Yesterday’s feature in the Boston Globe about little kids developing a penchant for state-of-the-art electronics such as iPads and iPhones caught my attention. The issue isn’t exactly relevant in our household – at 9 and 13, my kids are considerably older than the toddlers and preschoolers described in the story – and when the kids were that age, we didn’t have iPhones or iPads (and in fact still have just one iPhone in our household and no iPads).
Coincidentally, though, just the night before, I had for the first time purchased a book for Holly on my Kindle. And I didn't do that without a fair share of rumination as to whether it was appropriate for my nine-year-old to be reading on a Kindle.
But my guess is that many parents make the reluctant leap to letting their kids e-read the same way I did: Holly had just finished a book and wanted the next one in the series in order to complete the twenty minutes of nightly reading that her teacher requires. And while I acknowledge that this sounds demanding on Holly's part -- wanting one book and one book only -- I've become used to it from Tim. When he's in the middle of a series, no book except the next book in the series will do. Switching over to reading something else for the sake of convenience -- such as, there's a copy of it right over there on the bookshelf, whereas the book he wants is at the library or the bookstore and we won't be able to pick up a copy 'til tomorrow -- is an option not even worthy of consideration.
And in Holly's case, it wasn't only that she'd have to wait until the next day for me to go to the library: the book she wanted was a brand new release from a popular series, and getting a copy of this high-demand read would take a while.
So I let her order up a six-dollar copy on my Kindle, and thirty seconds later she was reading. I watched her and thought about what I had done. For myself, I'm absolutely a Kindle convert: I love the convenience of carrying as much reading material as I could possibly want -- novels, reference materials, magazines, newspapers, notes of my own -- all on one little piece of plastic that weighs less than a pound.
But the sight of kids using Kindles gives me pause. I've never agreed with adults who shy away from e-readers saying they can't imagine enjoying the experience of reading without the feel and smell of an actual book in their hands -- to me, reading is reading, and why should I have the inconvenience of newsprint on my fingers or the weight of a hardcover in my purse? -- but I'm a little unsure as to whether kids are absorbing the full experience of reading, when no book is in hand.
When a friend told me both her kids, ages 12 and 13 at the time, owned Kindles, I said to her, "I'm not sure my kids would know what they wanted to read if they didn't browse through the stacks at the library." But she told me her kids use the New York Times Book Review section on children's books for recommendations, or they order books by authors whose work they've enjoyed in the past, or they use the "Customers who bought this book also bought" tab on Amazon.com to get ideas about what to load onto their Kindles next.
Or they go to the library, browse through the stacks, and find something they want to read, just like my kids do. Then they order it on their Kindles.
It still seemed a little strange to me, and to some extent, that's the point made in the Globe story about toddlers and preschoolers using iPhones, iPads and similar devices. Surely Holly needs to be immersed in the sensory aspects of reading a book -- the slippery feel of the cover, the heft of the volume, the nubbly texture at the edge of thr pages -- before she's ready to skip that part and go electronic. And seeing her sit there poring over my Kindle screen didn't give me the same twinge of delight that seeing her immersed in a real book always gives me.
Still, it enabled her to read what she wanted to read at that very moment. Admittedly, that might make it more a lesson in instant gratification than literary appreciation. And when she finishes this book, I'll encourage her to find her next one the old-fashioned way, at a library or a bookstore. But for now, what matters to her is that she didn't have to wait even twelve hours to find out what happens next in her favorite series of the moment. And to me, that's a certain kind of passion that I’m more than happy to fuel, whether it finds its resolution on the page or on the screen.
Showing posts with label electronics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label electronics. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Electronic communication: What gets lost when we become too discreet?
Yesterday while running, I listened to yet another discussion on NPR sparked by the article in the Sunday New York Times Style section earlier this month in which a large photo depicted a family of four, all sitting together on a couch but each engaged individually with some form of electronic equipment. Again and again, the question seemed to circle back to this one: Okay, this family is all wired in and focusing on their individual online activities, but what exactly has been lost, if anything?
