Continuing
the theme of my last post on digital
devices,
I really enjoyed the PBS.org documentary Digital Nation, which talks about the
growing dominance of digital media and interaction on all our
lives. My husband and I had to pause the TiVo every five minutes to
process what we were seeing. Both the entire documentary and short segments are
available at this link.
My last two sentences
are an ironic commentary on the message of the documentary itself: Are all our
digital devices making us dumb, prompting us to think in sound
bites instead of essays and willing to settle for just good enough instead
of great when it comes to knowledge and information?
Or is the current
transformation just a case of a new generation finding its own way? After all,
every generation in recent memory has been more productive than the last.
However, that tide could
be reversing. Even though each generation of Americans in the past century
has lived longer and been healthier than its parents, the next one promises to
be sicker, given the unhealthy quantity and quality of food we eat and the
emergence of gaming over playing. And paradoxically, this decline is all a
result of our affluence and access to "the good life".
I'd love to hear your
thoughts. Are we doomed to dumbing down, or just taking some time to get used
to this new world?
