks who aren't very comfortable with being social and aren't really into chatting. It looks like we are all now becoming a lot like them. If we want to keep being the social creatures that many of us like to be, maybe it's time to let the unsocial among us use the gadgets and the rest of us go back to traditional, nourishing forms of communication.
1
A stunningly beautiful and insightful essay. I suffer the same laments. I wrote a fast paced novel where the only objection was that there were too many "big words." And yet the English language is so precise when used to its fullest, that it was impossible for me to reduce it to imprecise but more common terms. Language is so beautiful, and I fear it is being reduced to cyber grunts.
I believe that the smartphone is a stepping stone to a more mechanized state of being, and when I say that, I mean, where reality is shaped by mechanized forces that can shape the state of emotion for the moment. But for the time being, many of us are living in an overwrought state, where the adrenalin that comes with media's repetitive violence has ironically become our sedative, and our state of being - which is on the verge of collapse - can be ignored with the right medications.
I believe that the smartphone is a stepping stone to a more mechanized state of being, and when I say that, I mean, where reality is shaped by mechanized forces that can shape the state of emotion for the moment. But for the time being, many of us are living in an overwrought state, where the adrenalin that comes with media's repetitive violence has ironically become our sedative, and our state of being - which is on the verge of collapse - can be ignored with the right medications.
2
I fully share Mr. Cohen's sorrow at the gradual passing away of the printed word. In a world where the wheels of lexicographers of great dictionaries grind slowly, the major newspapers assume the role of the arbiter of language. All that is published enters the vocabulary. Here one can only becry such constructs as "post-print onboarding and social-media FOMO".
But I admit to having introduced Usans or Usaeans for Americans in a comment to "Bonfire of the Assets, With Trump Lighting Matches" by
Thomas L. Friedman, AUG. 26, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/26/opinion/thomas-friedman-bonfire-of-the...
But I admit to having introduced Usans or Usaeans for Americans in a comment to "Bonfire of the Assets, With Trump Lighting Matches" by
Thomas L. Friedman, AUG. 26, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/26/opinion/thomas-friedman-bonfire-of-the...
Illiterate? Roger Cohen? Ridiculous. Ridiculous! What are you going to write next, that you've never traveled anywhere and you don't need to because you just got a new phone so that you can see Niagara Falls on Instagram? You haven't missed anything man, except what you properly call "addictive delirium". James Comey and Mark Zuckerberg might be missing what you had for lunch and where you had it, but you yourself ain't missing a thing.
2
The failure of the word and sentence is also the failure of conversation that is face-to-face—a conversation that is best with food around a table. A conversation that begins with thankfulness. The conversation at table, beginning with Passover, the Eucharist, and Ramadan, disciplines us into the conversation that leads to negotiation and re-covenanted relationships. Our problem may lie not merely in the means of communication but in the loss of rituals by which we come together in relationships built on word and living image.
Thank you once again for sharing your insights across the miles.
Thank you once again for sharing your insights across the miles.
4
When I tell some of my staff in their 20's and 30's that this New Yorker spent a semester abroad in London in the early 80's and wrote a letter to friends and family maybe once every 2 weeks as my only means of communication since calling was prohibitive, and the rest of the time I studied or enjoyed being away, and especially enjoyed the remoteness and freedom, those concepts seem almost incomprehensible to them.
Be interesting to read a study about all the externalities cell phones have wroght, and this column does a fantastic job of identifying some important ones.
Be interesting to read a study about all the externalities cell phones have wroght, and this column does a fantastic job of identifying some important ones.
3
There is a sublime restaurant in an old barn that takes you back to a time before we knew there was anything more than beer and wine, Gallo. I just can't find their website.
1
Mr Cohen. You exaggerate. Perhaps you're fearful. In the 50s writers such as yourself bemoaned the spread of cheap ballpoint pens, saying such pens would ruin the minds of children who used them. Sure did! Many things have happened since: engineers have lost their slide rulers, word processors have replaced type writers and weather apps have replaced the farmer's almanac.
Things haven't changed as much as you claim. None of us who use iphones need that phone to tell us that we're unemployed. We don't need an iphone to remind us about our student loans. We don't rely on an iphone to tell us to avoid addicting drugs or car accidents. We are still able to get out of a cold rain by ourselves, and we'll still help a stranger who needs food.
Get with it, Cohen. Stop pretending iphones are ruining our lives.
Things haven't changed as much as you claim. None of us who use iphones need that phone to tell us that we're unemployed. We don't need an iphone to remind us about our student loans. We don't rely on an iphone to tell us to avoid addicting drugs or car accidents. We are still able to get out of a cold rain by ourselves, and we'll still help a stranger who needs food.
Get with it, Cohen. Stop pretending iphones are ruining our lives.
2
No worries Roger, I'm reading your words on an iPad. Hang on gotta check my phone...
