One of my major disgruntlements is the omnipresence of the cyberworld. Matchmaking, relationship supplement (sublimation), fortune telling, scheduling, shopping, schooling (reading, writing, and arithmetic), socializing, and the list goes on. What aspect of life cannot be found and fulfilled from your desktop or laptop oracle? Like everything, of course, it's a double-edged sword, there is good news and there is bad news. The good news is the amount of information that is available with a few keystrokes and at the speed of light. The bad news is the amount of de-humanizing and de-personalizing that results from being able to live in, essentially, a parallel world. The key, of course, is balance; does one spend as much time living in the "real" world as they do living in the "cyber" world?
As in everything that has to do with one's self-esteem and self-image a periodic regimen of self-assessment is necessary and a large measure of "honesty" is germane to that regimen. One as got to check for the balance in their life in terms of BOTH time spent and the focus of the time. Eight to ten hours spent at work is not the equivalent of eight to ten hours spent at an amusement park, shopping mall, or sightseeing with family members. Viewing a travelogue of Guatemala on one's computer is not the same as visiting Guatemala. Chatting online is not the same as chatting across a table, and so on. Looking at photographs of a handsome man or beautiful woman is not the same as engaging in face to face conversation with one. I suggest that one of these situations is not "as good as" the other. "Inconvenient", I'm afraid, has become synonymous with "impossible" and "convenience" has become synonymous with "commitment". "Hard" sets up a lot of internal dialogue centered around "worth it", "likelihood", and one's history of success or failure. Any way I look at it, however, such internal dialogues are more instances of convenience-seeking. It does require an unusual amount of self-honesty for one to tell the truth about how they spend their time and the quality of that expenditure.
I didn't grow up around computers and even television was something that was only sparsely viewed and then mostly just for a short period of time before bedtime or early Saturday morning cartoons over a bowl of Cheerios. During waking hours in winter and summer, and the shoulder seasons, I spent most of my time outside or engaged in interaction with friends or family; not The Disney Channel, The Baby Channel, Nintendo DS, Playstation 3, a cell phone, or the computer. Extended car travel meant sightseeing, games, arguments, or reading; not DVD players. My family and friends worked, played, lived, and interacted with each other. It is true that technology differences between then and now were significant but I believe that to blame our choices for how we spend our time on the availability of technology is another sign of de-humanization. The mountains are still there, the parks are still there, the ball fields are still there, the amusement parks are still there, the trails are still there, and the playgrounds are still there. Certainly more vigilance is required, but why has awareness become a catastrophic hardship? I'm not suggesting that we throw out all of the technology, I would be lost without it! What I am suggesting is balance through a little more commitment to getting to those outdoor social activities and perhaps being the sentinels who make the playgrounds, parks, and trails safe.
Discussing with my daughters the amount of time they allow their children to be on the computer doing Webkinz and Disney or playing with Playstation and Nintendo they respond, "What am I supposed to let them do?" They point out that they, from the time they were four years old, had the run of the neighborhood could go where they wanted, play with who they wanted, and never had to worry about their safety, and neither did their parents. They point out that they cannot let their children have the run of the neighborhood because of the bad guys that now prowl the playgrounds and neighborhoods. They can't even let one of them go into a public, or restaurant, restroom alone unless they are watching the door and have a stopwatch on the activity.
The great news about my daughters is that they interact with their children as they play in their electronic playworlds. They have a knowledge of what they are involved in, what they are up to, and the content of the sites they visit. They have even expressed some misgivings, and rightfully so as I see it, about some of the content and "values" that are beginning to appear on Disney-related media. Oh, if Walt could have just lived forever... When the kids slip into the world of Playstation, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360, and Wii is where the reins seem to get a little bit jerked out of hand; Lions and Tigers, and Commandos, oh no!
Next: "Everybody's doing it..." and War Games begets War.
