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Does not Compute

2/24/2012

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Recently, upon reading a presentation on corporate retention strategies broken down by generation, I IM'd my co-worker, "I don't even know what generation I'm in."  

"X'er," she replied, too soon. She is five years my junior.  A remarkably accomplished, poised, insightful and wildly talented 25, but still, 25.   Indignant, I retreated to Wikipedia.  It seems the dates of Generation X are in question, but many accounts put its end around 1980-82.  So it is fair to say I'm in.  At first blush, I don't necessarily identify, from a generational perspective, with people 20 years ahead of me.  But then I said to my co-worker, "I didn't get my first cell phone until college.  I had email at the end of high school, but didn't use the Internet much otherwise."  I asked her if she could remember a time before instant communication.  She couldn't.  

I work in a technologically advanced community. It's not that I am ignorant of technological advances in communication.  But too often I hear myself, in a voice that sounds much older than my own, railing against constant contact. I am on Facebook, and though I can appreciate its benefits, I can't bear the thought of reading one more inane post detailing someone's housecleaning to-do list or trip to Applebee's. (I know, I have a navel-gazing blog.  I get it; it's ironic).  I have, for that reason, avoided Twitter.  I don't need to know that level of detail or frequency about anyone I know, let alone celebrities or politicians I don't know.   

My family and friends rib me about never having my phone on my person.  It's a real argument Daniel and I have had repeatedly.  It makes him anxious to know that I have the kids with me, sometimes hundreds of miles away from him, and am often unreachable.  What if something happens, he reasons, and I understand his point.  But I prickle at the idea that I am to be accessible to anyone who wants to get me at any time just because it's become normal.  I want to live my life, look around, and not just long enough to take a photo to post online.  I don't want my kids to remember their mommy as always having her head down, thumbs flying. 

Daniel recently received an iPad, and Mirabella occasionally plays games on it.  It's not that I think the games are bad.  I know many are educational.  But she is four.  I see infinitely more value in her actually coloring than in coloring on an iPad.  I want her to run around, not manipulate an avatar on a screen.  I want to encourage her love for board games and wooden puzzles, for pages she can turn and touch and smell.  

I do not shun technology. My preferred method of communication is e-mail.  I don't really find that odd, because I'm a writer anyway, and also because I have little time when I am not driving or at work when I am able to focus on one thing in a quiet location.  But I do not text much and can't understand conducting long conversations via text. Though clearly I can see the appeal of chronicling a life in some form online, for me, it only goes so far. In the last three weeks alone, I have learned of three engagements on Facebook.  One was a co-worker, but I am in one of the other weddings, and the third is for a close family member.  I knew they were coming, but I guess I was looking forward to the calls, the excitement, the stories.  Does it make me old-fashioned?  Maybe I just want to feel important-- that  I matter enough that friends would think to share their news specifically with me? It's selfish, I guess, and maybe that's all it is.  But I can't shake it.  

Yesterday I needed to reach a (young) co-worker who sits in a different location and I emailed her.  Repeatedly.  Sheepishly, I turned to IM.  It occurs to me that you have to change to grow.  I know I need to speak to others in their language-- and in their preferred mode of communication-- if I want to get through to them. Am I running the risk of falling behind?  Am I already there?  And am I doing my kids a disservice by tempering the electronics? Or maybe my gut is right-- though there will be plenty of time for them to look at screens as they grow-- that the time and space to run and play is what's really threatened.

1 Comment
Connie
1/30/2013 11:40:00 pm

I just read this. For the first time. I loved it, and I agree.

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    Christina | Virginia Beach
    Psuedo Yankee, city-loving former working mom of four finds herself home with the kids and transplanted to the somewhat Southern suburbs. Finding her feet while still attempting to harness the power of the passion of her youth for useful good.

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