Kathleen's Musings: Turkeys and Times a-Changin'

This guy lives in my backyard. I always like to start with a photo, and Romeo (as my granddaughters call him) has little to do with the topic, but he's been yakking at me a lot lately, so I snapped his picture through the window. He's huge. He has a bevvy of ladies out there--hence his name--and we think he was actually hatched in our little woods, which have been always home to all kinds of wildlife, but the turkeys have only been around for a couple of years. We've left our backyard alone pretty much because we're flanked by bits of undeveloped parkland on both sides, so we just go with it. Anyway, I give you Romeo.

An editorial in Wednesday's Mpls Star Tribune spoke to one of my recurring sources of guilt. I'm not particularly a guilt wallower except when I start getting this niggling feeling that the world is passing me by in a way that I really ought to care about. You know, for the sake of my career. Generally, it has to do with technology.

The editorial's headline: "OMG: It's time to write a headline." It's about the effects of technology on our brains and our lives, and the writer cleverly flips back and forth between his message and incoming messages. "The implications are worrisome because...hold that thought...We're getting an e-mail about..." And I cringe just reading this because I know this happens to me. I'm in the room with a real human being, and only half my brain is engaged. The other half is parceled out among my gadgets--TV, computer, cell phone. I'm pretty sure my brain doesn't function well that way. And I'm only straddling a couple of bandwagons. I don't text. I don't tweet, twitter, whatever. I'm not on Facebook. (I've heard that My Space is already "so yesterday," so that's one I'll stop feeling guilty about.) But I keep hearing that today's conscientious businesswoman must get with the programs or else.

The editorial refers to Marshall McLuhan's claim (46 years ag0!) that technology was beginning to overtake content, and he was talking mainly about TV. His book is often mis-referenced as The Medium Is the Message. The Strib neglected to point out that the actual title of the book is The Medium Is the Massage. It was assigned reading when I was in high school, and I remember the discussion of the title and the message/massage pun. Worth thinking about, especially now that we're inundated with new gadgets. It's impossible to keep up, and I'm beginning to wonder why we try. Are we addicted to the massage?

According to the NYT (referenced by the Strib) "we have tripled our information intake over the last 50 years, but no one thinks we're three times smarter."

I think part of the problem is that people have become lazy about evaluating information and seriously considering the message, but that's probably a topic for another day. I'm concerned about our willingness to consider the value of the medium. Are people who send and receive amazing volumes of text messages daily missing something besides spelling and punctuation?

Seriously, am I missing something? Am I becoming the fuddy-duddy I rolled my baby blues about back in the day? Or are we--and this is my fear--losing something in terms of personal human touch, not to mention the human intelligence department?

Kathleen's Cell Phone Snafu

Blogger is giving me fits as I try to post, but this is nothing new. The harder I try to get with the technology program, the behinder I get.

Take yesterday, for example. I am about to leave the house, and I'm planning two stops. I announce one of them. "Going to the grocery store for a couple of forgotten items. You need anything? (pause) I've got my cell phone. (I check my purse.) If you think of anything, call." My first stop: Great Clips, where I made a quick stop yesterday after the major grocery shopping, and purchased what turned out to be gel and root booster. I wanted shampoo and conditioner.

So I'm waiting for the Great Clips person to figure out how to do an exchange on their "new system" and my purse starts playing "When the Saints Go Marching In" (chosen to separate my signal from the others going off up and down any given store aisle). I move quickly. The sooner I get the thing out of its cute little case, the sooner the tinny alarm will stop.

It's DH. He's screaming about something I should pick up. No, he's not screaming. The phone's screaming, and heads are turning. The thing's on speaker. This has happened before. I don't use speaker. How do I turn it off? "What? I don't understand. No, wait." Where's the button? "Clyde, lower your voice."

DH has a low voice. I find myself saying what more often of late. Must be another function of aging. He doesn't like to repeat himself, so he's taken to singing after the second "What?" So I'm getting this song about who has a runny nose and how we just ran out of Kleenex and I should get some Vicks while I'm at it, and I'm watching the heads appear, one cubicle after another, front to back of the shotgun-style shop. The only person who doesn't seem to notice is the woman struggling with her own technological wonder--the computer masquerading as a cash register. "Marge, do you know how to do this? It won't accept anything."

I hang up on DH. (It's a flip phone, so I'm actually flipping him off.) I do a little song and dance about the speaker function, and one by one the heads retract into their shells. Great Clips Lady gets help from her co-worker, and the computer finally allows us to trade gel for shampoo. I can't get out of there fast enough.

Cell phones bug me, and they know it. I don't think I really need one. Or I wouldn't, if pay phones hadn't gone the way of the typewriter. I'm probably letting them bug me. I could do a better job of ignoring the people who carry on at the table next to you as though the person on the other side of their conversation is deaf. Or getting too old to hear the low register. Or talking long distance back in the old days. Poetic justice, this Great Clips moment. I know I didn't set the thing on speaker. I don't know how.

Cell phones. Love/hate? Love? Hate? Or is it just me?