Earlier this week my five year old and I took one of our routine trips to the library. While searching the shelves we stumbled across a small section of read-a-long books. Feeling nostalgic I eagerly asked if she wanted to get one, she replied, "Sure, why not?" I proceed to ask which book she would like, while she examines the contents of the bags, she points to an item and asks, "What's that?" To my surprise she was pointing to the hot pink cassette tape located in the package. I burst into laughter at the thought of a child not knowing what a cassette tape was. We proceeded to check out and went about our day; but that solitary moment of the question of the cassette tape resonated in my brain. I remember when I was in high school listening to the radio and making mix tapes, and here is my child, who is bewildered by this apparatus. Is this what it has come to? Has the cassette tape become vintage, antiquated, a thing of the past? Twenty years from now will we find them in our museums?
Today's cyber savvy world is moving at the speed of light. I myself wonder how my generation survived without the use of a DVD player. And now there's Blu-Ray whose picture quality is practically holographic. My first cell phone was a Nokia flip phone with a wood grain, and I didn't get that until I was 19. Fast forward (a mere) 13 years, and you have Smart phones, IPads, IPods, and Notebooks which all essentially perform the same functions, but I know people who own multiple devices, and aren't the least bit smarter for possessing them. If anything I would argue the idea that these high tech gadgets aid in making us less clairvoyant. I personally do not know my own home telephone number, and if it wasn't for the necessity of the internet I wouldn't have a home phone. But is the internet really a necessity? As a child I performed all my book reports with actual books, and encyclopedias, not Wikipedia. Sure the lack of cut and paste made the work tedious, however I learned more in the process.
How is today's young person expected to truly excel when many think TTYL is an actual word? (That's "Talk to you later" for my older readers.) The need for a dictionary has become obsolete thanks to predictive text. As technology increases, our society's intelligence decreases, because we rely on technology to do all the thinking for us. The age of the letter is no more, it has been replaced with texting, and Facebook. No longer is there a need to call someone and ask about their weekend, simply check their Twitter or Instagram. You may even be able to recount the event with Vine, and the newly added InstaCam. Critical thinking, and verbal communication are slowly diminishing, and being replaced with the coldness and callousness of social media, and many are buying into the idea of it all. No amount of Facebook friends, or "Tweethearts" can replace the need for physical and emotional contact. Once that device is turned off many are disconnected from the world, and have to face the fact that they are actually alone, and for many that is a hard truth to swallow, and so they stay online hooked up and plugged in yet simultaneously disconnected from those things that are real.
