The Book "THe Digital Divide"

Just finished another amazing book,"the digital divide" which covered a plethora of subjects relating to social networking, the media, and the internet in general.Some very interesting points were made and some so right on in theory that I thought I was writing the pieces myself. I find it truly rare these days to find a young person who wither doesn't have their head buried in ether a cell phone or some sort of media device entrenched in it's self importance and relevance in their life at that particular time and place. The oft used example is watching a family of 4 at the dinner table at a local restaraunt each with their nose in their phones and not one conversation could be seen or heard at all, except when then server came by to take their order, then they all went back to what they were doing. So much for family values and quality time, we all do it but we try to catch ourselves and stop the use of phones at the table and carry on a good conversation instead.  So much of this good read brought to light the ideas of Facebook and the Narcissistic behavior it has created, I mean really we do a self portrait of who we want to be and what and how we want the world to see us, we put our best foot forward with our best pictures and our best stories and really want to portray our best side. How cool we are with our trips and musical tastes, not to mention the 537 friends some people tend to have, even if they haven't seen or spoken to them in 25 years after high school, but chummy and giving a shit today, when 25 years ago they didnt even like each other let alone talk to each other...funny shit. Then we have the whole alone and lonely phenomenon, where the average teen chooses to text 100 plus times  daily, thus never truly being alone, if even for a text message, they are in tuned with the outside world via cell phone and instant messaging and never have to be alone with themselves or their horrible solitude and thoughts.  Another interesting issue is the loneliness aspect of our society, nobody wants to be bored by being alone, the text, call do whatever they can to have somebody in the room with them  either electronically or metaphysically, they are afraid to be solo with themselves, thus calling alone time, boredom, instead of calling it what it truly is
'fear" ,or the inability to be alone and use that time to collect their deepest thoughts and solutions to a given problem or thought process. As I always told my kids, "if you're bored, you are boring" very simple there are too many options out there that we can amuse, entertain,self govern our time in a positive way, heaven forfend an individual pick up a book or even a dictionary or encyclopedia and look something up that you heard but didn't understand, I do this all of the time and with the amount of reading I do can usually check my personal spellings or meanings of a word to superior help immediately,sometimes I'm write , and sometimes I'm off the mark but the point is that opening the mind to things we like , love, know or don't know means just that ,opening up the process for learning and not just doing that which we are comfortable doing. Reading is an amazing way to educate yourself, increase your knowledge on many things and your vocabulary and ability to spell goes up exponentially when you crack open a book!

The old addage of Reading id fundamental is a long lost art that truly has been buried under the pages of technology, instant gratification and fast food minds have taken over the world of knowledge and learning, if it's not  something that is TMZ quality then most don't want to dig deeper and expand the mind with a little effort. I for one am blessed with a sharp mind and one who is always trying to sharpen my cerebral pencil of thought processes, reading helps me to achieve this goal and helps me to learn more each day by listening either with the written word, or the amazing skills of being a listener to the spoken word. So off to my next book and thinking it might be the Steve Jobs story and really look forward to that great story! Goodnight and Good Times!