The Digital Age

[happyfilmluvguy]

Before anyone responds, I want to ask that everyone who does respond do not get out of hand. I am not a Bartender but I, just as anybody, would not want to see a thread become violent. So I ask that if something angers you, please keep it to yourself.


We are in a rapidly growing time where technology is at the front of the line. People are jumping ship to develop websites for video sharing, photo sharing, establishing themselves as "internet celebrities", and everyone with a computer or cell phone is caught in the fire.

It's changed the way we live in many ways. The world is much smaller than it was 30 years ago. So with all of this rapid growth, where are you in it? Do you believe that though now you are doing your best to avoid it if you do, you will be able to in the future? What kind of changes do you think it will bring to entertainment? Do you believe that for the most part putting this amount of power in the average person's hands is beneficial?

Where do you think we will be after the "Digital age" has died down? Do you believe it will?

It makes me think of an infomercial that is shown on a large screen before you enter the "Terminator 2: 3D" theater at Universal Studios. It explains what SkyNet, the company that in the film turns on the humans and which John Connor eventually leads rebels against, has planned for the future. It shows things like a mother tucking her baby in from the other side of the world, a robotic eye that locks into a target, exampled with Shaquille O' Neal making a basket, and military intellegence. I don't believe we are far from such realities.

What are some examples of the digital age? How have they benefited you? What sort of changes would you make to them? What sort of changes would you make that would add to what is available now? What is the best part of these new mediums like "viral" videos, videos that are shared online? How about photos? How has digital technology changed the way you live?

 

[PrettySquareGal]

I got out for a nice walk this evening. I passed the retired couple sitting outside their 1950's ranch on dime store multi-colored folding aluminum chairs. They always look happy and have neighborhood kids visiting. The cows at the farm down the road seemed to be enjoying their grazing and a few came over to see what I was all about. Of course I didn't get too close to the electric fence.

Then I thought, "I should film this cow eating from my cell phone and uploa..." No.

I continued my walk and listened to the crickets. The sun dipped below the tree line.

I think digital and doodads have their place, but there are certain spaces I won't let them enter.

Hope this wasn't too violent for you.

 

[Jovan]

Well, the digital age won't really die down any more than the atomic age has. Both have influenced much in the world and will continue to do so.

 

[Kentucky Blues]

I don't think it'll actually die down, but rather change from "the digital age" to "the way things are." And I think as long as it is used responsibly, and used for good, and people understand that it's not perfect (nothing is), then it truly is something that is pushing us forward that we should embrace. However, like with any kind of technology or resource, there will be those who use it irresponsibly, use it for evil, and people who will expect it to be perfect and probably file lawsuits when their printer runs out of ink earlier than expected, or their call gets dropped, etc. etc.

 

[Valhson]

The digital age is just a step in history. There will be another one to follow it just as there were others before it. The wheel keeps going I guess.

On the bright side, I am noticing a change in values shifting in the people my age and younger (I am 28). I don't know if it is location or if it is the normal cycle of aging, or what, but with all the technology that we grew up with, I see many of the people I am around (engineering types, business, finance, etc) seem to be looking for something our grandparents had. Hence, maybe that is how I stumbled across this site in the first place. I don't say that they are looking for the style of the 30's and 40's (that is me) but more the aurora or mystique about it. They (and I) look for something more than what we have or were given from our parents’ generation. The baby boomers did a lot and there were great advancements but I think the rebellion of youth age left something to be desired on the family front.

We have the technology, we have the quick flick of the button for whatever we want, and everything is at our finger tips. I think we are starting to realize that there is something fundamentally more that is needed and we are missing out. Hence a search.

Now I don’t think for two seconds that the styles will come back for good or that everyone will act with manners. I am not convinced that it was that way in the beginning anyhow. But I do think that as the digital age moves on and the next age comes to be, there is going to be more people searching for the meaning of family and friends. The more disconnected we become the more humans will want to connect with each other. Or maybe I am living in a cave with a group of people that all think the same way. And if that is the case, so be it.

Just my 2 cents

 

[carter]

Originally posted by Valhson
The wheel keeps going I guess.

Too true.

