Here\u2019s a newsflash:\u00a0 most of us are addicts now.\u00a0 To our TV\u2019s, to our cellphones, to our computer, to social networks, to everything Digital.\u00a0 If the medium is the message, here\u2019s the message — we got a syringe in our heads with a permanent IV drip.<\/p>\n
My mom used to catch us kids laying around, doing pretty much nothing, complaining how we were bored.\u00a0 Nothing to do, we\u2019d whine.\u00a0 She wasn\u2019t buying it, no way, no sir.\u00a0 She\u2019d shoo our sorry butts off the couch and out the door, where, presumably, the world was waiting for us to get busy, make something of a new day, summon up the neighborhood cronies, go bike riding or play whiffleball.<\/p>\n
Watch a friend who\u2019s visiting and notice how frequently they check their phone for a text message.\u00a0 These are people OUR age.\u00a0 The kids never stop checking.\u00a0 It\u2019s like having video games and Netflix and the high school prom and phone gossip and Google all wrapped up in a candy wrapper.\u00a0 The heroin isn\u2019t listed as an ingredient but believe me, it\u2019s there.\u00a0 We\u2019ve hooked the kids, we\u2019ve hooked ourselves.\u00a0 Our attention spans are shorter than a commercial now.\u00a0 And everything in America is a commercial.\u00a0 Don\u2019t ask me what the answer is.\u00a0 There\u2019s no methadone for this, no 12 step program, no Going Back.\u00a0 Every 30 seconds we need a Google fix, a text message, a Facebook update, a digital affirmation that we\u2019re still on-line, still worthy, still connected.<\/p>\n
Walden Pond now isn\u2019t some remote back-to-the-land escape from the oppression of the Industrial Age, it\u2019s a wilderness where cellphone towers are spotty and cable doesn\u2019t reach and high-speed internet isn\u2019t available.\u00a0 It\u2019s a place where Hi-Fi exists, but Wi-Fi doesn\u2019t.\u00a0 It\u2019s a primitive world where the pace of life is measured, not in Twitters, but in the entire day, in the seasons, in lives moving slowly with time to pause and contemplate.\u00a0 It\u2019s a world that, sadly, no longer exists.\u00a0 Not even down here on the halcyon South End.\u00a0 You don\u2019t believe me, Google it\u2026..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here\u2019s a newsflash:\u00a0 most of us are addicts now.\u00a0 To our TV\u2019s, to our cellphones, to our computer, to social networks, to everything Digital.\u00a0 If the medium is the message, here\u2019s the message — we got a syringe in our heads with a permanent IV drip. My mom used to catch us kids laying around, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[5966,5965],"class_list":["post-17043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings","tag-12-step-program-for-cellphone-addicts","tag-digital-addiction"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17043"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17044,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17043\/revisions\/17044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}