Like with so many things there is positives and negatives. A positive of the new technologies is to be able to stay in touch and connected to so many friends and colleagues. My daughter, who is in her mid-40's, stays in touch and knows what's going on in the lives of so many people that she has been associated with over the past 30 years. Another positive is to be able to communicate when there is an emergency and to capture an injustice when it is happening. In these situations the device is a tool, not the end all.
The real negative is when these devices replace more in depth coverage and understanding with their limited characters or format. Instant social-media FOMO is frequently simply a distraction and an outlet for people that are bored easily. It is a substandard outlet for knowledge and understanding. The print media i.e. books and newspapers, whether printed on paper or conveyed electronically remain the best means of true comprehension and insight.
The real negative is when these devices replace more in depth coverage and understanding with their limited characters or format. Instant social-media FOMO is frequently simply a distraction and an outlet for people that are bored easily. It is a substandard outlet for knowledge and understanding. The print media i.e. books and newspapers, whether printed on paper or conveyed electronically remain the best means of true comprehension and insight.
4
Shame you couldn't have been press secretary for Louis XVI!! You're about as out of touch... The republican civil war isn't about provocation over reasonableness or consistency, it's about Main Street taking its pound of flesh from Wall Street. Every small business owner I talked to after the bailouts repeated the same thing: They didn't get a bailout, and they couldn't just vote to raise their debt limit. That means Wall Street and Congress get to play by different rules than they do, and they're sick of it. Trump actually gets this too because he's a developer. He can't pick up his real estate and place it in a country with first rate infrastructure! He's stuck with improving the country he lives in. I don't even own a cell phone, let alone a smart phone, so let's not blame your ignorance on technology!!
1
I know one who should unload some of his commodes, but the taxes would guillotine that legacy, so she keeps them well secreted, those shite cans. Accordion to the French, you can't take a bed for delinquencies, even if it was once Antoinette's.
1
Another oversimplification. People are doing PLENTY of reading. It's just that they've no got plenty of alternatives to the traditional media, and they're using them. That includes all kinds of opinions as well as facts, and it's impossible to check everything out, but information is certainly getting about, and people are forming their own opinions, whatever those might be.
One thing we DO have is a lot of people who, thanks to longtime government policies and dodgy international trade agreements, have been pretty much dumped out of what used to be a strong, viable middle class - the kind that keeps economies and countries going - and, to put it mildly, they're not happy campers. And a lot of them VOTE.
What we're really starting here is a voyage to an unknown destination. Well, ONE thing can probably be guaranteed - we won't be bored THIS year.
One thing we DO have is a lot of people who, thanks to longtime government policies and dodgy international trade agreements, have been pretty much dumped out of what used to be a strong, viable middle class - the kind that keeps economies and countries going - and, to put it mildly, they're not happy campers. And a lot of them VOTE.
What we're really starting here is a voyage to an unknown destination. Well, ONE thing can probably be guaranteed - we won't be bored THIS year.
11
Next time you want to know something online, ask the books section; I often find my best leads in the images sections. When I went blue about this new fangeled jangle system, I found solace with those who were blown out of the murky water by the printing press. Seven early genres of German pressed text: my favorite form was letters from the devil, but publishing others' letters was all the rage, too. Songs of local colorful characters like bloody Swabian Knights clearing the marches of pop off peasantry were regular delights for those who might vote Trump.
1
The only question will be who wins? Wall Street or the gas and oil industry? Pharma or casinos? Let's have our contestants wear the logos of their sponsors on their jackets just like race car drivers. It would be far more honest, and we might know what we are choosing.
Huh. I read way more with a smartphone than I did without, because I only have to carry one entirely manageable object around to have instant access to nearly anything. I still insist on complete sentences, and the ones I write now are every bit as convoluted now as they were before the smartphone, or the PC, for that matter, since I'm older than Mr. Cohen and remember when the things didn't exist. The same kinds of folks who now urgently text nonsense and inappropriately send naked pictures of themselves to people they don't know very well used to gather in huddles to talk about nonsense and describe their body parts in lurid ways. Le plus ça change . . . The media is only ever the message when one allows the form to blind one to the substance. And the will to understand things in depth has never been a mass commodity.
64
It's raining memes. Our attention is grabbed for only as long as it takes to click "buy" or move on to the next grab of our attention from an eager seller.
Headlines that don't keep our eyes on the ads are of no use to the advertisers, hence the constant ratcheting up of the most outrageous and shocking.
Each new meme destroys the previous one--there can be no response to Trump's attack on the Pope, because it is immediately eclipsed by the new attack.
And the coverage and attention in the traditional media paid to Twitter-trolls as if they represent anyone but a virtual-self-fantasy of a personality is effective for capturing traditional couch-potato consumers.
