The length of time first world folk spend on objects with screens must be pretty well documented by now. In the papers, it feels like all I ever read is the “studies have shown” type article about the ambiguous negatives that laptops, ipads, tablets, smart phones, kindles might have on us in the future. And who am I to argue? I’m no traditionalist but I find myself siding with the cranky old broadsheet on this one. There’s just something that itches about all this computer stuff.
Here’s the first one:
In this particular house, for a measly two residents we have (and use often) – two laptops, a desktop computer (with two screens), a ipad, an ipod, two smartphones, a kindle, and an android tablet. These are all used at least once a day, the smartphones being the exception, they are being consulted on all manner of things at roughly an hourly rate.
The boy and I communicate daily via phone, text, email and less regularly on chat. We sort out bills through screens rather than face to face, share events online, diarise appointments on each other’s Evernotes. We take photos of our shopping list (written in whiteboard marker on the fridge) and send the pics to whoever’s doing the shopping that night. It’s a surprise to me that we ever argue about anything since the invention of Google and Wikipaedia and it’s considered a nice, romantic hangout mid-week if we eat dinner together in front of a show on iview.
Seriously.
About our lives on the mini screen, logic and reason might say that there’s nothing to see here. But I can’t help feeling there’s just something not quite right about it either. And that’s enough really to start me complaining.
So for anyone who’s with me, I’ve compiled a list of analogue activities – stuff you can get into, ways you can do it and good times to be had that specifically don’t need recharging. I suppose it’s a close cousin to our earlier post Things for a Lady to do in Melbourne Winter but with this one there are a few rules.
1. No screens
2. No plugs
3. Boys welcome
Stay tuned (except, of course, during your analogue hours) . You may relish the irony of this invitation. And yes, I looked up the definition of ‘irony’ online –
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/what-is-irony-with-examples/
And of course I open the challenge to you, ladies, to offer up anything you think should be on the list. Send in a pic of yourself (taken on your smartphone or forwarded via email, no doubt) trying out anything that might need adding to the Analogue Hours list.
Editor’s note: free postcards to anyone who prints this out to read on paper.
Ladies of Worth 