The (de)Evolution of Electronics

I'm going to try something different today. A short story. Fiction.


I was inspired last night at dinner with my friend and roommate, Kelly. Both English majors in college, we tend to see the world in stories. And last night, we saw the makings of a potential story. After pondering the situation for a while, we decided two things:

1. The hilarity of the situation, with a little tweaking and imagination could make this a great story.

AND

2. It fits the letter E.

The backstory of this is that we saw a child of about seven dining with his father. We were happily talking away and filling in the happenings of our weekend to each other. In contrast, once seated, they figured out what they wanted off the menu, then the father proceeded to tell his son his schedule for tomorrow. Then, he handed his son his touch screen phone and the kid turned it on, found a video, and watched it through the remainder of dinner. They didn't speak at all after that.

Based on that, here's the story Kelly and I came up with.

The year is 2025. Two girls in their early thirties are sitting at dinner staring off into space. They are not talking to each other. It is obvious they are good friends, however seem to have nothing to say. Maybe they have been together for days on end? Maybe they are just at the lull in their friendship where communication is not important.

But maybe, just maybe, they do not know how to communicate over a meal.

Once they placed their order, a family was seated at the table next to them. Once the family ordered, they began to talk. They each told the family with excitement about their day, the information gathered in school, the stresses of work, what they were doing over the coming days. They even talked about current events, what they had read in the papers, seen on the news, the latest books they were reading. They seemed to have an endless stream of conversation.

This irritated the girls.

“Can you believe this?”, remarked one of them. "When we were kids, we didn't have to talk at dinner. We all had our gadgets and were completely preoccupied. No one had to even look at anyone else.”

“I know. I was just thinking the same thing. How obnoxious it must be to have to think of things to talk about. I was just enjoying how we always sit in silence.”, said the other.

“Oh how I miss the days of oblivion, when mom was on the phone and disregarded everything I said and did because she was too busy to notice. How dad was always checking his email. What happened? How did we get here?”

How they got there is in the last twenty years, technology has taken a hit. Smartphones, devices, and electronics in general had hit the proverbial wall. There wasn't anywhere to go but down. And backwards.

The absence of portable electronics has made it necessary for people to communicate again. As demand rose for more more more in our society, computers had to get bigger again, not smaller. Cell phones that did too much took up too much power and now have to be plugged into the outlet of your car. And the fatter our society as a whole had become, the more impractical touch screens and small buttons became, thus making everything larger in general so we could type with our fat fingers.

Gone are the days of instant access to anything and everything. And it has caused yet another generation gap. The mid-20s to late-30s crowd does not know how to talk to each other, or the people around them. They stare into space, longing for the days of Angry Birds and texting the person across from them. The late-30s to late-50s crowd can't stand not getting that email the second it is sent, and doesn't quite know how to function professionally without knowing what is going on on the other side of the world right now.

What is going on in Hollywood? Who is in rehab? Who is going to jail? Who hooked up on their latest movie set?

We have to wait until we get home to find out. OH HUMANITY!

In contrast, the younger people are talking. They are excited and animated when they speak to each other. They relay stories back and forth. Their stream of thought and communication is constant and seemingly never-ending. They talk with their hands. They talk and talk and talk. And their parents can't figure out where they learned such a thing.

This generation will know how to find information out for themselves. They will know where to look and how to access it, without relying solely on machines to do the work for them. They will know how to spell and punctuate and think. All for on their own accord. Their parents and teachers think them to be geniuses.

The two 30-somethings (and most of their generation) are sad and depressed – they feel they are the ones who truly know you don't know what you got till it's gone. They do not understand this new generation of thinkers. They live lives of silence, unable to communicate their thoughts and feelings into words because they have always had a machine to do it for them.

This is the beginning of something I think I will continue writing. I think there is more to this, more to find, more to write. It's an interesting switch on reality. I do miss the days when I had to wait to get home for a phone call. The days when I didn't panic because I don't have service for an hour inside a cement building.   The days when I didn't jump because my phone rang.  When I could listen to the radio for the entire car ride.

What do you think, fellow bloggers? Can you communicate with your friends without a machine? Are you amazed at the lack of communication in public exhibited around you?

Four-Eyed-Metal-Mouth

When I was in middle school, everyone had glasses and braces. Everyone, that is, except me. I desperately wanted them – both – so desperately, I continually asked to go to the eye doctor and the dentist.

My mom wouldn’t take me to the dentist. I told her my teeth hurt so bad and I thought they were moving. I wanted braces. I wanted the colored rubber bands! Unfortunately, she could see my teeth, see that they weren’t moving, that they were still perfectly straight. Curses!