It's not the device, it's the willingness to allow ourselves to be bathed in a mist of low-grade disruptions that short -circuit our connection to anything larger than ourselves.
Headlines that don't keep our eyes on the ads are of no use to the advertisers, hence the constant ratcheting up of the most outrageous and shocking.
Each new meme destroys the previous one--there can be no response to Trump's attack on the Pope, because it is immediately eclipsed by the new attack.
And the coverage and attention in the traditional media paid to Twitter-trolls as if they represent anyone but a virtual-self-fantasy of a personality is effective for capturing traditional couch-potato consumers.
It's not the device, it's the willingness to allow ourselves to be bathed in a mist of low-grade disruptions that short -circuit our connection to anything larger than ourselves.
43
Hitler rolled a thunder show on radio; oh, to have been in Koblenz for the big kiss up to the Saar. How would Trump have mangled that one?
1
"low-grade disruptions that short -circuit our connection to anything larger than ourselves."
And that is the source of the loneliness and boredom that drive the need to be distracted at all cost.
And that is the source of the loneliness and boredom that drive the need to be distracted at all cost.
I don't have a cell phone. I don't want one. I don't Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram or do any of that stuff.
I am convinced that electronic media is some kind of self aggrandizement addiction. The most universal human drive is prestige. Everyone wants prestige, always have, always will. Electronic media allows anyone to create their own little prestige universe. It's a global soapbox. A person's importance in the world is determined by how many viewers, followers or friends they have. They keep checking that phone to connect with their fanbase. This is terribly addicting and literally has enslaved us.
I want prestige too. I get mine from running a small business, building home improvements, and staying in top physical condition. I reject the self made electronic universe and participate in the real universe. I post comments on the New York Times website. This is the real world, not my private concocted reality. The real world filters out noise and lets substance come through. Much more difficult but that's why it's real and so is the prestige I derive from it.
I am convinced that electronic media is some kind of self aggrandizement addiction. The most universal human drive is prestige. Everyone wants prestige, always have, always will. Electronic media allows anyone to create their own little prestige universe. It's a global soapbox. A person's importance in the world is determined by how many viewers, followers or friends they have. They keep checking that phone to connect with their fanbase. This is terribly addicting and literally has enslaved us.
I want prestige too. I get mine from running a small business, building home improvements, and staying in top physical condition. I reject the self made electronic universe and participate in the real universe. I post comments on the New York Times website. This is the real world, not my private concocted reality. The real world filters out noise and lets substance come through. Much more difficult but that's why it's real and so is the prestige I derive from it.
35
I'm sorry Bruce. If you think the comments section of the NYT is the real world you need to get out more. The comments section represents that tiny portion of society which has the time to spend reading and writing for our own satisfaction. As we look to see how many recommends we have we are doing the exact same thing as those poor smart phone addicts. We rationalize this by telling ourselves that we occupy the intellectual and moral high ground, even as we seek a base form of community approval. i doubt any comment has ever changed one mind or one opinion. it is an echo chamber of our own liberal viewpoints.
5
Bob, you nailed us to their Croix de Feu, but I am having a far more entertaining and meaningful loneliness than I might have just watching TV and sneezing over the NYTs on Sunday.
6
When you stop reading, you stop thinking. When you stop thinking, you stop reasoning. When you stop reasoning, you stop evaluating. When you stop evaluating, you listen only to cries.
When you listen to cries, you lose touch with reality. As Goya said: the sleep of reason creates monsters. We have now the proof.
When you listen to cries, you lose touch with reality. As Goya said: the sleep of reason creates monsters. We have now the proof.
76
Uneducated people never had the gut to read some in-depth insights of some columnists in their ivory towers. Twitter and whats-app are attaining people who can not comprehend complex information. We don't want to compete with that, this is an audience that never was in our reach.
But there are some real world problems that arising from these deflated information age - like the refugee crisis in europe.
There would be no daesh, no xenophobic rallies, and we wouldnt have a refugee crisis if
a) there would be no smartphones
b) or people would at least complement their visions with some more information.
So they join a terrorist group with a very predictable disappointment, if not even a lethal demise somewhere in the nowhere. And people spend thousands of dollars and risk their life just to end up cramped in some overcrowded refugee shelter for month with no job prospects.
Smartphones are the printing press for the people who have no access to high glossy reporting. And the answer should be, that we should extend the reach of comprehensive information to more people.
But there are some real world problems that arising from these deflated information age - like the refugee crisis in europe.
There would be no daesh, no xenophobic rallies, and we wouldnt have a refugee crisis if
a) there would be no smartphones
b) or people would at least complement their visions with some more information.
So they join a terrorist group with a very predictable disappointment, if not even a lethal demise somewhere in the nowhere. And people spend thousands of dollars and risk their life just to end up cramped in some overcrowded refugee shelter for month with no job prospects.
