In July 1981, long before the "personal tech device" revolution, I had an interesting interchange with a busload of tourists traveling to Egypt. (I'd just finished competing in an international athletic competition in Israel and had decided to do a side-trip.) When the first major landmark came into view, everyone-- literally everyone--on that bus grabbed a camera and began clicking. The fact that I had no camera and was content "merely" to look at the site--experience the moment--didn't go unnoticed. "Where's your camera?!" "Where's your camera?!" "Where's your camera?!" The chorus of disbelief was loud and insistent. "I don't have a camera, and don't own one," I remember first saying, then practically shouting. "What I do instead is PAY ATTENTION! Try it... PAY ATTENTION!" Well, some of my fellow passengers looked puzzled (even confused) by my imperative, and others semi-stunned. Regardless, no one... not a single person responded. For decades technology creep has been mediating human experience. (Super 8, anyone? Polaroid?) It's been a long slide down this slope. Today, sadly and alarmingly, we're so far gone that our culture's symbol of deadly self-absorption is no longer Narcissus. It is, instead, the garden-variety 13-year-old!
On Dec 8, 2020 Steven Biondolillo wrote :