I am doing #17 before #16 because the Wiki page was busy, so I thought I'd get this out of the way first.
Technology. Sometimes our friend, but frequently not. I am a Neo Luddite. Which means accept that technology which makes your life better, but do not use it if it does not. Use the lowest level of technology adequate for your needs. Do not e-mail a message to someone across the hall if a note will do as well. Do not talk to someone on your cell phone who is sitting across the table.
I do not wish to be connected to everyone all the time. Those little ear thingies look like the first step to being a Borg. (Resistance is futile...) and being part of the collective is abhorrent. The thought of never being out of easy reach gives me the jim jams. I do not want to "interact" with everything. I don't want to be pestered by a minute-by-minute account of anything, even my best friends lives. I have my own to live.
Frankly, until you can use an e-book or computer in a bathtub full of bubbles and hot water accompanied by Diet Coke and chocolate, the book is safe. Unlike a computer, a book frees the imagination to create our own reality. The author guides us, provides a framework, but the reader gives the creation life, colour, taste, smell --a world. A computer/ video does all of that and the viewer is trapped for better or worse, in someone else's universe.
The technocrats from Library 2.0 missed the point. Yes, computers are handy for finding facts. I have to say full text magazine databases would have saved me many crazed, frustrated hours as a student. But a Library is more than fact and research. Once you have left school most of us are not doing "research". We don't need the factoids so beloved by Ed-u-cat-ors. We need the best way to build a deck, find a recipe, participate in a hot romance, capture a murderer, or invade England with the Normans. We want an old movie, a song from our youth, a friendly face, a chat with a kindred spirit face to face in "real time" about shared interests-- out of the house. Some of this can be accomplished by computer and it's kindred, but not all of it, and not always in the best way.
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2 comments:
I agree with Dragon Lady. I don't want to be connected to everyone all the time, either! I enjoy checking e-mail when time permits. Occasionally, I'll surf Web sites of interest to me, but mostly I'd rather spend my time doing other things. I get all the information I want/need by reading books, newspapers and magazines. I enjoy that much more than wading through all the stuff thrown up by Google or Technorati.
I, too, am in agreement with both Dragon Lady and readerwritergirl. I am hoping that the younger generation does not suffer a disconnect by being so wrapped up in tecnology that they miss out on what face-to-face communication provides us with. Especially in the area of social networks, where people can profess to be whomever they want to be instead of who they really are. It can be a place where one can lie freely because there is no one around to challenge what you say. While online friends are great, they should be supplimentary to friends that one can physically be present with.
I do not feel the need to be connected technologically in every way possible. While I find what I have learned thus far from the "23 Things" to be valuable, I will put some of them to good use, but I do not feel the need to make heavy use of all 23.
The same is true of all the gadgets. I love my cell phone, but do not need to be connected to the internet and text-messaging. I used to IM, but don't do that any more either. With me it is all about the balance of old and new.....probably an age thing! LOL
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