Gannon and Gage Swanston are already pioneers of the 21st-century media era at the tender ages of seven and four. When they visit friends’ homes, they don’t understand why SpongeBob SquarePants can’t be put on hold while they go to the bathroom or get a glass of milk from the kitchen. In their house, as in a quarter of American homes, programmes are managed by TiVo, a device that allows the brothers to pause, replay or store shows at the push of a button. “They will never know a time when TV was one way,” says their father, Matthew, the director of business analysis at the Consumer Electronics Association. “This will be the first analogue-free generation. They’ll be intolerant of their content being trapped or delayed.”
One happy consequence is that when the weather is fine, the boys prefer to play outdoors, knowing that their favourite programmes will be waiting for them later. It’s a far cry from the mid 1960s, when I was their age, and a delayed trip home from Grandma’s meant that I missed Thunderbirds and my parents endured an unexpected back-seat tantrum. In those days, television had only two channels, and if you missed something, it evaporated in the ether. The telephone, with a proper dial, sat on a table in the hallway. Music was a collection of scratchy 78rpm classical records. Clocks and watches had to be wound up ”“ every day.
Kendall, thank you for a fascinating example of the IT mind. For example there is this question which is posed What, then, will things look like a decade from now? but the question is then answered almost entirely on the basis of technology. No consideration of the social, psychological or spiritual impact of the technology.
Let me give one simple example from the UK: teachers and educationalists have been sounding the alarm for several years about the loss of articulacy among kids. Children are parked in front of TVs, computers and game boxes and in consequence articulacy dwindles: including such people skills as negotiation, explanation, and advocacy. Moreover, there is a gender gap here, with articulacy shrinking much more among boys than girls, boys being more prone to IT absorption. The result: frustrated, angry kids. And oh yes, guys who find that women get the jobs because the men quite simply cannot string two sentences together.
Quick quick,someone send us all back to a time when television did not control all life. This essay is a good reason for making the ownership of all upscale, controlling electronic devices of offense against nature, common sense, Mom and apple pie. How can one read this and not be horrified how the human being is being remade into the servant of electronics. Am I being Luddite-ish? Oh, you bet. With friends like this, who needs…etc. LM
Don’t forget kids that Bill Gates once said, “640K [of RAM] ought to be enough for anybody.” Of course he now denies saying that. 🙂