My youngest graduates from high school in a month and is set to go to college in New Jersey. This weekend I ran into a friend whose older daughter is the same age and stage as mine, and who will still have one at home.
"What are you going to do with that empty nest?" she asked.
"You mean, what am I going to do FIRST?!" I replied, smiling.
Don't get me wrong; I will miss her, a lot I am sure. But as I said to my friend - she will still be the same wonderful person. Somewhere else, with tons of her peers, learning great new skills and knowledge and eating all her meals in a dining hall.
Visits will be lovely!
Wednesday, May 21, 2014
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Our Smart Phones Are Making Us Stupid
It must be an indicator of SOMETHING that I have had this headline in my head for months and only now am getting around to writing it.
The final straw was a few hours ago, standing in the book racks of my local library and ticking through my mental list of writers I wanted to peruse. I've recently finished a binge read of a fabulous crime/mystery writer; devoured everything in this very library -- compared the books to the movies and went so far as to google the author (and found out, with no surprise, that he was also a writer for my a;l=time favorite show, The Wire.)
I was picturing his face. I was recalling the complexity and subtlety of his writing, his characters,his settings and tone. I walked through the lower third of the alphabetical listing of authors, hoping it would come to me. And I could not for the life of me think of his name. So you know what happened.
So I took out my iPhone, googled Shutter Island, and three, results down ...Ah. Dennis Lehane.
Big head slap.
This isn't the only time that I've resorted to my device instead of thinking, though, and voice recognition is making it much worse. More often than not it's too much trouble to type out a text, and so we press the button and say, Text so and so, and dictate the message. Think about that -- too much trouble to type a text!
An appalling amount of calling people from the car, same strategy. Driving directions - so simple to look up on your phone; how often to we unfold a map, see where we are in relation to other places on the planet?
Smart phone saturation seems to be nearing 100%. What person over the age of 15 does not have one? And how can we be expected to resist the power of the Internet on a small glossy slab in our pocket? (Made of Kryptonite, by the way, and likely killing the planet.)
I came home tonight with a nice stack of books - including a brand-new Dennis Lehane! I did pass on one one that purported to prove how technology is making our brains smarter. I just didn't see it. But maybe I needed to get this cranky rant out of my system before giving it a chance.
The final straw was a few hours ago, standing in the book racks of my local library and ticking through my mental list of writers I wanted to peruse. I've recently finished a binge read of a fabulous crime/mystery writer; devoured everything in this very library -- compared the books to the movies and went so far as to google the author (and found out, with no surprise, that he was also a writer for my a;l=time favorite show, The Wire.)
I was picturing his face. I was recalling the complexity and subtlety of his writing, his characters,his settings and tone. I walked through the lower third of the alphabetical listing of authors, hoping it would come to me. And I could not for the life of me think of his name. So you know what happened.
So I took out my iPhone, googled Shutter Island, and three, results down ...Ah. Dennis Lehane.
Big head slap.
This isn't the only time that I've resorted to my device instead of thinking, though, and voice recognition is making it much worse. More often than not it's too much trouble to type out a text, and so we press the button and say, Text so and so, and dictate the message. Think about that -- too much trouble to type a text!
An appalling amount of calling people from the car, same strategy. Driving directions - so simple to look up on your phone; how often to we unfold a map, see where we are in relation to other places on the planet?
Smart phone saturation seems to be nearing 100%. What person over the age of 15 does not have one? And how can we be expected to resist the power of the Internet on a small glossy slab in our pocket? (Made of Kryptonite, by the way, and likely killing the planet.)
I came home tonight with a nice stack of books - including a brand-new Dennis Lehane! I did pass on one one that purported to prove how technology is making our brains smarter. I just didn't see it. But maybe I needed to get this cranky rant out of my system before giving it a chance.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
