Discuss: Pulling the Plug

Dave Coulter,

  You are not alone.My prayers for the children of cell-phone bareing
mothers as get a glimpse of the new reality,“parents who are not there”.
  Part of this generation will miss having of the best teacher of all, Mother.

Response to Howard Seaton;

Perceptions
  Undoubtedly your freinds are everything the world needs. They are informed ,activist,open -minded.
  Television/eletronics has produced some of the
least informed youth in the developed world. The key word is “some”.The average attention
span in classrooms today is pathetic:i.e. law school classes
where students play with their laptops.
Your generation mat be keeping it
toghether,but as always it’s the work of a very few against the growing masses of uninformed
  Keep up the good work.

To ring in the New Year, I ended internet connectivity in my home. It was my third try and to prove it was for real, I even turned the dial-up cables into clothesline. Wow! How much energy I have to do things I really want to do, like write, read, make stuff, talk to friends, and massage my cat! You know how in Feng Shui, the bathroom doors are supposed to stay closed all the time so that life force doesn’t go down the toilet? It turns out that the computer was like that, a big energy vacuum. I knew it was time to kick the habit when I started turning it on just to see if anyone loved me, and googling things like “How to find God.”

Now, I am writing poetry, prose, and letters on a Brother Selectric typewriter which has such a satisfying clang and ding that it feels like conducting an orchestra.

I agree, mostly.  However, sitting home watching Brady Bunch re-runs is one thing, listening to MIT physics lectures for free on my iPod is another thing. I cannot afford to go to MIT or live in Mass, but I now can go to school there, for free.  Amazing.

The Internet joins a long list of technological innovations—radio, FM radio, television, cable television, etc.—that are going to make us more democratic and smarter. (Ahem.) One neglected aspect of the Internet is resource (especially electricity) usage. See “The Energy Nightmare of Server Farms.” Anyone who has lived nose-to-nose with the reality of resource extraction would know better. Jane Anne Morris, author of “Energy Nightmare” (in Synthesis/Regeneration, Winter 2008)

Indeed, just before receiving a link to this article from a dear friend many miles away, I had deactivated my Facebook account after having it for just over 2 years.  Before that, it was Myspace, although I’ve completely abandoned that as well since becoming a social networking addict.  I don’t have a TV either, just the computer which is meant for school and work, and the occasional movie on Netflix.  I noticed that the site was taking up much of my time, especially after finding an app for it on my iphone.  But with an internet connection in my house I became a complete junkie.  When I closed out all the Facebook history in my browser, I noted that I had visited the site nearly 6,000 times since May.  I was dumbfounded. Since I don’t believe in coincidence, I’m taking the message from this article and the timing of my absorption in it as a huge pat on the back for removing myself from the fray of never-ending socializing.  May my communication in the future be of a more human nature!