Am I the only person who still likes to pick up a nice book, sit and read? I feel the current generation (and to some extent my generation which grew up with hand held video game devices and portable CD Players) has lost some of its electronic innocence.
I have noticed that real life communication has fallen victim to quick text messages and greetings have been bastardized into informal (and irritating) TTYL (My favs being: "ur," 2morrow," "2day," "abt" just to name a few.) . Don't worry, I am not calling you out, I am guilty of abusing and buying into these technologies.
When my iPod Classic broke this Christmas, did I replace it with the same model, no. I purchased the shiny, new model with a touch screen and ability to download Apps. Of course it has less space and more flare (shit I am blogging while on the train right now), but I didn't care at the time. Looking back it was a mistake. I traded in size and music for online capabilities. I feel like a dude who dumped in his frumpy girlfriend, for one with fake boobies and no soul.
I am just fearful that my nephew will miss out on the simpler things in life simply because of the momentum of technology. Let's face it he will never know the frustration of blowing in to Nintendo game cartridges. Will Little Biff carry textbooks like his parents (and his awesome Aunt. Me!) or will everything be digitized on to one machine, like an iPad?
I am not dissing technology, especially a new innovation like the iPad that America was on the forefront of developing, but what I am dissing the loss of simplicity. I am dissing the need for people to spend money on a technology that will be constantly upgraded and need to be replaced. I ask, are Kindles, Nooks, iPads any more convenient than picking up a book. It's not like books are written on stone tablets and you have to use a wheelbarrow to lug around.
Amazon's Kindle - the original but no frills. Plus I have heard they have downloading when trying to download existing books onto a new machine. With a real book you never have that issue.
The Nook - Barnes & Noble answer to the Amazon's Kindle. I like the look of this machine but haven't heard too many reviews.
iPad - It's an Apple product of course it looks great! I am not liking the home screen. I get it it's like a giant iPhone/iPod Touch, but it just looks strange to me. My only trepidation about buying this as an eReader is the back lit screen. As someone who sits in front of a computer screen 8+ hours a day, the last thing i want to do is stare at a computer screen when doing a leisure activity.Granted. Yes it is the more environmentally conscience choice, but only on the surface. What about joining your local library. Or trading books with friends and relatives, or even Swaptree.com. It seems to me to be more wasteful to buy into these gimmicks only to throw them away when the next model is released.
This is just a rambling post on something I will eventually buy into.
FYI to all potential iPad users: it's a pretty bad ass machine, however, I would wait until it is released with and iSight camera for video chatting, and external camera to take pictures...you know it's coming.
YDB
No comments:
Post a Comment