Today Valleywag had an interesting post. You can read it here. It was in response to a NYTimes article discussing how technology is changing American family time. Yep, yet again another story on how big, bad technology is making victims of all the innocent people out there. Bad technology...bad!
But seriously, is there really anything new here? Or is this just so much filler designed to get people to read. We've seen it all too often: a Big, Bold headline with some kind of provocative wording [ "Modern Technology Destroying the Family as we know it"], which sucks us all into reading the first few lines. Then we read about some poor schmucks who are basically dysfunctional in some fashion. The description tells about this dysfunction in exquisite detail; painting a vivid picture of how it would be to be around these goofballs. After reading, we all take a deep breath and say to ourselves "boy, I'm glad I'm not as messed up as those people" or "I feel much better about my life now that I know about them".
But of course that is the entire purpose. From TV shows [Monk et al] to news programs, we all want to feel better about our own lives, and what better way than to examine others who are worse? This is digital voyeurism, coupled with a splash of trashy gossip, nothing more.
Why is this done? To sell papers, ads, programs, whatever. Bottom line: it WORKS. Admit it, you read the article, didn't you? Actually, it doesn't matter if you did or not, as long as you clicked the link to the article. After that, the rest is gravy.
So the article is about technology, but not really. It's really about us.
Good morning!
tom
ps - full disclosure - I love Monk!!!
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