Digital dreams?
I’ve noticed that for most people in my age and socioeconomic cohort (basically, upper-middle-class college kids and early-20-somethings) their laptop is easily their most treasured possession. I imagine it occupies the place held by the stereo for kids coming of age in earlier generations.
When I was in college, the first thing everyone did when moving into their room at the start of a semester, before putting sheets on their bed, before putting away their clothes, before plugging in a lamp, was set up their laptop. Similarly, at the end of the year, the very last item to be packed away was invariably the computer.
For most kids, their laptop has become the catch-all indispensable device for living. A person in their 40s might read a newspaper to get the news, organize photos in an album or scrapbook, watch television shows on cable, and movies on DVD, listen to music on the radio or a CD player, and only sit down at their computer to get work done. For a 20-year old, all those activities are handled with their laptop.
Is it any wonder, then, that we take our laptops to bed with us? That we consider internet connectivity a utility on par with water and electricity? That we define ourselves through our files? That a dead hard drive is a disaster equivalent to your room burning down?
I’m in no position to say whether this represents an unhealthy dependence on, or obsession with technology, but I do think kids in my generation, who grew up with computers, relate to them as more than just tools.
You’re right. Older generations came up without personal computers and operate differently. They aren’t as adept with them and remember when computers were more experimental and undependable. The oldsters are reluctant to depend so heavily on computers.
Where is this leading us? So long as a person can satisfy entry barriers (capital for a computer, the means to connect to the internet and protect hardware and files), access to information appears to be more and more egalitarian and important every day.
Yes, totalitarian regimes maintain a monopoly on weapons and violence, but at bottom, they depend on control of information. Personal computers and the internet undermine this. Oh brave new world.
Is there a qualitative difference to the younger generation’s use of computers? Will they themselves be altered? It’s easy to think you’re seeing something new and significant and be disapointed later to learn that human nature remains unchanged and a fashion has come and gone.
I’m inclined to agree with you here Brendan, most of us in our generation do have an attachment to our laptops that borders on the unhealthy. Unfortunately, they tend to substitute for social interaction, particularly when Facebook is added into the equation, and their portability is a double-edged sword because your computer use becomes so open ended. It seems pretty clear to me that laptop computers have changed the way people interface with the world for the worse, primarily because computer use is generally an isolating activity. Unlike, say, television watching, computer use may increase the intellectual quotient of the average individual, but it is by no means a social activity the way TV might be or might have been in the past. I have mixed feelings about my laptop as well. The power supply appears to have shorted out recently, which I regard as a mixed blessing–it’s almost freeing not to be glued to it for a few days. Anyway, I hope your travels are going well, and I hope you’re not feeling too isolated. Keep writing. Ramy