Well, most adults who remember a time when communication was primarily non-electronic can answer this somewhat by rote. Electronic communication – whether email, Tweets, or blogs – lack the nuance of spoken interaction. Humor and other aspects of emotion get lost in translation. The very reason for emoticons is to try to bridge the difficulty in conveying intonation and inference through the on-screen, printed word. We craft keyboard characters into smiles, winks and frowns just in case what would have come through in our voices were we speaking gets lost in the written word.
But it occurred to me as I listened to the discussion that there’s another aspect to it as well. Many of us have learned the hard way -- through personal experience, retold anecdotes, or stories raised to the level of urban myth -- that tact and vigilance are necessary when writing emails and other forms of electronic correspondence. In short, it’s dangerous to commit anything to any electronic medium if you wouldn’t be comfortable seeing it enter viral distribution.
Which is a fine message as far as reminding people to exercise tact, but prompts a corollary question: So if we’re all communicating electronically, what happens to all the discussions we dare not have through the written word?
This is not an abstraction to me. One evening last week, I stopped by the public library to return a book and ran into my friends Amy and Jean. Jean and I got caught up in a discussion about something that had happened in our third-graders’ circle of friends; Amy countered with a story about her kindergartener and a classmate; and soon the three of us, whispering next to the reference desk, were sharing the kind of personal stories about our own pasts that girls normally tell only after midnight at slumber parties.
The reference librarian didn’t bat an eye as the three of us went on and on about awkward moments and painful heartbreaks from our middle school years, but I found myself still thinking about the conversation the next day. First of all, it just seemed so random. I don’t know either of them really well; had we not run into each other, all of us without kids or husbands, on this particular evening under these particular circumstances, we probably never would have shared any of those stories.
But more importantly, it was only through face-to-face interaction that a conversation like that would have happened; these certainly weren’t anecdotes you’d want to commit to written form.
So maybe, I though as I listened to the NPR discussion about cyber-intimacy, that’s what’s being lost: crazy random personal chit-chat among friends. Amy and Jean and I can certainly arrange a carpool or recruit art show volunteers by email, but confess as to the most embarrassing moment we remember from middle school? Not likely. Not in the least.
On the one hand, it’s a positive thing if electronic communication is starting to get old and familiar enough that fewer privacy faux pas are taking place. (Having discovered that my own 8-year-old sent an email containing an unkind sentiment about a classmate to six friends last month, I know firsthand that the principle of not writing incriminating emails is something that can’t be taught early enough.) On the other, if we’re learning to avoid potentially embarrassing stories or confessions in our electronic communications, and electronic communications are all we’re using, we’re passing up the chance for moments like the one I had at the library last week.
Talking about personal moments with casual friends isn’t an everyday occurrence for me, but it has led to some of my most interesting insights – and, of course, sharing an intimate story is a great way to fortify a budding friendship. So yes, something will potentially be lost if we get into the habit of passing up the chance for face-to-face discussion. I need only remember last week at the library – and the delicious feeling of kinship with two friends that transpired there – to understand how true this is.
Well, most adults who remember a time when communication was primarily non-electronic can answer this somewhat by rote. Electronic communication – whether email, Tweets, or blogs – lack the nuance of spoken interaction. Humor and other aspects of emotion get lost in translation. The very reason for emoticons is to try to bridge the difficulty in conveying intonation and inference through the on-screen, printed word. We craft keyboard characters into smiles, winks and frowns just in case what would have come through in our voices were we speaking gets lost in the written word.
But it occurred to me as I listened to the discussion that there’s another aspect to it as well. Many of us have learned the hard way -- through personal experience, retold anecdotes, or stories raised to the level of urban myth -- that tact and vigilance are necessary when writing emails and other forms of electronic correspondence. In short, it’s dangerous to commit anything to any electronic medium if you wouldn’t be comfortable seeing it enter viral distribution.
Which is a fine message as far as reminding people to exercise tact, but prompts a corollary question: So if we’re all communicating electronically, what happens to all the discussions we dare not have through the written word?
