I counted 17 people waiting for the crosstown bus, all on their phones, either talking, texting or emailing. It could have easily been an Apple commercial, waiting for an obscure actor to waltz through pitching iPhone ACDC,or whatever they have warming up in their overpriced bullpen.
I am so perplexed over our acute cyberness. No, that’s not a word, but it should be.
I recently watched, The PBS version of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth…sigh…and back then, everyone read, played cards, took strolls. The women sewed and played piano, the men hunted, drank brandy while tastefully admiring them.
There was something so simple and serene about it all. I just can’t imagine Mr. Darcy texting his staff at Pemberley to expect him in a fortnight come thither, with guests on horseback…please shoot 6 quail, one dozen ducks and a cow in preparation for our imminent arrival. 🙂 I don’t think, to put it in Austenese, he’d be the least bit diverted by cyber life. Wonder what he’d think of Cosco and Fresh Direct…imagine, game in bulk.
Social media has stolen intimacy as far as I’m concerned. Just because you can text and sext any hour of the day or night doesn’t make life cozy. Lonelier and isolated is more like it. Don’t you want to feel the person you’re exchanging those murmurings with? Yeah, I know, you can secretly weigh a thousand pounds and flirt in a Muumuu, but how satisfying is that?
Who said it’s better than nothing?
All I know is, my friend Tabby was having a cyber fling with Felipe, claiming to be a renowned chef cooking for her online every night. She was so smitten, she’d even dress in something slinky she’d slip off after dessert. Turned out he was exaggerating, just a tad. He finally, after taking Jesus Christ as his personal Savior, admitted he was a cook at a penitentiary in love with an inmate named Arizona Phil or Mississippi Bob, I can’t remember which, and no, I haven’t started writing fiction.
Tabby, so turned off by those fancy, phony menus, has been eating rice and beans ever since, washing it down with numerous martinis.
The lesson to be learned? Get the fuck off the phone. Read instead, it’s emotionally safer.
SB
Cyber is immediate and time is money. The cyber world is the business world. They are working tirelessly to make themselves indispensable in our lives.
Austen wrote about the idle rich. Most folk were too exhausted for cards and stroll, couldn’t afford brandy, sewed to avoid being naked, and were transported if caught hunting.
Maybe less has changed than you might think.
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Stop bursting my Austen bubble. I love picturing themselves, strolling, taking a turn, as one of their suitors suggest offering his arm. All I know is, New York is looking more and more like Tokyo. Now we have tall, slender cyber dispensers on many streets to recharge your phone or catch a little cable waiting for a bus. It throws me, truly.
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Yes, I can see where you’re coming from: the pace of change is scary.
Also, despite my lefty-leanings, I can relate to that romantic view of Olde England.
I forgot to tell you that I enjoyed reading your thoughts enormously.
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Thank you Mr. Darcy.
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Susannah, all we have to do is go back to our own child and teen-hoods. Half hour phone calls to friends, which was an astounding amount of phone time. And no robocalls or texting. Gathering at the local soda-shoppe and interacting face to face. These young’ns don’t know what they’re missing.
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Agreed Skinny. It’s all so impersonal and over-the-top. Nothing seems special…more like on an endless assembly line…sigh
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Susannah, both you and Mick make excellent points about Jane Austen’s time. Still, our world has loss something. There seems to be more conversation in this electronic world of ours, but it all seems to lack real intimacy and substance—say nothing of class, manners, and real caring. People miss simpler times and a slower pace and yet overly appreciate modern technology. Where did the balance go, I wonder?
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This is so beautifully put. Life has just gotten too prosaically fast…sigh
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It’s awful!!!
Everyone in that photo resembles a human question mark. Spinal surgeons will be in high demand in the next 20 years.
Recently, some people from the gym I go to friended me on Facebook. They are very chatty on there, however they transform into clams in person. Soon weird.
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Life is becoming like the film Blade Runner. I have no friends on Facebook being the Scrooge of social media.
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You have no idea how lucky you are…really, really lucky.
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Part of it is, I could be reading. That’s another thing cyber life is mortally effecting, the amount of time left over to read since tweeting and friending takes up all the hours of ones day. Like you’re feeding your mind junk food.
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🙂
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