Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
Very interesting reports on the BBC this morning about the habits of people in both the recession and the digital age. It seems that people, you and me, will give up everything but our intetnet and our TV and our Mobile phones. We are technology mad.
In this day and age with the recession biting ever deeper people have to make choices with their home economics. The choices they are making is to give up every other activity...going out to the cinema, going out for dinner, going on holiday, and so on so on... they will cut back on buying clothes and shoes, they will give up newspapers and magazines but hark!! they wont give up their internet at any price. Good news for the likes of Facebook and Twitter and even lowly Doverforum, bad news for local newspapers, magazines and so on. The printed word is on a hiding to nothing these days from all fronts.
So there you have it. The average bloke says...you can take the woife, you can take the kids, you can take the car and the mother in law...but whatever you do dont take away my TV/internet package!!!
Okay, I might be exagerating a tad on that last one but you get the general gist.
Still, in the middle of all this boom, ITV still manage to lose millions. So much for relying on private commercial enterprise for your national tv service! They cant hack it when the going gets tough!
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
the question is whether our obssession with the new technologies has moved us forward.
i once looked at facebook and was stunned at some of the inane facts people posted about themselves.
i suppose that we are all supposed to be celebrities now.
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
The kids today are totally obsessed with technology Howard and the question you raise whether it moves us forward is a good one. Only last week the archbishop called into doubt peoples ability to communicate with each other due to this new technology wave. You see girls in particular walking along the street totally oblivious to the world around them focusing totally on their mobiles only. I know ...Ive seen this up close and personal. I hope nobody opens a manhole cover in front of Briony as she will go straight down.
But Im not sure though if the archbishop was right. I think the internet and the mobile technology has improved communications but of a different type. The facebook airwaves are buzzing with chatter, or is that MSNMessenger, whatever it is anyway it has people communicating...but whether its the right kind of communicating thats the question.
The thing is that the tech has become an extension of our personalities, lifestyles, and forms of expression, so it is actually very difficult to even consider giving it up. The web is used for leisure and work, it's reasonably cheap to maintain, and amid the Facebooks and Amazons there are also People per Hour type websites, emails, and stuff to do from work. Same with phones and gadgets. Whether it is morally right or wrong isn't for me to say but the gadgets are very much a part of the tools that define us these days. Giving up your iPod Touch is probably as bad as giving up your left hand. It stores your music, video files, emails, notebooks, organisers, address books, web surfing, apps, games, spreadsheets, and so on. A bit much to lose in one go!
I can totally understand why people won't give up their tech - these days, tech is hugely personal and plays a big part in life.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
i do worry that some of our young will be unable to communicate face to face when required to do so.
job interviews, getting on with colleagues etc.
the problem of pretence is another problem, anyone can be who they like.
having said all that, the internet is here to stay, i hope that people balance it with real life.
Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
The obsession with mobile phones baffles me prior to the mobile phone days I never once witnessed a 2 mile queue to use a BT phone box. It appears that these days its of the upmost importance to text and forward the latest joke or to call your buddies whilst walking through town or in the bar or cafe or worse still whilst driving. MAD MAD world.
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Guest 663- Registered: 20 Mar 2008
- Posts: 1,136
Its now very rare to see anybody without a mobile phone or any of the other things talked about.
Are we looseing human contact talking to machines
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
Okay I need to build this up...play the Psycho music
...szink szink szink..those screaming violins!
Because.....I handled the latest technology this morning at Tesco and no mistake. Here's the story. I rushed into the superstore, grabbed a few Pot Noodles in a basket expecting it to be a quick visit, but then when I got round to the tills....freakin' Nora.....the world and his wife were there with shopping trolleys piled higher than the Arc de Triomphe. Gawd dammit sez I under me breath.
Nothing for it then but to approach those new auto tills. With shivering cold sweats and aching limbs, no it wasnt swine flu, I approached those terrifyng objects of the modern age. I gazed in abject bewilderment at a screen spouting instructions and then with stress palpitations mounting higher than my cholesterol levels...I shoved the first of the Pot Noodles through the refined process...that's one for the archbishop thought I... as technology had taken away my entire human contact. I got the assorted items through the window, it bleeped happily with each item and contrary to what I had expected, I failed to make a balls of it!!
It sucked the twenty pound note out of my hands, spit out the coins and a nice female voice from within told me to
"Please collect your change!"
then
"Please take your items home!"
I left the store feeling I had made some kind of victory, not least that I had managed to bypass the queus of proles standing there like wide-eyed sheep in an auction pen, waiting miserably for their turn to be lanced!
I happily rode off on my motorcycle whistling dixie!
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
I know what you mean Marek, but to me, telephoning is the least of what I do with mine. Main use is remote email, its also my diary, its my GPS, calculator, notepad, address book, to do list, camera, alarm and of course my remote internet browser. Sometimes I have been known to play music with it....
A Blackberry is a clever thing, even make & receive phone calls and text sometimes. amazing.
Guest 645- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 4,463
Hi Barry
I thought Blackberries were something we made pies with and ate in summer.Hope you are fit and well.Love to the family.
Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Hi Marek. Thats just about the only thing you cant do with it!
Will do, same to yours....
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
Well I heard an interesting little piece on the radio this morning.
Who's running the country right now?? ermmm... no one, or... well read on
It seems Gordon himself has gone back to Scotland to spend some time around the Lochs and to do community service. Yes he wants to do community service for some inexplicable reason and will have no press there to see him as its not a publicity stunt. He assures us so anyway. Isnt he a wonderful PM! Out there mixing with the minions.
This left Harriet and Lord Peter in charge. But Harriet said
"Oh I say bugger this Im off!" a not very refined exclamation you might think from the grandaughter of the Earl of Longford or someplace. But she wasnt wanting to see her august wasted twiddling her refined thumbs in dreadfully dull Downing St.
"Mandy will look after things" said she.
But of course Lord Peter wasnt about at all. No. He had also ...ermm ...buggered off, and I use the term carefully, to Corfu!
So now there's a flap in the higher echelons with the realisation that.... Gadzooks! there's no one running the country!!
"What if there's a war or something?" said one Whitehall insider.
But fear not. All is saved by technology. It seems we are all in totally safe hands as Lord Peter is running the country from the soft sands of Corfu on his ..yes wait for it..yes his Blackberry!! So sayeth Radio Four.
So there you are, technology has saved the day and we can all sleep safe in our beds knowing Lord Peter is in charge....
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
their slavish devotion to duty is a lesson to us all.
the country would be in a right mess without them.
Guest 688- Registered: 16 Jul 2009
- Posts: 268
But just think of the great Intrigues that will come from Lord Peters trip to Corfu,Iam sure we can all recall the episode of the Infamous dinner party aboard S.S. Oligarch and George Osbournes unfortunate performance.Love him or loath him whenever Peters about It's always Interesting.
I choose the latter option there, John.
Guest 688- Registered: 16 Jul 2009
- Posts: 268
On the question of technology I was talking to a gentleman the other night who Is In the know about such things.I said to him that I had heard that the development of cutting edge technology had hit a bit of a brick wall due to the need for a smaller and more powerful processor and the constraints of battery applications.He assured me that both these problems had been surmounted,the first by the use of crystals?and on the second that an American company were just about to announce a revolutionary break through In this area, which could he said, change our concept of technology.Interesting Times.
Guest 683- Registered: 11 Feb 2009
- Posts: 1,052
10 August 2009
10:5326950Technological changes will always be with us; we are an inquisitive animal that is constantly striving for 'better'. We in the developed world have a skewed vision of technology, however, as we are usually the beneficiaries. We have shiny new cars, TVs, computers, phones etc and when we don't want them we give them to the developing world either to recycle or just to dump in their soil. Technology does not come without a cost. Could the Wright brothers have imagined aeroplanes being used to kill? Could Benz have imagined the environmental damage his combustion engine would cause? Could Tim Berners-Lee have imagined so much time would be wasted by people writing on internet Forums when he created the world wide web?!!!
In the mid 90s when I was first getting to grips with the internet I remember being told that the world was on the threshold of a revolution. We had had the agrarian revolution and the industrial revolution and now we were about to have the information revolution. As with all revolutions those who could afford to be part of it would be the winners. Those words seem very true to me now especially when you consider that there are still more people in the world yet to use a phone than there are internet users.
I don't think we'll ever give technology up but we should not become enslaved to it nor be blind to its limitations and its ability to widen the gaps between us.
Guest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
11 August 2009
06:4026976It's not the technology Mark, it's the use it is put to; whether that technology is in planes, space travel, transport - all are used for military purposes - to kill people.
There has been alternate sources of energy for cars for decades, but the controlling oil companies decide what we use; when it's almost run out they'll bring that alternate energy to the fore.
Mobile phones can be used to set off bombs, but we don't want to ban the mobile do we ?
I don't think it's all time wasting, being on the internet and I'm sure that bit was tongue in cheek.
It's all about attitude and corruption that keeps, or puts, people in poverty. Africa being a prime example - and you can't blame it all on weather and drought.
Almost every country in Africa is on or around the poverty line; that's not the fault of the people, but the fault of the corrupt governments.
It will always be the same, no matter how much money in overseas aid we give them; there has to be a change of attitude, before there can be any improvement for the general populace - then they can take part in the technological age.
Roger
Guest 657- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 3,037
11 August 2009
10:4026985Someone sent me this today, I think it sums it up well!
11 August 2009
22:5627007I freely admit that I am a classic MTV generation attention span deficient technology geek, and if you made me give up any of my tech I would fall to pieces. Yes it is materialistic, yes it is shallow, but hey! I love widescreen HD Blu-Ray, I love the world wide web, I love my pocket-size PSP entertainment gizmo, I love MP3. I'm really looking forward to the day when I can go into an electronic store, pay a body-piercing professional to piece my spleen with a nano-chip that can store a trillion tracks of music, wired direct to my brain, that also allows me to experience IMAX quality 3D movies on the inside of my eyelids whilst interacting with an emotion-engine driven videogame that has a more advanced artificial intelligence than a human's real intelligence. Roll on!