I imagined that with braces, I would suddenly become a better dresser, more fashionable. I imagined standing in front of my closet, picking out the day’s outfit and the rubber bands to match. This was the late 80s, when fluorescent colors were like, totally in, and fluorescent yellows and greens and blues dominated my wardrobe. How radical would it be to totally have that color in my mouth! The one little detail that I can see now, as I have grown into a (comfortably grayscale) fashion sense, is that less is more. In fact, no fluorescent is more! I also imagined food tasting better. I don’t know why I ever thought metal and rubber in my mouth would make pizza better, but I never claimed to have a normal thought process, now did I?

But she did take me to the eye doctor. I would tell her I couldn’t see the blackboard in school, that I was getting a headache every time I had to try to look at it. Alas, 20/20 vision. Why, god! Why me? Why can’t I just be like everyone else! Foiled again!

I thought all the girls at school that had glasses looked nifty. I thought how amazing it must be to be able to wake up in the morning, get out of the shower, and put something on my face, and see the whole world differently. In my weird little over-active mind, I imagined that with glasses, I could see into people’s souls, see fact from fiction, see all the things my naked brown eyes could not. Glasses, in my head, were the answer to all of life’s problems, and the solution to my limited world.

Let’s fast-forward to eleventh grade. I had a toothache. For real. I called my mom from school crying because it hurt so bad. She didn’t believe me at first (she has an amazing memory). But I think my crying convinced her that maybe I wasn’t making this up. She took me to the dentist and there was something wrong with my perfectly straight teeth. It was time for my wisdom teeth to come out. But, there was a problem. One of them, the one on the bottom left side, was blocked by a bone and wasn’t coming up and out. That was the source of my pain. Tooth vs Bone. And for the moment, the bone was winning.

The solution? Braces! Suddenly, I wasn’t excited about braces anymore. They had to break the bone and put three brackets of braces on my teeth to pull the tooth up at an accelerated rate. Excuse me? Break the bone? I had never had a broken bone in my life! And, I’m a klutz and a tomboy! You want my first broken bone to be forced and on purpose? No friggin’ way!

But, yes way. I went to the orthodontist and he broke my jaw bone. Then he put braces on. With rubber bands. They hurt. Every day, my mouth hurt. I wanted to rip the off. They hurt at night and I couldn’t sleep. They hurt in the day and they hurt when I tried to eat  (which nearly killed me!). I had to basically stop chewing on the left side of my mouth. Screw this braces shit. About a year later, they came off. The bone healed and about a year later, I had my wisdom teeth pulled out. Finally, my mouth was back to normal (perfect) again.

Then, a few years later, in college, I noticed I was really having trouble seeing the board. I went to the eye doctor and guess what! I needed glasses. I was super excited! Finally, I would be able to see what everyone else could see! But it didn’t happen that way. I hated the glasses. I hated them because I could not remember to put them on. I hated them because I had to put them on. I hated them because they didn’t do what I thought glasses would do for me. I couldn’t see into people’s souls. Glasses did not give me the answer to all of life’s questions.

About three years ago, I got another check up on my eyes. They were bothering me, even though I was trying to wear my glasses every day. Bifocals. WHAT! I felt like I was too young for bifocals. I mean, really, aren’t bifocals for grandmothers? I’m not even a mother!

So I wore them. All the time. Even with bifocals, I couldn’t see into the souls of others. But I still wore them every day.

Then I stopped. I didn’t really make a decision or anything, I just stopped wearing them. About two weeks ago, I got a headache, and it would not go away. I took ibuprofen. I drank more coffee. I could not figure out why I had such a horrible headache all the time.

A couple mornings ago on my way to work, I noticed my glasses. They were lying next to my iPod in the car. I picked them up and put them on. Not suddenly, but within an hour or so, my headache was gone. It was pretty amazing. I’ve been wearing them every day since. This is amazing! I can see! And I don’t have a headache! Wow.

What made me think of all this? I went to see Alice in Wonderland and Avatar on Friday. I took my glasses off because I had to wear the 3D glasses, and why on earth would I need two pair? I commented to Kelly, “Are the commercials in 3D? They are a little fuzzy!” She just laughed, said no, and told me to put on my glasses. Once I did that, the commercials were no longer fuzzy! So we made fun of me for a while that I was going to have to wear both pairs of glasses during the movies – as they were both in 3D. And it turns out, I did. I was pretty self-conscious for a while, until I remembered that it is dark and no one can see that I actually have six eyes, that I’m wearing two pairs of glasses! Then I began to wonder how many other people have had to do this. Plenty, I’m sure. I am not the only person who has glasses. Kelly is such a good friend, she even posed for a couple pictures of my retardation. What a trooper.

We had so much fun, the movies were great. And I could see them with no headache!

Yippee!

It’s been a long time since I have wanted something just because everyone else had it. I do wish for things, but they are for me, because I think I may like them. Not because it would make me something I’m not, give me a super power, or any reason as adolescent. As I have reflected on this, realizing that I have indeed gotten what I once wished for, it makes me wonder, do I have a super power? And if I do, may I give it back, please?