3 Technology Tragedies

A year ago, THREE THINGS was dedicated to my first-ever trip to the CES (Consumer Electronics Show), a lifelong dream fulfilled, and proof positive that I am, in fact, a shameless geek. I love all things technology, including my iPhone, iPad, TiVo, Bluetooth, etc., etc., etc (believe me, I could go on). And while there is no doubt that I am a disciple of the church of gadgetry, and all the ways in which it can make one's life better, I’ve also noticed that there is a downside to all this techno-sprawl. As the world’s electronics manufacturers have brought these microchip miracles to the masses, they’ve brought with them a whole host of problems which we never could have anticipated. A year removed from the greatest moment of my technology-fueled life, I stand aghast at the world around me, and can’t help but notice that some of it can be traced to our new electronic lives. And with the honesty only a techno-apologist could muster, here are the three cons to all of our technology pros:

1. Paying Attention. There is a new posture that has replaced the slacker slouch which characterized two decades worth of youthful disappointment and has afflicted far more than simply the Stridex set. In fact, it can be spotted in the fanciest clubs and restaurants, even being adopted by the social elite. It is the smartphone hunch. You know the one I mean, the head hung down staring at the upward facing LCD screen, being held by both hands (so as to leave thumbs free), with shoulders tightly hunched in rapt attention to the brightly colored display. Our portable portals to the information superhighway command an almost constant attention, and as our online lives have become ever more personal, we are only too happy to give it to them. I’ve truthfully seen groups of young women sitting around a table at a bar, ostensibly on a “Girl’s Night Out”, each of them dressed up ready for action and yet dutifully glued to their phones, sometimes even using them to talk to each other. You know technology’s gone mad when it makes even bimbos anti-social. If you find yourself at a social gathering in this position, turn your phone off and your humanity on. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did. If you find someone else in this position, feel free to slap the phone out of their hands and let them know that if they only want to play with themselves, they’re better off staying at home.

2. Shorthanded. As our communications have gone from voice to digital voice, to electronic writing to short-form electronic writing, we have naturally developed a shorthand to infuse these ever-more efficient means with the personality which their unimodality strips away. After all, there is no body language in a call, no inflection in an e-mail, and no nuance in a text message. And in this vacuum of subtlety, a universe of acronyms and text version of facial expressions has been created. Few amongst us don’t know and don’t use “LOL”, “:)” or “TTYL” - and as they have come into common use, they've proven quite valuable. We all know that leaving off the appropriate acronym or emoticon can be nearly disastrous - especially when communicating with the opposite sex. The voluminous use of this shorthand, however, is now coming at the expense of its storied predecessor, actual writing. Thousands of teachers have reported the use of these acronyms (and yes, even their smiley-face counterparts) in term papers, book reports, science projects and more. It’s one thing to use these shortcuts when limited by time and characters, it’s another when you’ve got all the time and space you need. If the only way you know how to express happiness is with a colon and a parenthesis, it’s a fair bet that you’ve never really experienced it at all.

3. A Voice For Everyone. As the content of all this new media becomes less and less populated by monolithic networks, and more and more by independent sources, it has become possible for each of us to broadcast our thoughts, beliefs and conclusions literally around the world with just the touch of a button. I, for one, am grateful for this particular advancement - as without it, there would be no THREE THINGS, no book and no way for me to visit with each of you every week. But while this universal access sounds like a wonderfully democratic idea, it turns out that when we give everyone the opportunity to broadcast, we do not give it exclusively to people who have even the slightest bit of intelligence, rationality or the ability to think logically. No, we gave it to the crazies, the fanatics and the woefully under-informed; the whack-jobs, the religious right and the local militia members - and as luck would have it, they turned out to be some of the loudest voices in the crowd. These shouting simpletons have done far worse than simply drown out still small voices that we all might be better served to listen to - they’ve found each other, banded together and formed a political party (complete with its own television network). Of course, it begs the question then, whether I would give up this pulpit, if I could once again have these collective fools banished to the rural fields and dark suburban corners from whence they came. And the answer would be a resounding “yes.”

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Don’t get me wrong, I’m not planning on putting all my gadgets up on eBay, and trying to create a desert Walden, here in southern Nevada. No, I’ll still be logging in and logging on - just as data hungry as I was yesterday, and still looking to the recently departed exhibitors from the CES to populate my wish list in the year to come - but I am cautious to look to them for anything more, or to continue to recommend the technology that I have personally adopted to everyone around me. Because what I’ve come to know, after observing the aforementioned horrors, that technology is a powerful tool, and any of you with power tools know that they’re not to be handled by just anyone. And so in the absence of minimum IQs, ages or measurable social skills as a prerequisite for owning these new technologies, I can only hope that the new electronic economy that emerges from the Great Recession will make these electronics prohibitively expensive - or at least a whole lot harder to use. Perhaps then we'll find that the problems with our online lives are best solved by turning them off.