I Want An Analog Life, Moments Matter!
Are the Media Moment Monsters devouring your life?
Moments:
Fun times back then
When the world ran slower
And our minds weren’t dumped on 24/7
By 18-jillion things
Life was an analog watch
A phonograph 45 you REALLY wanted
And a good AM/FM radio
I kind of miss the analog life
Feeling nostalgic tonight after watching the news. Its no wonder why, with all the cyber this and that, and all the who’s doing what to whom where with what technology that one might feel a bit edgy . I know it makes me feel uneasy, some days damn near bordering on queasy the way the world feels brittle, fragile, like we’re all walking on March-thin ice.
That feeling is not limited to my repulsion over current politics with all its, homegrown conspiracy theories and shady dealings cooked up on sketchy internet platforms. No, that uneasy feeling comes from the fact that we have no level of privacy anymore.
Your smartwatch is listening to you talk on your smart phone while you’re oon the john. Everywhere else in the house your smart Alexa has her electronic ears open too and they’re all gleefully priming the pumps to dump the next slew of subtly embedded messaging your way. Blatant, subtle or even subliminal its all designed to prick emotions and burrow deep into your brain.
Yes, sadly privacy is just about vintage, especially as many wear their smart watch to bed, set the smart phone alarm and tuck it on the nightstand, and start off the morning with a shout out to that well-wired chica Alexa for the news or weather.
Our lives are constantly filled with the electronic beeps and bops of our devices. Notifications vie for your attention, a wellness app prods you to stand up, or go for a walk, and for many the text, social media and email messages pour in nonstop.
Always wanting attention these seemingly harmless addictions demand their due. They want blood. Seriously. They demand too many life-minutes for too little meaning or value and that my friends shortens the amount time you’ve actually spent being IN your and living your life as opposed to being IN some cyber techno space. At my age every life-minute counts and I don’t want to spend them frivolously.
I recall back in the stoneage when communications from watch and clock were analog. Correspondences were of paper written on by a real person with a real pen, the most techno thing you’d get was a letter banged out on a standard typerwriter, the same typerwriters many young writers now seek out to collect. Something about the feel of the machine they say.
Well, today I’d happily, gratefully, ecstatically welcome a real note or letter from friend or loved one. But that really doesn’t happen anymore. I had to seek out a paper-and-pen-pal on social media. The irony. Hello dear soul on Facebook, would you like to exchange pulp and ink?
And so we did. Penpal letters have flown across the country filled with dreams and hopes, wishes and fears all carefully folded into an envelope and delivered by the US Postal Service.
Sometimes we even get arty and make the envelope, draw on the letter or include bits and bobs like stickers, flower seeds, just things to make the other laugh. A vast difference from what’s considered personal-type communications today. What I encounter often seems like a string of stilted, staccato one-liners or quick efficient notes sent by text or social media.
While most of us we don’t get much real snail mail from a real person anymore, its likely we still get a lot of “mail” in the mailbox, the hollow kind. A glitzy catalog full of things we will never buy, the 40th letter of the month asking us to donate just $19.00 per month, or a campaign letter we’d love to stuff somewhere other than the trashcan. LIkely zero real (snail) mail.
The reality for most of us is we get shit ton of mail with no meaning in our mailboxes, both real and cyber every day and we can’t escape it. Today every single thing you want to see on the interwebs wants to ask you for your email address before they’ll even give you so much as a sneak peek at the merchandise on their site.
So the faux-mail stream just keeps on flowing collecting more and more data about us and taking more and more of our life minutes. We can’t do much to stop it, but we can whittle down the time it takes to sort it all and toss it in the can! We can recycle all the paper or
I’ve just wiled away my evening half-assed watching the news as I type. aand later chastising myself for donating more of my life-minutes to the big black box. I think I need a media break. And so do you.
