Connected

Everyone has a facebook now. Myspace, apparently, is dead now. It’s like an electronic wasteland scarcely occupied by the ghosts of old emoticons and status updates. Are we okay with that? Well, certainly we must be. So long as we have something to fall back on, like a twitter or a facebook, we’ll migrate like boids to the next big thing. So the cycle goes.

Remember the iPhone? Remember the long lines of people waiting to get them on the day they came out? Like the line of idiots waiting to be the first people ever to see Star Wars Episode I when it came out. And I’m not talking about the group of guys with whom I went. We only waited about an hour and a half – and I do admit, got a little excited about the long awaited new film, seeing as how it had been twenty years since its predecessor had arrived. Nay, I’m talking about the idiots who waited outside that theater for like two weeks. Asked off work so they could stand in line dressed as Boba Fett or a Stormtrooper and wait in line. Seriously, people.

But yeah, the iPhone was the last big thing. It seems like it’s died off a bit now. I still have my 3G, but I don’t even have phone service on it now. It’s just a glorified 16GB iPod with a camera on it. I carry one of those little plastic phones that only makes calls and sends SMS messages on it. That’s how I stay connected. Imagine that. A guy who’s been in the IT industry since before the dawn of the Internet (a fad I still believe shall soon pass) only carries a cheap Nokia phone now to stay connected. Hell, it doesn’t even have a camera on it. Doesn’t every phone have a camera? Yeah, well mine doesn’t.

And get this too. I don’t even have internet access at home. Believe it. I used to have so many ways to stay connected that I couldn’t leave the house without a PDA, a homing device and a GPS unit. Now I check my email when I get around to it. Which equates to about once a month now days. I just really don’t care anymore. This, my dear reader (notice I didn’t pluralize it – I think there’s only one of you left anymore) is why I don’t update this site anymore. I’m never on the internet. It’s amazing how your priorities change when – well, I don’t even know what changed. Yeah I do. I got laid off from my IT job. Now I work for the Geek Squad. A technology job, no doubt – but still, I refuse to reconnect. I like the freedom of not being tied down to a computer and an email account. Never thought I would say that. Whew! It feels good to get that off my chest.

So basically, my point is that we’re always after the next big thing. Wait. No. My point was originally going to be about how we are so connected. Yeah, because I said something about facebook up there. (Speaking of which, mine could use a little update…) So we’re getting more and more connected, and losing more and more humanity with each passing day. It’s easier to text your mom on her birthday than it is to drive to her house and take her a little card and some perfume. It’s easier to email that long lost penpal in China than it is to fly over there and find him. It’s easier to update your facebook status to say what you’re sitting there watching on television than it is to call all your friends and tell them what you’re sitting there watching on television. And you know the conundrum that imposes, don’t you?

Seriously. Think about it. People should update their facebooks to say “I’m just sitting here updating my facebook.” Because you logon to the computer and get on the internet – which totally takes you away from whatever you were doing – so you can make an update to tell people what you’re doing, which is then wrong because you’re not really doing it anymore. You had to quit doing that to facilitate updating your damn facebook. Does anyone really care? Yeah, I’m guessing they do. But that’s why my updates never read like that. I always put something about which I’m pondering. Food for the mind, you might say.

Anyway, I just wonder what will be next. Since people are so interested in what all their friends are doing online now days – instead of just going and hanging out with each other. I’m betting we’ll start carrying chips embedded in our forearms that automatically twitters for us. Or connects to a GPS and updates some facebook-style site telling all our friends exactly where we are at all times. Ridiculous. I haven’t seen my next-door neighboor in about six months because every time I need something I just text him, and he leaves it on the porch. Remember Peligro Pete? Yeah, he’s still alive, but I have no idea what he’s doing. Sigh. Maybe I should just check his facebook.

Well that’s all for today. I’m peacing out. Take care, friends.

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Vinnie

    Hey I dont even have a cell phone. I dont want to be that connected you know

  2. Threat

    The only web I’m interested in is the James Webb. Too bad I have to wait till 2014 for it to get here.

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