This scene at yesterday’s soccer game got me thinking: Is an iPad really that convenient? Does it need to be that big? I have a video camera about the size of my hand, which surely would be less cumbersome. But it doesn’t have the internet on it. I imagine we will look back on this picture next week and laugh and laugh and laugh about how backward we were in days of yore, how foolish, how blind to the next big thing. The adolescent girl in the foreground appears to be praying for more forward-thinking technology. Twenty-five hours have passed since that game took place. Shouldn’t there be a new iPad out by now? And another tomorrow and tomorrow? And isn’t that a brilliant way to teach the youth to never ever be satisfied with what they have and to ALWAYS be looking forward to greener pastures?
Tag: Technology
Have You Seen Me?
I got this in the mail recently, attached to a pizza coupon. I usually don’t pay these things much mind, especially since the woman in question was abducted at a distance of more than several hundred Rhode Islands from my home. However, this one vexed me. It shows that she was thirteen when she was abducted, and through the magic of science, they have age-progressed her to what she might look like at seventeen. Which was two years ago. Which is not what she’d look like now. So what gives? What’s the point of that? “Have you seen me when you time-traveled back to 2011?” Do we only possess the power to age-progress to a four year maximum? I don’t understand.
Lars & The Unreal Siri
I don’t have an iPod, an iPad, a Kindle, a smart phone, any of that stuff. I don’t want one. I dislike phones except for emergency use, and I dislike emergencies even more. My decade-old son, however, has strained both his neck and thumbs, becoming acquainted with his iPod, and has been asking Siri questions. Today, he asked her what her favorite color is, and she said, “Well, I don’t know how to say it in your language. It’s sort of greenish, but with more dimensions.” Pardon?
Then he told her that he loved her. She told him, “You are the wind beneath my wings.” Excuse me?
I am reminded of Ryan Gosling in Lars and the Real Girl, in which he is enamored with a blow-up doll. Will this generation (devoid of any social interaction skills) skip the deviant inflatable girlfriend phase and go straight into siri-love? Will adolescent boys and young men spend hours alone with their iPods, constructing pretend relationships, using the app “ispeech” to make a woman’s voice say exactly what he types? Isn’t that a new pathetic level of loneliness? That’s worse than bowling alone.
Maybe there is nothing new under the sun: Janis Ian predicted it decades ago.
And those of us with ravaged faces
Lacking in the social graces
Desperately remained at home
Inventing lovers on the phone
The difference is–now the lover IS the phone. Yeesh.
Superfly Media Pie Chart
Just click to watch 30 years of music sales by media. Feel old yet?
I Don't Get It 