Says Virginia Heffernan from the NY Times
These worries started to surface for me last month, when Bruce Sterling, the cyberpunk writer, proposed at the South by Southwest tech conference in Austin that the clearest symbol of poverty is dependence on “connections” like the Internet, Skype and texting. “Poor folk love their cellphones!” he said.
And later:
Anyone with a strong soul or a fat wallet turns his ringer off for good and cultivates private gardens that keep the hectic Web far away.
Note the emphasis is mine. I highly recommend reading the whole piece entitled Why Twitter is a Trap.
I’ve been starting to feel this way about connectivity for a while now. Most notably I’m disturbed by the shakes and withdrawal symptoms I seem to acquire any time I’ve gone for more than 17 minutes without checking my email.
How do we continue to push the envelope of technology and the evolving web without forgetting what it’s like to cut down a tree, plant a garden or cook on an open fire? Maybe what I actually want is the cowboy-like space life of Firefly, but I’m not really sure.
What do you do to avoid ‘connectivity’ as a trap?