"The wheel in the sky keeps on turning.
I don't know where I'll be tomorrow."
Journey

 

[Kishtu]

Ironically enough what the digital age has done for me - apart from get me my young man, who first got in touch through another historically-influenced message board (but that's another story...) - is make it possible for me to live a vintage lifestyle. Our business is internet-based, our marketing is mostly done on the internet, I source most of our materials on the internet. I use a digital camera, when I can find the damn' lead. I find out about events on the internet, I book train tickets to get there ditto. Himself speaks to his parents in Bermuda, I speak to my best friend in Israel, because of the wonders of the digital age.

But on the other hand, and this is the bit I like, a lot of us here are promoting the values of a non-digitised age in our everyday worlds - old-fashioned "manners", courtesy of a kind that's considered a bit unfashionable these days. Certainly in our house we use technology as a tool to cut corners to give us more time to spend on the things that matter, the things you can't cut corners on - good food, good company, good quality of life. We don't hold with "labour saving devices" for their own sake. I wouldn't entertain a microwave, for instance, because I think the time you save on cooking the food isn't a compensation for what you lose in terms of flavour, texture etc. (That's just my experience.)

I'd like to think that we have a small revolution going on here, in our own little way. Ripples in a pond. The attitudes that we bring to and take from here, we take out into a wider world, and give other people food for thought. It's a quiet revolution, but you know, it might catch on....

 

[Twitch]

We will probably never abandoned the digitalness of things today. If anyone has ever edited files in games or whatnot in an effort to make a custom modification they will know that hexidecimal editing is the essense of breaking down a digital thing. Changing one digit could change the program file subtly or a lot.

Since this is math and math is the foundation of everything we can never leave it behind. Every thing can be broken down digitally.

What the internet provides in informational volume it makes up for with frivilous, time wasting crap like You Tube and other styles of mindless Jackass-type of "entertainment." Picture taking cell phones and web access through them along with all the "information exchange" mostly boils down to a massive boondoggle people playing around. They take a picture of somebody's butt and then pay an additional internet access fee above their home-based PC and send it to cyberspace to get chuckles from similar boneheads. This is just an example but you do have lots of people farting around with celluar devices transmitting crafty text messages and silly images to a large degree that intrudes on their employer's time.

Most are simply wasting time and playing but perhaps the banal novelty aspects will wear off of all these devices.[huh]

As video technology gave up larger and clearer TV screens at lower cost and myriad ways to record it we have dolts hawking the idea that folks should pay $1.99 to watch last week's TV episode of The Beaver Family or whatever, on a 1.5" screen portable device. Amazing.

And of course your 21" PC monitor with its 512MB graphics card is great but you need to play other sillyazzed games on the 1.5 inch screen while you're in line at the bank.

One thing for certain the future will bring things such as communication devices implanted beneath the skin. I'd rather have a chip implanted near my ear though which I can verbally communicate with anyone without fumbling around with hardware.

We have developed certain techno things simply because we can not because they are needed or even wanted. Some of it is akin to our ancestors being able to develop and build a turbine engine in a world where we traveled by ox cart. Cool yeah but no useful purpose.

Just having a phone camera lends cause to most people suddenly thinking, "Hmm. What can I take a picture of?" during their normal workday routine. And there we go off on a retard's tangent. Do you really need to get email from your phone to see which spammer has the cure to the problems of your small penis? That can't wait till you get home? And having music in your domicile, your vehicle, office isn't enough? You need it plugged into your head as you move about on foot? Will you have withdrawal symptoms if you're not bebopping 24/7?

Relaxation is a temporary thing. You can't sit in lawnchairs and listen to the crickets for the rest of your life. Retired folks would rather do something to varying active degrees with or without technology. Vacations and weekends or for relaxing and refreshing the spirit and the body.

Technology will never be running itself like in some sci-fi movie. Hell we do a good enough job at screwing up. Artificail intelligence would have a long way to go to surpass human blunders in the past.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I use what i need to use and pretty much ignore the rest. I find the internet a useful tool for research and tracking down esoteric things I need and can't buy locally, as well as exchanging useful info thru forums such as the Lounge; and i keep in touch with my best friend (who is deaf and can't use the phone) via instant messaging. But that's about it, really -- I don't have any need for the rest of the gadgetry in my own life, so I don't bother with it. I mean, the whole you-tube thing goes right over my head -- small, scratchy, grainy blurry clips? My eyes are bad enough as it is, thanks.

