The iPod Shuffle
May 21st, 2009 | By Rick | Category: From the PastorFrom the Pastor, May 20, 2009
I’ve been thinking a lot about technology these days, and what has put me in this frame of mind has been my acquisition of an iPhone. If you don’t know Apples tag line of “there’s an app for that,” sit down to American Idol and you’ll soon be up to speed. iPhone commercials out-strip even drug commercials on shows where the demographic skews young and hip, a group in which I am an outlier.
Anyway. iPhones are the latest in a line of “smart phones” that combine good old AT&T-style telecommunications with a slew of applications like email, scheduling and note-taking capabilities. In fact, they are very handy gadgets to have: I can stay in touch with email on the go, get audibly reminded before an appointment, and can jot down notes to myself and others. Smart phones are like having an office around wherever you go.
But they also do other things: you can play a mean game of Mahjong sitting in the doctor’s waiting room or surf the web waiting to pick up your daughter at school, and in addition to all of the office stuff, iPhones incorporate iPods as well. And the care and feeding of my iPhone/Pod has consumed much of my spare time in the past few days. With an iPod, you can spend an inordinate amount of time just putting music and album art into the thing, and getting it in sync with your computer. It can become an obsession just as much as surfing the web, collecting stamps or reading every outing in a mystery series. On the up side, I find myself not only “loading up” the iPhone/Pod for road trips, but listening to music more often in coffee shops or while cooking dinner. My son Mike came in when I was washing dishes the other day and, after trying to get my attention, said I was like some blitzed-out teenager with earphones stuck in his head. And this from a guy to whom I’d said the exact same thing not more than a gazillion times.
I wonder: are these technological advancements morally neutral? That is, can they be inherently bad, or is it just the way we (mis)use them? In my former life as a scientist, I would have once answered definitely the latter. But now I wonder: iPods and the internet and even television can be very isolating. You plug in those earphones or flip through that dial and you can be in your own little world, cut-off from family and friends. In addition, they’ve made access to certain things much more handy—the incidence of sexual addiction has skyrocketed, for instance, since the advent of the World Wide Web. Is it the fault of the technology, is there such a thing as or “evil” technology, or is it up to the people who use them to regulate their use?
Some religious folks put it this way: they are tools of the Devil to tempt us to sin, and old Scratch has a lot more to work with these days. In these peoples’ minds, it’s best just to stay away altogether, lest they get hold of you. Sometimes, I think they’re right (not about the Devil but about avoidance): rather than loading up the iPod I could be reading a book or—gasp!—interacting with my family. But then, how could I listen to all those lost Warren Zevon tunes? Decisions, decisions . . .
You use your iPhone to play Mahjong??!! Isn’t that a little like using a Supercomputer to play tic-tac-toe? I was looking for something on the Covenant website to use in a grant application, and I found Rick’s blog page. So, in order to be first at something, I am now (apparently) the first commenter on one of Rick’s blogs!
Besides, I think your comments about iPhones and technology are interesting…but I don’t want to get into a good v. evil thing, so here are a few observations about my experience with my iPhone – mostly positive. I’ve had mine a little longer than you have, so maybe they will help you and other readers (yeah, right!).. In recent months, I finally discoverd texting. Of course, texting has been around for awhile, and the boys and to some extent Jan have been texting for a long time. After I got my iPhone, the boys and Jan started texting me and the next thing you know, I’m texting thing right back. Texting has a real advantage for me…I mostly use it to send very short messages, usually stuff I forgot to tell someone or want to make sure I don’t forget to tell them. Texting is pretty unobtrusive…the receiver of the text message doesn’t have to do anything right away, but the message is right there on their phone and they will read it fairly soon and respond as needed. Again, I won’t be interrupted when I get the response unless I want to be. So as a way to improve family communication efficiency, texting is great. The messages are short and practical…typing (or more appropriately, tapping) on an iPhone is limiting, so we don’t have any real conversations with it.
The “bliltzed out teenager” comment has likewise been directed at me, also from someone (David) whom I had recently said the same thing to. I’ve found the headphone music to be very useful when doing tasks that are somewhat unpleasant or boring…like mowing the lawn, or painting the house. The most wonderful thing to me is the accessibility to tons of music at the iTunes Store. You can get whole albums or just specific songs you want, and usually priced very reasonably. I’ve found that some recordings don’t digitalize very well, and that can be disappointing.
I love my iPod for exactly the same reason: doing stuff like washing dishes, repetitive stuff that don’t require a lot of brains. I also listen to it when I write sermons … what does that tell you?