why I'm glad my iPod is just an iPod

Maybe I just watch too much Dr. Who and my literary brain likes to take things too literally.  I keep having visions of nano genes creeping up the arm from a y-shaped cut on the hand and slowly morphing the face into a gas mask, forcing the voice to cry out ‘Are you my Mummy?’ … or a person forced into line to have her body plated with metal and a chip inserted to buffer emotion.   I keep thinking of those movies where the person fights to stay awake because sleep will mean turning into an unfeeling, unoriginal, gluttonous for human flesh zombie.  I held my new technological contraption the other day and felt my blood turn icy as if I was about to slide the ring of power over my finger.

Okay… that’s theatrical… and definitely indicative of my imagination running away with me.  Seriously, I was banned from Dr. Who at age 4… and this is probably why.  But… seriously, technology gives me the willies.  Well, not all technology.  Handheld devices that wire me to the world really freak me out.

Now… before I go on my rant, I will make a few disclaimers.  Much though I love history, I really have no wistful desire to relive it.  Trust me, I’m glad I live in an age when  a corset is considered sexy and is not an instrument of suffocating my organs and making me prone to fainting spells.  And while we still live in an age where race is a volatile and destructive issue, I am glad that lynching and dressing up in bedsheets is not permissible.   I’m definitely okay without small pox and relying on my fireplace for heat on days like this.  And I know that technology is what has got us from those darker ages to now.

I know that the printing press allowed more than the clergy to read the Bible, empowering the masses to decide for themselves what God said – or if 'he' even said it.  I know steam engines allowed an increase of the workforce, a rise to the middle class, and a boom to cities across the world… helping to pull our little lackluster former colonies into country status.  I know that a pill helped get my sex out of the kitchen and offered up a longer lifespan without constant pregnancy.  I know that the internet has created communication and information as has never been seen before.  And I know… I know a cell phone in the car is an awesome thing to have when you get a flat tire.

That said… I still hate the bloody things.  

I suppose I’m one of a curmudgeonly few who wrestle so much about those rectangular objects.  And I’m probably one of a few who feels a black mark on my soul for breaking down last Friday and making a (online) purchase from… of all places… Apple.

At least I didn’t lose all my integrity.  I didn’t get the iPhone.  I got the iPod touch.

That’s lame, I can hear every other Apple fan mutter when (if) they read that sentence.  I’m sure most smart phone people don’t get my sense of crisis.  I don’t expect any of you to… because I’m the only one who has to live with myself.

It came to me on Tuesday, while I was sitting at my desk.  I turned it on and looked at my first screen with all those little square icons.  And I immediately found my way to Facebook, posted a status, and wanted to throw up.

Seriously, Jessie?  Get over yourself.  It’s the way of the world.  It’s the norm… and hell, it’s fun.  Oh – and let’s not forget one of the major endorsements I received in my conversations about this – it’s a communication device.

Um.  No.  There I have to disagree.

Late Thursday afternoon, after the turkey and dinner dishes cleared from the table, some of my family collected around the table, polishing off the dredges of wine.  I think it was my favorite part of Thanksgiving when the conversation focused on my grandmother – grandfather, too – but mostly Gram.  There were many thoughts and memories shared… but one closing thesis was how she was genuinely interested in people.  That she LISTENED and wanted to know more about people with whom she was talking.  I heard a very similar comment repeated about Nissy, the mother of Urban Improv, when she passed away this summer.  Nissy was just six years younger than Gram.  So I don’t know if I credit it to generation or the other parallels of their lives that formed their very giving, loving hearts.  But… to me, much of that giving, loving comes from the art of listening.  I’ve come away from both these losses wanting to be more like that… to be a better listener.

Cell phones, to me, are the biggest impediment to listening and paying attention to people this society has.

You’re just prejudiced, Jessie.  Maybe afflicted with a bit of generation envy.

Nope.  

Have you ever watched people with cell phones?  Or… let me clarify… ‘smart’ phones?  I challenge you to spend a day just watching how impersonal people become when that contraption comes out from a pocket.  How unabashedly they appear in the MIDDLE of conversations, on the street, in the car, at a performance, in the store, THEY ARE FUCKING EVERYWHERE!!!   And whatever is on that little blue screen is somehow more important than the person, the HUMAN BEING living, breathing, emitting organic heat within two feet.  It happens all the time… and it makes me very sad.  

And you know what?  A lot of what makes me sad is that I know I am just as capable of tuning out the world in favor of a blue screen.  I did it last night… and I don’t know why.  Facebook is NOT really that interesting.  Especially on a small screen.  I mean, talk about losing the big picture.  I know that I can in fact join with the masses who find the phone so important it is worth $50 a month - $600 a year.   How many minutes of live conversation lost?  Can you put a dollar amount on that?  Can you imagine the lost opportunity when that person you ignored in favor of pixels is gone forever?

I know there are good things to these devices.  I actually thought about that before I started writing this diatribe.  About the Arab spring and the use of Twitter.  Of baby photos and being able to get directions or movie times.  But… I’m not a fan of things like GPS.   Not really.  I mean… I get that now people are much much less likely to get lost.  But, with the technology, we’ve lost the ability to find our way.

Well… if you hate it so much to write all these words, why on earth did you buy the thing?  I wanted the camera… and well… I wanted an iPod.  Seriously, I spend up to three hours in my car each day.  It’s a nice thing to have my music library on hand.  And… well… that’s been the principle use of the thing since Tuesday.  And I’m more than okay with that.  

I'm not entirely unaware of the irony that this post could be read on one of those things.  It doesn't make me like them more.   It doesn't make me like my friends any less.  It just makes me sad that people are more apt to hear me (and that is different than listen) on a device than in person.