Life at the end of the wire

To the editor:

Stopped at the light at High and Main, on the way to the grocery store, I noted that every single driver going through the intersection, was using a cell phone. At the store, I observed a woman in one aisle talking into a cell phone while yanking down items from the shelf. Later, she was ahead of me in the check-out line, still talking and paying no attention to the cashier. I saw her wheel out her cart, load the items in her minivan, get in and drive off, continuously talking into her phone. Her world obviously had nothing to do with where she was. That afternoon, taking a break from woodworking, I was leaning on the rail outside my shop when I observed a teenager trudge up the alley. He had ear buds in and was looking at and thumbing some device, I couldn't tell if he was texting or playing a video game. Four pairs of eyes observed this example of electronic isolation walking by. My two coon hounds didn't bother to bark at someone who was obviously oblivious, a squirrel under a nearby pine tree stopped digging up a walnut sat up and looked, and myself;  The teenager saw nothing of the environment he was walking through.

More than 45 years ago during one of my repeated returns to the classroom, (a tremendous waste of time and money!) I was taking a course in Mass Media for which a term paper was required. Using the experience I had in the military Public Relations and Information specialties, I wrote the paper, "Life at the End of the Wire." In it, I described how an entire population could be trained to be continuously connected to a media and fed a continuous stream of advertising and political propaganda. Such a population would become more obedient to their "betters," more docile in their reaction to unplanned events, and more predictable in their life style. I also described a social conditioning so that people would feel uncomfortable or incomplete if they were disconnected from the wired system.

The instructor gave me the top grade and complimented the paper as "very imaginative," but strongly disagreed with my conclusions. He wrote, "This can never be because Americans are too individualistic." He was utterly wrong, the paper's premise has become the primary pattern of modern society. Many people spend their entire waking moments connected, some now referred to as "nomads" since it is their connection that is important, not their location. Besides working all day with symbols flashed on a flat screen, people today take care of most or all of their personal business and even their social life by some variety of the electronic network. Some even get some or all of their social pleasures by such means. Other than being today's wireless system, instead of being wired, most people are today connected. As I heard the President of Google say, "Only 10% of the population does not wish to be connected."

This is more than just an astounding social change. The language is changing at a faster rate, becoming more symbolic and simple. Never mind what a "tweet" is, how about a phrase I heard recently, "Google for a fleep."  What the devil does that mean?

The more worrisome is the possible effect on the brain. Long-time users of electronic connectivity report difficulty concentrating on what they are reading when required to deal with any print media beyond one paragraph. Research Neurologists are finding evidence that constant connectivity results in permanent rewiring of the brain networks. Some are even wondering if we may be witnessing an evolutionary change in human brains. I don't know how to put a value on all this, other to say that I am firmly in the 10% group. I prefer the real world, thank you very much!

Sincerely,

C. Patrick Ventrone

Hillsboro