I was shopping the other day and I saw a kids play set that included a phone, it wasn't the rotary phone in the playset I had as a kid it wasn't even a touch tone it was a wooden block with icons on it.
Sometimes I also can't help but wonder how healthy all of this is. It feels like some wrongful excess that shouldn't be, at the same time I'm pretty sure young people nowadays don't and can't understand how I could feel that way.
I don't think it's healthy and I'm seeing more and more people seeking out alternatives to computers for everything, I'm seeing bidding wars going on for typewriters, writing paper sales going through the roof for quality notebooks and pens, I'm also seeing more Film Photography happening not just instant photography but genuine interest in very technical photography, film sales are going up as well much like typewriter ribbons and correction tabs.
I think the internet was one of Humanities greatest inventions and also one of it's biggest follies when it came to it's application and it's consolidation into being controlled by a few large corporations with there own interests, not all of them beneficial to society or culture.
I'm glad to say I'm not reliant on digital technology, I'll use it as it would be churlish not to but if I had to I could close my laptop, power off the phone, and disconnect my router and I'd be able to exist indefinitely when it comes to knowledge and entertainment.
I've experienced something similar with the fall of the Berlin Wall. On one occasion that a peer of mine discussed it with me, she commented how the younger generations and the students she teaches don't fully realize or understand the significance and importance of that event because they were born after Germany reunified.
I rember the wall falling as I saw a kid and saw it on TV and my mum running to the phone to call my dad and other family about it and being really excited, a lot of people my age (mid 30's) know it happened but tend not to realise why it was so significant.
I'm starting to see that happen with 911 and kids born just before or just after, it's kinda shocking to be honest I can recall exactly where I was when I found out what was happening half the world away and all the miss information and using my portable FM radio to listen to the news on the bus on the way home, and trying to talk to friend of mine on ICQ in the US to see if they where alright.
"Oh look, a payphone. It likely doesn't work. Yep, it's down."
I've had that happen to me lately, they are getting turned into cash machines, or some other civic infrastructure some of them are getting turned into those Defibrillator stations.
- How things like "TikTok" or "Instagram" or "social media culture" in general feels like a freakish new trend.
Yea that bug's me, the first time I encountered anything like social media was a Swedish company called Communities, it was like old school Facebook 10 years before Facebook it was interesting but I couldn't see the value in it. I stuck to forums on single topics and I miss the fact they are starting to fade away.
I can still remember when the Internet itself was a novelty in the late '90s.
(Simpsons episodes from around then poked fun at the internet a lot, like that good school at Globex having a
studynet.edu site.)
Yea, I've had access to the internet since before it was the internet - my dad had access through work and I can still recall playing MUDS and network doom, then the dotcom boom and all the cool interesting little websites that are now lost to time.
I recall the first internet joke I got and it was a Simpsons episode as well.
