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Living the iLife Perhaps this situation is familiar to many of you. Despite the fact that I have easy access to e-mail and free long distance on my cell phone, my mother complains that she can never get ahold of me. It is not that I do not want to talk to her, because I do. It is because I am too busy—too busy answering the 30 other urgent e-mails which pop up each day on my account, too busy returning calls from co-workers and friends. In my downtime, all I want to do is sit in front of the TV, watch “Dead Like Me” on On Demand and sip on a dirty martini with garlic-stuffed olives. Some days I do not even feel like I am alive—instead I find myself caught in a never-ending cyclone of gadgets which have become so familiar, the metal and plastic barely missing my head as they whiz by. I know I am not alone in this feeling, because we are all so busy. For some time, experts on the effects of technology and mass communication have been discussing how such things negatively or positively shape our worlds. Many people, especially those who produce such gadgets, would love for you to think that technology provides convenience and ease, while others argue that such “convenience” and “ease” actually promote more hectic lifestyles. The jury is still out, but right now I think it is safe to assert that we are obsessed with technology. It is not just that we use it, because now we think we need it. This is becoming evident not only among our generation (as well as the generations that are coming after us) but even in the older folks, the people who were supposed to be so technology-illiterate that they could not even program a VCR (remember?). I saw this when I visited my parents the other weekend, during which I witnessed a discussion about the need to have a DVD player, a large-screen TV and Internet access at their Florida condo. Ironically, the washer and dryer there are currently broken, but no one seemed to care about them. When did we need all these new gadgets? After all, we survived millions of years without cable TV and CD players. Do not get me wrong, I am guilty as well. As previously indicated, I heart five-hundred-plus-channels, am addicted to “Local on the 8’s” and would absolutely die without my stereo. Though I hate my cell phone, I have to admit it comes in handy when I am trying to locate friends while out at night or for meeting for last-minute lunches. Still, remember how there used to be a time before the Internet? When playing Centipede on Apple computers in fourth grade was novel? When printing paper had holes on the edges? Who can, in the world we live in now, imagine living without computers? Or cell phones, for that matter. I remember a time when I thought it was ridiculous - absolutely ridiculous - for people to have cell phones. How lazy did you have to be to pick up your little phone wherever you were, even in the most inappropriate of places (the library, restaurants, the bathroom - I have to admit, I am guilty of them all), and not even have to memorize and punch in a phone number? Now we could not imagine living without them. Our worlds are now set up around them, and so be it. But can’t we resist them just a bit? It would be foolish of me to say that we should do away with technology, but maybe it is worth remembering that we do not have to be so dependent on it. Taking a walk or going to the theatre can be just as relaxing as watching that rerun of “Sex and the City,” and writing a letter to a faraway friend can be just as appreciated, if not more, than a short phone call to say “hi.” Just remember, even if technology rules the world, we are still living in it.
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