Smartphones are the printing press for the people who have no access to high glossy reporting. And the answer should be, that we should extend the reach of comprehensive information to more people.
3
Mr. Cohen, Look at it this way: you are 60 years old. There is a limit to how much of this "new" stuff you have to learn. Also you are not exactly losing in this deal.
How many of your readers read you on paper or live in the New York area? There was a time when I saw a NYT only when some visiting relative brought me a copy. And then for sure I would not be reading you. Now I do.
FOMO? Is that what makes me check on Monday on Thursday afternoons to see when your op-ed piece has come out? True, I am working from home at the moment, but I took time out from the article I am working on to peruse Opinion of the NYT to see if I missed something (as long as I pay I might as well GMMW = Get my money's worth so I will not MO).
There really are no smartphones, homes or cars. There are smart people who know how to use them or put them aside.
So who just won now, me, wasting time to read and comment or you with an extra reader?
Don't get too depressed, you came out on top. Allow me though not to follow you on Facebook or Twitter.
How many of your readers read you on paper or live in the New York area? There was a time when I saw a NYT only when some visiting relative brought me a copy. And then for sure I would not be reading you. Now I do.
FOMO? Is that what makes me check on Monday on Thursday afternoons to see when your op-ed piece has come out? True, I am working from home at the moment, but I took time out from the article I am working on to peruse Opinion of the NYT to see if I missed something (as long as I pay I might as well GMMW = Get my money's worth so I will not MO).
There really are no smartphones, homes or cars. There are smart people who know how to use them or put them aside.
So who just won now, me, wasting time to read and comment or you with an extra reader?
Don't get too depressed, you came out on top. Allow me though not to follow you on Facebook or Twitter.
93
"...you are 60 years old. There is a limit to how much of this "new" stuff you have to learn."
What nonsense. I'm 66 and don't believe there's a limit to how much of this new stuff I have to learn. Why would there be? Am I not just as alive, just as much a participant in the world, just as much impacted by it, as somebody younger? Of course I am. So learning is useful, and it's also necessary. In addition, it's fun.
This "new" stuff is aimed at a mass market. That means you don't exactly have to be Niels Bohr to figure it out. I haven't found it difficult to learn or use it. I look forward to learning and using new tools throughout my life. But my usage is dictated by my needs, not by the simple availability of some new tool. I don't own a Black and Decker matrix router or a circular saw. That doesn't mean I don't think they should exist, or that I don't think I could figure out how to use them. It just means I don't feel a need to build furniture.
We all make choices based on our needs (or at least I hope we do). Once you decide what you need, and what you don't need, you can make good choices. At any age. And, yes, you can keep learning. Because it's useful and it's fun. At any age.
What nonsense. I'm 66 and don't believe there's a limit to how much of this new stuff I have to learn. Why would there be? Am I not just as alive, just as much a participant in the world, just as much impacted by it, as somebody younger? Of course I am. So learning is useful, and it's also necessary. In addition, it's fun.
This "new" stuff is aimed at a mass market. That means you don't exactly have to be Niels Bohr to figure it out. I haven't found it difficult to learn or use it. I look forward to learning and using new tools throughout my life. But my usage is dictated by my needs, not by the simple availability of some new tool. I don't own a Black and Decker matrix router or a circular saw. That doesn't mean I don't think they should exist, or that I don't think I could figure out how to use them. It just means I don't feel a need to build furniture.
We all make choices based on our needs (or at least I hope we do). Once you decide what you need, and what you don't need, you can make good choices. At any age. And, yes, you can keep learning. Because it's useful and it's fun. At any age.
4
I don't have a smart phone. I can't afford one. Even Syrian refugees are able to afford one. I feel marginalized by the ubiquity of smart phones.
11
Just as Apple hopes you would. Don't you want to join their workerbee party? Me neither. You aren't poor, you are smart.
Refugees have nothing but contacts, so that is their life line. How can you be so Trumpety when we are waxing pathetically?
Refugees have nothing but contacts, so that is their life line. How can you be so Trumpety when we are waxing pathetically?
3
Good point, thanks. In an era of rising income inequality, this is another expense, and how the struggling working stiff can explain to their kids that money is not infinite ... even with two or three jobs.
Exclusion based on smartphone inequality is on the rise.
Exclusion based on smartphone inequality is on the rise.
1
One crucial element is missing here -- Google, Facebook etc both sell our personal data so their clients can direct their advertising and turn our personal devices into free billboards. That is among the reasons classical hard driven journalism does not fit into their business plans. Journalists cannot communicate the full story in a 10 to 30 second read, the maximum before the article interferes with free advertising.
23
try adblock.
2
OMG, it will change your life, if you can handle the change from Chrome to FoxFire, which is negligible. I now use FoxFire browser and their free addon, AdBlockPlus. It's like the web is only twenty years old, again! None of that Chromium Brain Police adchoice hold up.
1