I was lunching today with a lady who was gushing at how her 3-year old grandson was using her iPad to watch youtube videos. "Oh, he was so cute," she bubbled, "he would watch a few seconds of one and then move onto another."
I smiled and nodded. (Years ago someone I looked up to told me the best way to handle someone who's insane is to just smile and nod.)
Are you kidding me?! We're proud of our grandson because he can touch the icon for a video? Three years old and he's still shitting his pants, but we're proud of him because he can navigate a web page that's geared to the tykes IQ. Tell me that you've got your child potty trained at 2 and I'm impressed. Tell me that he can sit in his own filth and make the images on your iPad change... you get the smile and nod treatment.
I'm reading an interesting book entitled, "The Shallows: What the Internet is doing to our brains" by Nicholas Carr. It's a well-researched treatise into how our brains are getting softer and softer the more we are exposed to the constantly changing stream of "information" found on the internet. Our attention spans have gotten to the point that English Literature majors in college admit that they cannot read a book. Carr says that these students no longer read from left to right, up to down... they are just scanning a page looking for key words. And get this... these morons believe that what they're doing is gleaning more information than reading would have given them. Smile and nod...
In a few short generations (perhaps quicker... but hey, I'm an optimist) our children will not be able to repair the machines previous generations created. Their little boxes will no longer blink. Water will no longer flow from faucets. The hum of machinery will grind to an exhausted halt and silence will pervade. Our scions will sit quietly in their own filth, staring into the darkness and slowly starve to death. Perhaps a few plucky kids from Papua New Guinea will still be hunting and living off the land... they can carry the gene pool forward.
I'm not impressed that anyone's grandson can push buttons. Show me a 3-year old who can build a computer and I'll be very impressed. Otherwise it's just all smile and nod.
ACC
