Digital Nation

So I watched Front Line on PBS tonight. The theme was living in a digital world and what it has or has not done to us. It was really fascinating. Personally I have had a love hate relationship with all of it. I was 25 before I got a cell phone. I still just talk with it. No smart phone or i-phone for me. I think those are the same things. lol I have always loved my computer for information and my social connections. E-mail is my perfered mode of communication. However I have not gotten on board with Twitter. I really do not get it. And I am somewhat into Facebook, but have a problem with the superciality of it. Now the term Facebook Friend seems to be even further removed from how close you are to someone that is an acquaitance type friendship. We only have one TV in the house, but two computers and when my daughter is older will she have her own too? Or will it be a lastest kind of smart phone. I am really torn how this will all affect her. The personal computer when I was young was brand new concept. I still remain duey decimal system in the library. I do still read real books and have not jumped at Kindle.

In the documentary they made some interesting comparsions to this age to any other new "progress" in through out history. For example moving from oral traditions to the written word. Our memory got worse. We no longer had to memorize long poems anymore. So I think with any new technology there are pros and cons to it.

I am typically not that quick to jump on to the lastest technology bandwagon. I have yet to do Ti-VO because I am afraid I will like it too much. I have only been using Netflix since my daughter was born because I love movies and I found it hard to leave the house. I am addicted to that. Blogging is obviously something I just started. But I have been on a social networking site Meet-up.com for the last 4 or so years and I have watched it grown exponentially. I love the goal of it. To use the technology to connect us in the real world.

I do love that the documentary exposed research that says we are not as good with multi-tasking as we think we are. Case in point texting in the car until people see how poorly they are doing, they think they are doing it well. And people are dying because of it.

I also found it interesting how we focus now. We tend to only write in paragraphs. One paragraph really not relating to another. I a even finding that hard with this blog right now. Although it is all talking about digital themes I need to figure out if they are connecting.

I will be interested how I can help my daughter navigate through all of this and pray she does not start to do World of War Craft with her Daddy.