I think the speed of life has changed in the last 20 years. I used to think that this phenomenon only affected modern man, but I'd be willing to bet this sentiment has probably been expressed every few years since cavemen chiseled out pictures on the walls of their dank living quarters.
Tools are supposed to make your live easier, right? Good tools ideally free you up from manual labor to do more productive things with your mind and hands.
But it seems with each new invention, brings new challenges. I think that's truer today than ever before in history.
For example, in the past, especially in the rural south, news traveled slow. Of course that doesn't include gossip, which according to Douglas Adams, the famous British author, travels faster than the speed of light. But I digress.
Most of the news my great grandfather got was when he occasionally went in to town to get a haircut, and to buy 50 pounds of sugar along with some yeast which he used to make moonshine whiskey.
These days, I get the latest news with video from around the world on the phone in my pocket in real time. Is my life any better than my grandfather's? It's hard to say.
What seems to happen, and I think I've written about this before, is that access to information tends to overload memory circuits and other wiring of the brain.
I can remember stories I read in the 5th grade in my Weekly Reader, but I couldn't tell you three things that came across the iPhone news this morning.
Maybe with all this information, our brains will evolve. I can almost picture big bald gnarly heads heads twice as big as they are when makes the evolved humanoids able to process terabytes of information at the speed of light.
However my question remains -- Is/will my life be better if I develop the skills to assimilate all the information coming at me? I seriously think it's doubtful.
Tools are supposed to make your live easier, right? Good tools ideally free you up from manual labor to do more productive things with your mind and hands.
But it seems with each new invention, brings new challenges. I think that's truer today than ever before in history.
For example, in the past, especially in the rural south, news traveled slow. Of course that doesn't include gossip, which according to Douglas Adams, the famous British author, travels faster than the speed of light. But I digress.
Most of the news my great grandfather got was when he occasionally went in to town to get a haircut, and to buy 50 pounds of sugar along with some yeast which he used to make moonshine whiskey.
These days, I get the latest news with video from around the world on the phone in my pocket in real time. Is my life any better than my grandfather's? It's hard to say.
What seems to happen, and I think I've written about this before, is that access to information tends to overload memory circuits and other wiring of the brain.
I can remember stories I read in the 5th grade in my Weekly Reader, but I couldn't tell you three things that came across the iPhone news this morning.
Maybe with all this information, our brains will evolve. I can almost picture big bald gnarly heads heads twice as big as they are when makes the evolved humanoids able to process terabytes of information at the speed of light.
However my question remains -- Is/will my life be better if I develop the skills to assimilate all the information coming at me? I seriously think it's doubtful.
Better? No. I don't think so. Just different. Our ancestors would have not been happy here. But I'll bet if we were thrown at this very moment to their time and place we would not enjoy it much. We are meant for the time in which we were born. That's my humble opinion.
ReplyDeleteI would love to have lived in the past. I think life meant more back then.
ReplyDeleteEverything was maybe a bit harder but people were still happy with less.
Kids could be kids. Laws didn't exist.
People understood who God was.Today the Roman catholics instigate to separate Quebec from Canada, The muslims sit with their infidel Koran,other groups fight to end religion on TV and others fight to keep them. Churches used to stay open for the poor and collected money to feed the poor Today they collect to feed and enrich themsleves with fine furs clothes airplanes houses. at the poor expense.They don't want to lose this finance.Before government fought for mankind today MP's fight to get their own pensions and who cares about the people. Just tell them what they want to hear. and the internet can become a machine from hell as fraud and corruption through hacking prevails.This little machine with the iphones took so many jobs away.Every year we live, it gets harder and harder.No, it was much better before when we had fresh hay, chickens cows horses and lived with the moon and the stars.Man could live a normal life.
Today nothing is normal.
I think it's choice for me! I tend to have a very selective brain anyway so filter out what I don't want to know - but what I don;t want to know isn't the same as my next door neighbour! I think it's great to know about global situations too.
ReplyDeleteTake care
x
Although I love having so much information and breaking news at my fingertips, I also think we've sacrificed a certain natural, peaceful rhythm to life.
ReplyDeleteWith the constant flow of information and the ability to find out anything we want to know with the click of a mouse or touch on an IPad our brains are bound to shrink. There is no need to hold information in your head anymore. There is no need to think anymore. There's an app for that.
ReplyDeleteThere's a good and bad to everything I guess. Sometimes I yearn for a slower time and place, but then I don't want to die from an ear infection either. I guess it's up to us to know when to say when and go on vacation to recharge.
ReplyDelete