Thursday, December 02, 2004
Karin, v.2?
A student in my online Photoshop Elements course that I am just wrapping up for HP, read my Twas the Night Before Black Friday poem at Suite101 and wrote:
Hey! I resemble that remark!
I DO admit to being a bit obsessed with technology, and I have been for many years. I tried resisting, but it just didn't work. When I first got a cell phone, I told myself (and everybody who would listen) that it was "just for emergencies," and that I would probably "rarely have the darned thing on." I just "didn't want or need to be that connected" and that I used the "time spent driving in my car as 'down time'." Now my cell phone number appears on billboards, bumper stickers and tee shirts and I hold teleconferences while driving to in-person meetings. I am beginning to seriously consider the link between these gadgets and cancer. SIGH.
My husband surprised me with a very early make PDA a number of years ago as a birthday gift. (It weighed about 2 lbs, could hold an entire megabyte of information, and was slower than getting your luggage at the Philadelphia Airport -- but it was cutting edge at the time.) After thanking him effusively I asked him to please take it back to wherever he got it because I "couldn't possibly see how it would be useful," and plus, he had given me that "lovely leather folder for my paper calendar and address book a few years back, and I certainly didn't want that to go to waste." 4 Palms, 3 iPods, 1 Clie, and a Blackberry later I am currently TEACHING a course titled PDAs, Cell Phones and More for CNET. The course has more than 13,000 students in it, and no, I am not kidding. This means that I am akin to the pied piper of geeky gadgets. SIGH.
I decided to take my student's advice this past Saturday. It was a rare day off together for my husband and I, with nothing planned. In the morning I said to him, "Sweetums, do you remember what we used to do on Saturdays before we got totally sucked into our computers? Let's do that today." Neither one of us touched our computers that day. Instead we did some yard work, took the dog for a walk, watched PBS cooking shows on TV, napped, and cooked. (OK, he cooked, I watched, but at least I was THERE.) It was a great break, and one I am planning to repeat on a regular basis.
I recently read an interesting article: No Internet for two weeks? How 28 people coped (written by Stacy A. Teicher). I cannot even imagine being disconnected for two entire weeks. I would feel so...well, disconnected. And I don't quite know what to make of my dependence on (and intense serious need for) e-mail, websites, and other Internet-based tools.
Don't worry...I am not turning Luddite by any means. (Frankly, I don't even think that would be possible for me; I am too far gone...it would take an intervention of serious proportion, such as the entire Eastern Seaboard being without electricity for an extended period of time.) But I AM going to remember to take a break from it every now and then.
Ahh...Karin v.2.
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I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you need a month's vacation on a South Pacific island, that doesn't have any technology...lol. I'm addicted, but you're obsessed!
Hey! I resemble that remark!
I DO admit to being a bit obsessed with technology, and I have been for many years. I tried resisting, but it just didn't work. When I first got a cell phone, I told myself (and everybody who would listen) that it was "just for emergencies," and that I would probably "rarely have the darned thing on." I just "didn't want or need to be that connected" and that I used the "time spent driving in my car as 'down time'." Now my cell phone number appears on billboards, bumper stickers and tee shirts and I hold teleconferences while driving to in-person meetings. I am beginning to seriously consider the link between these gadgets and cancer. SIGH.
My husband surprised me with a very early make PDA a number of years ago as a birthday gift. (It weighed about 2 lbs, could hold an entire megabyte of information, and was slower than getting your luggage at the Philadelphia Airport -- but it was cutting edge at the time.) After thanking him effusively I asked him to please take it back to wherever he got it because I "couldn't possibly see how it would be useful," and plus, he had given me that "lovely leather folder for my paper calendar and address book a few years back, and I certainly didn't want that to go to waste." 4 Palms, 3 iPods, 1 Clie, and a Blackberry later I am currently TEACHING a course titled PDAs, Cell Phones and More for CNET. The course has more than 13,000 students in it, and no, I am not kidding. This means that I am akin to the pied piper of geeky gadgets. SIGH.
I decided to take my student's advice this past Saturday. It was a rare day off together for my husband and I, with nothing planned. In the morning I said to him, "Sweetums, do you remember what we used to do on Saturdays before we got totally sucked into our computers? Let's do that today." Neither one of us touched our computers that day. Instead we did some yard work, took the dog for a walk, watched PBS cooking shows on TV, napped, and cooked. (OK, he cooked, I watched, but at least I was THERE.) It was a great break, and one I am planning to repeat on a regular basis.
I recently read an interesting article: No Internet for two weeks? How 28 people coped (written by Stacy A. Teicher). I cannot even imagine being disconnected for two entire weeks. I would feel so...well, disconnected. And I don't quite know what to make of my dependence on (and intense serious need for) e-mail, websites, and other Internet-based tools.
Don't worry...I am not turning Luddite by any means. (Frankly, I don't even think that would be possible for me; I am too far gone...it would take an intervention of serious proportion, such as the entire Eastern Seaboard being without electricity for an extended period of time.) But I AM going to remember to take a break from it every now and then.
Ahh...Karin v.2.
e-mail this writer
