Sunday, January 27, 2013

Everyone has a dream; that's yours.

Lynda Barry, Lynda Barry
Bynda Larry




What to say, what to say
About a woman I listened to that day
A petty rhyme could fill the short time,
to retell her jokes to folks
 and about her encounters with 'deep play'

I specifically enjoyed Lynda's reference to interactions between parents, children, and technology. She commented on how parents devices such as their phones and ipads appear more compelling to look at then their own child's face.  This thought rarely left my mind over the weekend. I journeyed home and found myself "people watching," more specifically seeking out to view this disconnected parent-child interaction in public places.  I, of course, had a thought in the back of my mind of how often people look at their phones, ipad, computers, etc while they are in public, but the way Lynda phrased it startled me (the screen of a phone being more compelling than the child's face). At social events, such as a small concert and ice sculpture viewing, where one would think parents would be totally immersed in play with their children, they were pulling out phones to talk, take pictures, post to some sort of website, etc.  This causes one to contemplate how much the lack of traditional human interaction will effect how the next few generations will be interacting. How will the field of social psychology evolve? What happens to society as technology evolves to mimic human personalities, interactions, etc?  We know that technology has affected the current college-aged population's way of interacting with one another. Technology has created the ability to disconnect one's self from their words and create glowing walls between people's interactions with one another.  Are people moving towards more inspired by a photo on a screen than a physical person, place, or event itself? Are we there now?

These are all questions that Lynda either asked during her speech, or hinted towards in her stories including children and their parent's technologies. 


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