Image Borrowed from the Net
Getting in this week’s entry a bit early this morning.
‘Twas purging the inboxes of my various e-mail accounts, which had loaded up with messages left over from the past few years since I bought my latest laptop.
The last one died going on three years ago. Can’t believe it’s been that long already. It’s almost time for a new one, the way I go through them.
Speaking about how time flies, while sifting through the above assortment, saving those noteworthy communiqués or official documents, storing them in respective folders on the external hard drive, I came across a note from LiveJournal.com, on which my first blog resides.
LiveJournal congratulated me for being on their service for 17 years, going all the way back to the year 2000. That’s like an eternity in Internet-speak, but seemingly only like yesterday to me.
Slicker was my Internet handle back then.
My first dealings with the Net go back to 1994, basically at its infancy, as the Web had been around commercially only since around the start of that decade.
A good portion of today’s denizens on Social Media don’t know what life was like before the Internet, having been brought up on it all of their lives. I make jokes about smartphone zombies, those who can’t put down their Internet-connected devices, carrying them always in their hands as if the wireless contraptions were a life-support system.
In a way it is for most of them, which is really sad in my opinion. I’m speaking about the Millennials, a generation of people who were born around the spawn of the Internet, through the time I started my ranting on LiveJournal. However, this anomaly effects those of many from the generations before them as well.
Generation X had their hand-held video games, Walkman or boomboxes with which they never seemed to leave home without them. Now, a large portion of those individuals are included in the smartphone-zombie set, as most of that generation have been brought up on similar electronic devices to occupy their lives and steal away face time with others.
Baby boomers before them are now part of the geriatric set, how that pains me to say. That’s my generation. We had transistor radios as our hand-held devices.
In parochial school, I would have the tiny radio placed inside the inner pocket of my suit-jacket, with the earphone’s wire threaded through the garment’s sleeve to the palm of my hand, which covered the ear to conceal the inserted listening device, so I could keep up with the World Series during class. Got caught once and never saw that radio again.
However, many of the boomers have become addicted to their cellular devices and have also joined the ranks of today’s smartphone zombies. It’s quite an epidemic, or plague for turning ones mind into mush. Even a portion of those from the Silent Generation—born in the mid-1920s through the mid-’40s—are guilty too.
How did we ever live without smartphones, cellular phones, or the Internet? Life was a lot less expedient before them, I can tell you that. We had beepers as a form of instant communication; although, finding a landline was necessary to make the final assessment of what was so urgent, buying time in between.
Now, everything is immediate: no excuses for not being able to find a pay telephone (what in tarnation is that?) to return a call. Electronic mail has virtually replaced the postal service for communications between humans everywhere. Even though it’s a lot more convenient, e-mail has certainly added additional stress to one’s daily well-being.
OK, I’m stepping off my soapbox from another week’s tirade. Who gives a damn, anyway?
As mentioned the last time, Rie Waits and I were working on our holiday duet, which we finished in fine fashion, if I do say so myself. Please allow me to share our hard work with you. Don’t be shy about leaving a comment.
Happy holidays to those who stop in to read my weekly diatribes. Best wishes for a stellar and healthy New Year as well. Thanks for your continued support.
Another good one Mike.
Thanks, Jack. Hope you’re doing fine.