This is not an abstraction to me. One evening last week, I stopped by the public library to return a book and ran into my friends Amy and Jean. Jean and I got caught up in a discussion about something that had happened in our third-graders’ circle of friends; Amy countered with a story about her kindergartener and a classmate; and soon the three of us, whispering next to the reference desk, were sharing the kind of personal stories about our own pasts that girls normally tell only after midnight at slumber parties.
The reference librarian didn’t bat an eye as the three of us went on and on about awkward moments and painful heartbreaks from our middle school years, but I found myself still thinking about the conversation the next day. First of all, it just seemed so random. I don’t know either of them really well; had we not run into each other, all of us without kids or husbands, on this particular evening under these particular circumstances, we probably never would have shared any of those stories.
But more importantly, it was only through face-to-face interaction that a conversation like that would have happened; these certainly weren’t anecdotes you’d want to commit to written form.
So maybe, I though as I listened to the NPR discussion about cyber-intimacy, that’s what’s being lost: crazy random personal chit-chat among friends. Amy and Jean and I can certainly arrange a carpool or recruit art show volunteers by email, but confess as to the most embarrassing moment we remember from middle school? Not likely. Not in the least.
On the one hand, it’s a positive thing if electronic communication is starting to get old and familiar enough that fewer privacy faux pas are taking place. (Having discovered that my own 8-year-old sent an email containing an unkind sentiment about a classmate to six friends last month, I know firsthand that the principle of not writing incriminating emails is something that can’t be taught early enough.) On the other, if we’re learning to avoid potentially embarrassing stories or confessions in our electronic communications, and electronic communications are all we’re using, we’re passing up the chance for moments like the one I had at the library last week.
Talking about personal moments with casual friends isn’t an everyday occurrence for me, but it has led to some of my most interesting insights – and, of course, sharing an intimate story is a great way to fortify a budding friendship. So yes, something will potentially be lost if we get into the habit of passing up the chance for face-to-face discussion. I need only remember last week at the library – and the delicious feeling of kinship with two friends that transpired there – to understand how true this is.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Our electronics, ourselves: Why not recharge ourselves as faithfully as we recharge them?
As I cleaned up the kitchen late in the day, I couldn’t help noticing something on the counter. It looked like all our portable electronics were holding a little conference. Within a couple of square feet of counter space lay two cell phones, a PDA and an iPod, all silent and inert but plugged in and charging up for the new day ahead.
Why, I found myself wondering, do we remember to recharge our electronics every night but we don’t do the same for ourselves?
Well, you could argue that those eight – or more often a little more than six – hours of sleep we get every night are our way of recharging. But in a freakishly paradoxical way, I was finding something so quaint in the way all our little handhelds were lying there together resting, their battery icons blinking as if to remind me that they were receiving the necessary electricity they needed to start fresh tomorrow. I admit it’s an odd image. Usually my metaphors of sustenance come from the stars, the sky, tall oak trees, water rushing over rocks. Not cell phones and iPods.
But what struck me about this image was the sense that we were treating our electronics better than we treat ourselves. Why can’t I recharge every evening after dinner? I wondered.
Because there’s too much else to do, that’s why. Once the kids are in bed I have to return emails, make school lunches for the next day, fold laundry, get the coffee prepped to turn on first thing in the morning. I can’t sit around recharging or I won’t be ready when the new day dawns.
Really? I asked myself. In what way would you be so very unready?
The kids wouldn’t have their lunches made. (Maybe I could do that while they’re eating breakfast.) Emails would have gone unanswered. (Does anyone really need to hear from me at 10 PM? Do I really have anything to tell them that couldn’t wait until 9 the next morning?) Laundry would pile up. (Sure. And then eventually over the weekend or when I need a short break from my desk or want an excuse to take in ten minutes of NPR, I’ll stop and fold it.) More importantly, isn’t it quite possible that I’ll have just as much to offer the world if I’ve had time for reading, thinking and sleeping as if I have a tidy household every night?
So I resolved then and there to try to do things differently in the evening, starting last night. I shut down my computer at 8 PM, and an hour later, once both kids were asleep, I crawled into bed with a book. I imagined myself filling up with energy just like the gadgets downstairs: not expending what little charge I had left and letting myself run nearly dry, but stopping and sitting still and letting that well of energy within me fill up again for a new day.
