Discuss: Pulling the Plug

my first reason for a computer was as a student (at 40 yrs.old) I could access and reserve books from the UofO library. Then, much to my amazement,  in a writing class (which I brought my yellow mellow Lab dog to) the submission of our assignments were to be on floppy disks!...no mention of 8 1/2 X 11 double spaced typed - just Word format.  Some of us are forced into this computer business as a requirement like a tool or manual. That being said, there are always workarounds and exceptions but the mainstream absorption leads towards the eventual normal standard. Yes, we can learn vast amounts by searching (which i think should be called SEARCH AND DISTRACTION due to the haystacks we are presented with when doing a pinpoint search) however, whether we spend the time reading books or on line learning we still do not attain the tantamount of learning which is knowing- unless we have a direct experience. As my father used to respond to my teenage responses of “I know”,  ” Yes, Lisa but do you know it in your heart?” So far, my experience with computers has yet to produce the wisdom that is knowing with our hearts.

You bring up a lot of comments similar to those that have been bouncing around between I and my friends (in our forties, generally). 

I remember that life before cell phones wasn’t all bad.  When I was a kid a long distance call from our grandparents was important. (Anyone else remember standing in line to say hello?)  Nowadays I’m puzzled, amused or annoyed at people who walk around with those things on their ears, talking to the voices in their heads.  A province formerly occupied only by lunatics.  On the other hand, I sure did like it when my truck broke down in the rain and I could call a tow truck to rescue me from the expressway.

I’m hardly a Luddite.

Like the author I’ve lived without a lot of the newest conviniences.
Maybe like so many other things it simply comes down to moderation?  I’m a big fan of walks, books, movies in theatres, birds in field glasses. 

We must always remember that the real computer is the one between our ears, and what fun can be had updating the hard drive by living life directly!

Yes, I too smiled at the contradiction of reading Pulling the Plug online. I haven’t had TV for 30 yrs, tho I do watch movies.
I don’t have a cell phone or any of that stuff-I don’t WANT to be that available. I don’t have a car—never have—or plumbing.
  But I LOVE my computer. BC, if I needed to look up something, I had to hitch and busride 11 mi. rt to the library. Now, I only have to go to the computer. We all make the adjustments that work for us. On the rare occasion when I see TV at somebody’s house, I’m NOT sucked in: I’m only terrified by how stupid it is. No wonder we’re growing another generation of people tuned in mostly to shopping and violence.

Joanne—

I even tend to avoid movies these days. The old ones I liked when they were new, seem dull, and the newer ones are too long.

If I’m in someone else’s house and they have the TV on, I leave. I wonder if that’s why I don’t have a lot of friends? Nah!

It’s because I say what I think.

There was a few lines in your article that gave me pause…
“But by the third glass of champagne I had an answer—or at least a couple of questions: For one, what happens to a species that loses touch with its habitat? And where will all the conservationists come from when kids no longer have a patch of ground that they can truly call my space?”
I think the current generation, however much they are removed from nature, seem to care and act more passionately on its behalf than all the generations that have come before. We are in this mess because of other generations…and some of them were ‘in touch with their habitats’. I’m almost forty and my parents and my in-laws (all outdoor types) still are not sold on “global warming” or “treehuggers”.
I just think this is a thread that really needs to be explored.

The internet is not without an enormous ecological “footprint.” See Winter 2008 Synthesis/Regeneration for an article I just wrote on this. Look under “The Energy Nightmare…” or something like that. (I didn’t choose the title.)  Meanwhile, turn off the screen and get out your banjo or accordion.  jam

Bill McKibben was prophetic about this, as about so much else. Our vaunted Information Age really is an “Age of Missing Information.” But rather than pull the plug in a literal way, I’m going to continue tasking myself each day to pull away from the keyboard and the email in responsible moderation. Our evolutionary health depends on our learning to do this.

Response to Jane:

You are right to remember the resources used in snail mail—paper, gasoline, and the like. But remember, too, that our electronic gizmos aren’t created in a vacuum. All the plastics, copper wiring (read: strip mining), chemicals, and global transportation required to ship them around the world add up to their own cause for concern. Perhaps it is six in one, and a half dozen in the other, as my dad used to say.
Peace,
Brandon