 

[Matt Noir]

So Twitch - is that Borg Cube carrying the full collective? What do I think about the digital age - I think by the very nature of the fact that we are reading this we are all part of the digital age.

Resistance is futile.

 

[Paisley]

TMI!

As for quality of entertainment, during the 50s someone once called TV a vast wasteland.

What I don't like about the digital age is the abandonment of privacy. Not government intrusion, but people taking the time and effort to post the most personal details of their lives online. Of course, this didn't begin with the digital age. In a book that Barbara Walters wrote in 1970, she advises people not to casually talk about marital problems or addictions.

 

[Twitch]

Matt if you want to waste some quality time in the digital age find the 1999 Activision game Star Trek Armada used on ebay and have fun!!!

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Putting things into perspective...

Everyone who has existed on this planet has lived in the "modern era" - that is the time in which they exist, so that time is "just the way it is!" to them! Perhaps some cultures haven't changed much over the centuries, but they have changed somewhat - they've "modernized", if you will.

Point being; we don't give much thought about airplanes flying overhead or cars passing by anymore, we've just grown accustomed to that technology. Who really ever follows a space mission anymore? When Alan Shepard went up, our family was glued to the TV. Space Shuttles and Space Stations are passe' these days.

Telephones, computers, plasma tv, electronic ignition, fuel injection, LCD's, LED's - who is in awe at those regular items? It's because each new technological breakthrough becomes part of the mundane, work-a-day world in which we live - in this "mondern era".

Within a generations all of the toys that have recently come into our view will be just as normal to them - iPods, Bluetooth, - just stepping stones to something bigger (smaller!) and better.

Emerging technology has been part of our lives since the first caveman made a spear - there's plenty more to come, I'm sure.

-dixon cannon

 

[Leading Edge]

More than just a notion . . .

. . . I am not a Bartender . . .

*How to say this without ruffling feathers*
On the basis of the quality and popularity of the threads you have started, I thought you were a Bartender. It seems odd that you are not.

The digital age is just a step in history. There will be another one to follow it just as there were others before it.

Too true.
The neat thing about the Digital Age is that it is a self replicating. Computers that took up whole rooms at one time provided, with direction of course, their own miniaturization. In return, they created new employment sectors, opened up the market with business inconceivable a mere decade ago, contribute significantly to medical breakthroughs especially in the area of rehabilitation, made our transportation safer, etc etc. For which, I am very grateful. Like Twitch, I look forward with great anticipation to the day when we have "things such as communication devices implanted beneath the skin."

Do you believe that for the most part putting this amount of power in the average person's hands is beneficial?

IMO, that question is similar to the one based on what many at one time thought was a foolhardy notion: a participatory democracy where government is in the hands of the governed. Or even worse, where women participate in that voting process.
The core concept of "choice" will have its positive and negative implications whether one is talking about the use of MP3 players to zone out or listen to a professor's lecture or learn a complicated procedure from a doctor who is in another time zone.

I, for one, am extremely grateful to have been around during this time. My generation has witnessed and effected extraordinary changes: the nuclear bomb that ended a war and became a renewable source of energy, the ability to leave this rock and hang out in space, the pacemaker and organ replacements, the commitment to the equality of all regardless, a collective conscious commitment to remedy the conditions that created the Silent Spring, the now retired SST, etc. Add to the list as you will, but also add the ability to connect with people you resonate with as we do here in Fedora Lounge. In that context, the Digital Age is just another one of a multitude of wonders.

My concern is the loss of civility and privacy that seems to have been generated by those wondrous changes. OTOH this just might be a period of adjustment during which the necessary norms of courtesy and civility have to be caught up into the Digital Age. For instance, there are more laws and signs enforcing appropriate cell phone behavior both in private such as driving and in public such as service lines.

Also,

I'd like to think that we have a small revolution going on here, in our own little way. Ripples in a pond. The attitudes that we bring to and take from here, we take out into a wider world, and give other people food for thought. It's a quiet revolution, but you know, it might catch on....

Revolution or evolution: we are indeed "ripples in a pond" in that we represent the civil and courteous deportment critical to the successful globalization. As such, we truly are a "leading edge" o sorry, couldn't resist) to the Tipping Point: that point at which a notion becomes an epidemic consensus of global proportion.