It felt so good that I’m determined to try it again. As I well know, habits like this are hard to maintain. Yes, it was wonderful to sit and read last night in the evening hours during which I usually do deskwork or housework, but it felt like a one-night break, not a new routine. But who knows? I’m a firm believer in the aphorism that it takes three weeks to instill a habit. Maybe I’ll try it for three weeks and see if I feel…rejuvenated. Energized. Recharged, rather than just efficient and, well, like someone who has folded all the laundry.
Learning a valuable life lesson from one’s iPod does not exactly have a Buddhist ring to it. But now that I think about it, it’s not like our electronics made that decision on their own to plug themselves in and recharge. (Though I’m sure Steve Jobs is working on that.) I did it for them, just as I tucked my children into bed at an appropriate time so that they will be rejuvenated when the new day dawns. All I need to do is give myself the same permission to cease daily labor and take time to recharge that I give my iPod, my PDA, my phone and, yes, my children.
So the laundry goes unfolded. It just might be worth it. And as I try to instill this new habit over the next few weeks, I’m looking forward to finding out.
Why, I found myself wondering, do we remember to recharge our electronics every night but we don’t do the same for ourselves?
Well, you could argue that those eight – or more often a little more than six – hours of sleep we get every night are our way of recharging. But in a freakishly paradoxical way, I was finding something so quaint in the way all our little handhelds were lying there together resting, their battery icons blinking as if to remind me that they were receiving the necessary electricity they needed to start fresh tomorrow. I admit it’s an odd image. Usually my metaphors of sustenance come from the stars, the sky, tall oak trees, water rushing over rocks. Not cell phones and iPods.
But what struck me about this image was the sense that we were treating our electronics better than we treat ourselves. Why can’t I recharge every evening after dinner? I wondered.
Because there’s too much else to do, that’s why. Once the kids are in bed I have to return emails, make school lunches for the next day, fold laundry, get the coffee prepped to turn on first thing in the morning. I can’t sit around recharging or I won’t be ready when the new day dawns.
Really? I asked myself. In what way would you be so very unready?
The kids wouldn’t have their lunches made. (Maybe I could do that while they’re eating breakfast.) Emails would have gone unanswered. (Does anyone really need to hear from me at 10 PM? Do I really have anything to tell them that couldn’t wait until 9 the next morning?) Laundry would pile up. (Sure. And then eventually over the weekend or when I need a short break from my desk or want an excuse to take in ten minutes of NPR, I’ll stop and fold it.) More importantly, isn’t it quite possible that I’ll have just as much to offer the world if I’ve had time for reading, thinking and sleeping as if I have a tidy household every night?
So I resolved then and there to try to do things differently in the evening, starting last night. I shut down my computer at 8 PM, and an hour later, once both kids were asleep, I crawled into bed with a book. I imagined myself filling up with energy just like the gadgets downstairs: not expending what little charge I had left and letting myself run nearly dry, but stopping and sitting still and letting that well of energy within me fill up again for a new day.
It felt so good that I’m determined to try it again. As I well know, habits like this are hard to maintain. Yes, it was wonderful to sit and read last night in the evening hours during which I usually do deskwork or housework, but it felt like a one-night break, not a new routine. But who knows? I’m a firm believer in the aphorism that it takes three weeks to instill a habit. Maybe I’ll try it for three weeks and see if I feel…rejuvenated. Energized. Recharged, rather than just efficient and, well, like someone who has folded all the laundry.
Learning a valuable life lesson from one’s iPod does not exactly have a Buddhist ring to it. But now that I think about it, it’s not like our electronics made that decision on their own to plug themselves in and recharge. (Though I’m sure Steve Jobs is working on that.) I did it for them, just as I tucked my children into bed at an appropriate time so that they will be rejuvenated when the new day dawns. All I need to do is give myself the same permission to cease daily labor and take time to recharge that I give my iPod, my PDA, my phone and, yes, my children.
So the laundry goes unfolded. It just might be worth it. And as I try to instill this new habit over the next few weeks, I’m looking forward to finding out.
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