This weekend, I spent a total of ten hours in my car with four people younger than me by at least seven years. It was illuminating. I have an eighteen-year-old sister-in-law whose text addiction borders on the pathetic. I say that with nothing but love. I have just been around her in the desperate wee hours of battery life when her world was pulling a true 2012.
Okay, the car ride. I spent the entirety of the last five hours listening--no matter how loud I turned my music--to the thappety thappety thappety of all four of these individuals texting. Constantly. Freely admitting that the conversations mostly involved "Haha" and LOL and "What are you . . ." Sad, sez he born in the 1970s.
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But the most disturbed I was came when I hooked up my iPod and set it in the middle of the vehicle and said, "Have at 'er." When it was my turn, I put on an album. If we made it through eight songs, I was happy. When one of the kids took over, though, we'd hear a song or two by an artist, followed by another song or two by another. Not so bad. What drove me INSANE was the stopping of songs after less than two minutes for a new search.
That was my muffugging breaking point. Text away, lazy communicators. Facebook and Tweet to your heart's delight, you quintessential narcissists. Play only singles from the new Black Keys and I'm cool. But, DAMMIT, seriously. Let the whole song finish! It's a song, a lyrical rhythmic narrative. Am I such a dinosaur that getting on the other side of a guitar solo and bridge dates me? Chaysis!
You don't own a smart phone? I relate to what you've stated here, and admit a phone conversation is quicker and faster, but electronic messages are very convenient.
ReplyDeleteNaw, I own a laptop and a standard cell. I appreciate how useful instant messaging and email are but how many texts are actually meaningful communication? Less than 10%?
ReplyDeleteI imagined you, while reading this rant, as an old fella (J. Jonah Jameson +20 years -- you had his hair, too) with cuffed nipple-high tan pants and a cane you were shaking at all the durn kids for not respecting your turf: a lack of proper respect for the song, as if by not listening to the whole song people who flip (and I'm one of them) are slamming the top of a piano down on the hands of a musician or scratching a record as we pull the needle off.
ReplyDeleteMy opinion is, the sign of respect for a song isn't found in listening to it dutifully every time it comes on, but is in flipping through other songs to find it when it's just the perfect thing. For instance, I just browsed through Neil's folder for a minute before jumping to Emmylou Harris... closer but not quite right. So after a minute I skipped over to the beautiful Save Me, and that one I listened to. Over and over as I wrote this, actually.
The other songs won't remain neglected, though. At some point Neil or Emmylou will be the one I flip to and the one I really listen to. Technology like this has made music less linear, and I am always a fan of anything which breaks and remakes in that way. I recently heard the Ave Maria as sung by the Cranberries and Pavarotti, an idea which could have been conceived by my ipod on shuffle, and by which I was startled and enthralled.
I'm not saying that flipping through music should replace listening to an album, especially when the album is new, but I think flipping does have its place, and sharing music with others is a good example. I love being turned on to new music, but exploring an entire album is a personal journey for me.
And it's not just the kiddies who have a love of texting. A love of texting is a love of text. Communication takes a different form, but I don't think it's meaningless at all, not even all those lols and silliness.
With text I can share my laughter with my loved ones, whenever or wherever I experience it. It lets me be social whenever I feel like being social, with a wide variety of people to be social with.
The best thing about text is that it lets me do so many things at once: I can have simultaneous conversations with four different people about movies, theology, dresses and the new book of Munro stories I just picked up, as I write an email (or a response to a blog) or do some planning or ride shotgun through Canada.
It lets me maintain relationships with people I might otherwise lose track of in a busy life which presents few opportunities to call. It also offers an extraordinary degree of closeness to people I love, since I can take a few seconds to share things with them as they happen, instead of in a weekly/monthly/yearly call or saving the moments up for hi-honey-how-was-your-day.
I can also keep conversations private from the people occupying my space, whoever they might be: children, parents, friends, strangers on a subway, relatives in a car. Plus, I like to use emoticons, and I place a high value on good silly :)
Anyway, though I think you're off your rocker here I have to say I'm glad you write these blogs. I enjoy both reading them and thinking about responses to them, especially when your ranting makes me want to rant :)
As a side note: Have you read any Douglas Coupland? I haven't yet so I don't know if I'm pro-Co or not but I just borrowed one of his books and I intend to find out. I know he's interested in this whole tech question so I hope he's great so I can read all about it. Any opinions about him?
Thanks for the kind comments on my blog. I am not much use with emoticons.
ReplyDeleteI've heard the same defenses for texting before, and I don't cotton much. The irony of my title aside, I think texting is lazy communication, period. Yes, I do it and yes, it has its uses, but it is certainly over-used and creating isolation. I once had a kid write a piece that was basically wondering how we broke up in the days before texting. Sad.
Flipping songs until it's right I get--but you were on your own late at night. The song for a personal mood, fine. There were five of us in that car. As a musician, I appreciate the groove of a tune and hate that getting cut off.
Coupland: I have read the two Souvenir of Canada books. Went to a reading just after Generation A, but somehow didn't walk out with the book in my hand. Want to read more. Missed him at Wordfest.