{disclaimer: an earlier version had less spacing to represent the breathless way I feel — but it was impossible to read without your face turning blue — hence the weird, wordpress.com editor window applied spacing — now that’s long winded too.
And, I’m not slamming folks who are emersed in social media (I am in awe: amazed and fascinated by they way they can exist on so many levels); I’m just a luddite with a neanderthal grasp of the 21st century}
Social Media Outposts (Photo credit: the tartanpodcast)
We’re living in strange times
Strange times
Strange timesWhat do we need
What do we hunger for
Who holds the secrets, who will know
Strange Times, the Moody Blues (Strange Times, 1999)
Although that wasn’t the strange times quote I was looking for, this snippet from Moody Blues will do. I’m living in strange times, taking weird journeys – there and back again – and feeling rather surreal, like Dali’s melting clock (the original of which is much smaller than I expected); oddly positioned like Dali’s wall-filling, walk on water flying horse, is in an art gallery in New Brunswick (the province, not the town).
I’m overwhelmed by information: urges by organizations, corporations, television shows, musicians, actors, and the baby next door to like them on facebook — “…I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!” (Sally Fields)”; everyone, including the nesting cardinals outside my living room window have twitter tags and plead with me to follow/tweet them (“Where you lead, I will follow” Carole King); google+ and facebook are always recommending “friends” for my “circle” (or is it hangout?).
I’m afraid to log on (“turn on, tune in, drop out” – Timothy Leary, 1967) as my computer won’t let me do things I did before (I have to see my systems administrator and I thought I was the administrator). Google keeps popping up telling me it can’t find a page I never asked for (a long string of code I won’t repeat or touch). And, at wordpress.com, the editor page jumped from regular to supersized without my bidding – I had to use the back arrow to make it go back to the familiar, less rotund screen shot.
Sorry for all the pop culture/high culture references as I bamble/bramble along (not sure which term I like best), but it’s an illustration of how media-shocked I am. There is just too much information headed in my direction at warp speed. I am in amazement at how folks handle all this – is this new drug, the new addiction: social media? I wonder sometimes that social media IS the new blogosphere; that the cyberverse has shrunk from the infinite to 142 characters (not even words).
Maybe it’s because I don’t twitter, tweet, worry about the # of friends who “like” me (at least not on facebook/google+, I’m not THAT mature yet!), or even get connected to the amorphous world of bits and byters because the historian in me is coming out again – the one who cringes at the lack of “written record” we leave behind. Will future historians (not as much of an oxymoron as it sounds) understand our abbrev. language; be able to pull out of the ether shadows of who we were; does google and facebook REALLY keep all the keystrokes or will the vapor trails followed by identity thieves and cyber hackers be the key into the opening decades of the 21st century? Is there an app for that?
As each new (communications) technology sweeps us more and more into a world that only exists as long as there is electricity (or the batteries hold out), we wonder how we (our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and so on back into time) survived without this gadget or app. I have this image of the people in Wall.e oblivious to reality (until two of them actually make physical contact) whenever a new app, function in social media, or new and improved device comes onto the market. (Are those folks REALLY using their Nook/Kindle for ALL those activities?)
As someone overwhelmed by the posts of a few people in facebook, able to follow less and less blogs, have inboxes crammed with unopened emails, I wonder how connected I need to be to function in this brave new world of social media? I’m still trying to come to grips with the 20th century, and I find myself being flung into the 22nd one. Is there an app for that?
Turning to a mid- 20th century media philosopher, Marshall McLuhan, (and he is tweeting from the grave: follow him @marshallmcluhan), I leave you with these quotes, as poignant, pointed, prophetic and possible in the 1950s and 1960s as tv was replacing the radio, as today when our conversations are 142 characters and never face to face.
The medium is the message.
If it works, it’s obsolete.
Today each of us lives several hundred years in a decade.
When you are on the phone or on the air, you have no body.
I may be wrong, but I’m never in doubt.
The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.
We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future.
{and PS: when did Wiki add the Qwiki? Bing is telling me to try it.}
Oh how I relate. I have a twitter account, but I never go there. I’ve been told on wordpress that I have over 100 followers to my blog through twitter. Really? I do have it where it automatically updates that I posted on my blog on twitter, but I don’t have that many friends on there? Where are these people?…are they real?
Facebook, usually just hurts my feelings. I’ve read updated from friends, and I’m like…Really? why do people need to know you are at the grocery store? that you enjoyed your drive home? And when I’ve posted about my health…I’ve been asked to, and have certain people blocked from receiving those posts so they won’t be annoyed, I only send them to people who have asked for it. But I just get lip service. No one really cares I don’t think. Well they care in the back of their mind, but not enough to do anything about it. I haven’t seen my local friends in over a year! I’ve only seen them on Facebook. I was emailing one, but I think I annoyed her…haven’t heard from her in months. (I think she got upset that I didn’t go to her kid’s birthday party…but she knows what my life is like, did she want to torture me?)
Oh the social media….too much, so over whelming.
I have a smart phone, really it’s not very smart, I wish I still had my old phone.
I have a Kindle, not the color one, just one you actually read on. I do love it, but it was a re-gift to me, I would never have bought it, but since I received it for my birthday last year, I’ve read about 150 books on it…and I’ve only paid for 2. Love I can get books from the library now! I like it because it’s light, and it’s easy to hold in bed. And I actually like the screen, it’s like looking at newsprint. So, one gadget I actually like, but it doesn’t have anything to do with other people.
I must say though that through my blog and others, I have made many friends who have helped me so very much through some very tough times. After losing almost all my real life friends….these friends made things much easier for me, I was accepted, understood, and I felt cared for, and I felt I was helping others. (I’m not sure about the last part any more. I need to get that back)
Oh, how I have Brambled.
love to you
w
I’ve drifted away (or been abandoned) by many folks, so you’re not alone. And that happened even before my chronic pain/chronic illnesses reached higher levels.
I have found that on line, you can make friends and/or acquaintances that you wouldn’t find else where. Maybe its syncronisity (spelling) or sympatico, but if you meet folks who already “get it” for various reasons, then you’ve already jumped over a huge abyss!
Now, if I were to get a 21st century device, it might be a kindle that you can read on (I don’t think I need it to do tablet things).
Tablets, even the cool mac ones, don’t seem to have wordprocessing systems. I have to be able to easily write (or use other methods, which I’m not sure they support) when the mood strikes me. If the lap top is at home, I use, gasp, pen and paper, lol. I used to write things out long hand, edit, then type them in! Now, I compose at the keyboard, a giant leap forward.
As to a smart phone — there are too many apps out there! Free or no, I would only be interested in a few. And, the screen would have to be large so could read it, tand hat it would defeat the whole purpose of carrying a cell phone as opposed to a computer.
I’m not sure I could handle using a touch screen, anyway! I’d have to have a thousand put on/peel off layers to cover the screen! (Like I do for my ipod, that, btw, I have trouble syncing with my computer. And, the CD slot always niches the CD when I go to transfer music!)
Yes, the tablets (and now maybe Kindles) are lighter than my laptop, but I would have to buy yet another thing to carry them around in.
Now, if someone were to regift me, that might be another story. I wonder what happened to my one grandnieces’ Kindle. She got it for her birthday last year, but she prefers books (unlike her next in line sister who got a new out of the box Kindle for Christmas). That family never regifts things like that, so it’s probably upstairs some where in their house ….
Oh, dear, I’ve brambled and bambled and mentioned the the inlaws again. Best to stop here, lol