Posted on February 25th, 2009 at 8:19 pm by sjrodr06 and
Alright…so…in my own personal opinion, digital media is probably the area of art I’m most skilled at. It also happens to be the area in which I’ve had the most practice and training.
That being said I’ve still grown to dislike technology. A year ago I’d say that was blasphemy, but now–it’s such a nuiscance!
I think it was Italy that showed me what a headache technology was. Up until then I couldn’t imagine life without a computer or a cell phone with text messaging or e-mail or facebook. When I was there I would literally go on the computer maybe once a day for no more than a half an hour to quickly check my e-mail unless I had a paper to write. Cell phones were used for the soul purpose of meeting up if a place hadn’t already been established. I didn’t really go on facebook much at all unless I wanted to try and upload pictures, which was a pain since the computers were slow and didn’t have flash which meant uploading photos 5 at a time a half an hour a piece.
Life was good.
I got out more. I spent more time with my friends and host family. I worked with more traditional forms of art and found that I enjoyed them as well. I’d have to say I was 90% less stressed than I am now.
When I came back it took awhile for the reverse culture shock to set in. The (gross) American food didn’t make me to happy, the cold weather and stark buildings didn’t help either–but for the most part I was fine. After awhile though I started to feel like something was not right, I got really depressed, there’s no other word for it.
Now I’m not blaming all of this on technology, but really it hasn’t helped much. I used to love spending hours at a time on the computer doing nothing but play online games and play with photoshop. Now I can’t help but feel like I’m wasting part of my life away. At first I thought my sadness was from not being able to go out and see interesting places like the Duomo or the Uffizi, but I think it’s more basic than that. I’m sad because I feel stuck in one place. Trapped in a computer lab for most of my time here at SLU. It’s the worst when it’s in the library or some other “quiet” place and I’m not allowed to speak, or socialize, or even laugh without someone giving me the stinkeye–like they don’t have a desire to be a part of THIS world anymore.
I’m so torn up about this. On the one hand I love digital media. It’s lots of fun and really useful to me especially since once I get a program I don’t need to constantly spend money on materials unless it’s a new tablet pen or an upgrade. The internet provides so many opportunities and resources that we can easily take advantage of just by going to google—not to mention all the online communities. I even love how courses now are utilizing blog technology–I love blogs!–and on top of that I do have a bit of an anxiety of speaking in class (for fear of looking like a smart ass or something) so I don’t always say what I want to in class. There are so many amazing things you can do on a computer.
But does that really justify spending the majority of your day sitting in front of a computer screen? Do online relationships excuse the neglect of real life relationships? Does the practice and creation of digital media render traditional forms of media obsolete? Blogs are great, amazing, powerful tools, but can they really take the place of a meaningful class discussion in which both the students and professors are involved?
These are some things I ask myself as I struggle to both reclaim my love of technology, yet keep it at a distance.
I think the answer is balance. We need some sort of equilibrium. But in a society such as ours it seems near impossible to get “just enough” of anything.
