February 2, 2009

The Subtle Bigotry of Low Expectations

Two stories on this week's On The Media got my mind going. First, this story about people who have lived their whole lives with the internet being a very, very real thing. The story makes the distinction between so-called digital immigrants, basically those of us who remember a world pre-World Wide Web, and digital natives, those that have known no other world than one with the internet. The transcripts of the story aren't up yet, they will be later today, so maybe just listen for now. It's a good discussion of the different mind-sets people have regarding the internet, and maybe how those digital natives just might have a different world view than the immigrants. It made my ambivalence about being, ugh, "a blogger" seem a bit more rational.

Second, and maybe I'm becoming anti-technology or something, but I'm so over people interacting more with their I-phone than the outside world. Don't take the damn thing out at the bar unless you're communicating with another human being, please? Evidently, this shit is WAY worse in Japan. Real talk, there's 127 million people in Japan and 110 million cell phone subscriptions. No wonder the I-phone I've got is just a paper weight right now. More skateboard shit later; if the post bummed you out, re-read the title of it, it's just for you!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My friend spends more time on his iphone then he does paying attention to the road. It scares the shit outta me!

Anonymous said...

Good post, no doubt this is becoming increasingly obnoxious. It is useful to point out that although that Japanese figure of cell phone subscriptions compared to overall population is dramatic, in the early 90's mobile phone companies took advantage of Japan's relatively weak infrastructural capacity and pushed mobile phones as a real alternative to land lines. That sounds logical in the current setting, but during that time in the US people were (and to some extent still are) wedded to the idea of a land line.

Good stuff, keep it coming!