Well, I hope your presentation on Generation Y - Hotwired left the audience sockless ( i.e. their socks having been collectively knocked off by it ).
Your treatment of the subject certainly added to my understanding and appreciation of some of the deeper ramifications of digital technology.
You may not have run into this recent documentary on another aspect of this same overall topic, perhaps. It appeared on TVO ( our equivalent to PBS ) in mid-October and I had a look at it shortly thereafter. It was quite thought-provoking. I won't summarise it for you but just include some of the online copy that accompanied it
How does digital technology and social media impact the way we experience our lives? In a world of ubiquitous smartphones, tablets and illuminated screens where billions of personal images have been shared online, our collective desire to share our lives on social networks may have unintended consequences that we are only just beginning to understand. "Life After Digital" examines the end of privacy, cyberbullying, digital revenge and a new generation of facial recognition technologies that effectively turn the face of every social media user into a barcode.
Life After Digital is a one-hour documentary about the ways digital technology has changed human life in the last few years. Directed by Marc de Guerre, Life After Digital has its world broadcast premiere on TVO, Wednesday, October 15th at 9 pm and 12 midnight (EST).
Okay, I have to go back and address an egregious oversight on my part. A few blogs ago when I was lamenting the " Christmas Creep" I was on about how I figured that your Thanksgiving, coming when it does, would shield you from some of the rapacious commercialism of the Christmas season.
Well, is my face red...!!
I completely and utterly forgot about what also comes hot on the tail of your thanksgiving Thursday...
I've gotten used to seeing the news clips from south of the border about shopping on this particular day that make the running of the bulls look positively tame by comparison. I had, I confess, been smugly inclined in the past to simply tell
myself that this is solely an American retailing phenomenon that takes place at the beginning of that stone-cold crazy few weeks between the last Thursday in November and Boxing Day when they transform themselves from stuffing stalkers to stocking stuffers. We polite and civil Canucks don't get caught up in such unbridled and shameless frenzies of greed and commercialism. Such crass shenanigans just don't happen here in The True North Strong and Free.
Well, like the little girl said in Poltergeist, way back in 1982,
( Yeeoow, has it been that long?)
They're here ...........
Black Friday hype is simply everywhere up here this year. I always work at the keyboard with a radio playing or a hockey game on in the next room that I can listen to. Almost every commercial break in the last week has been crammed with Black Friday this and Black Friday that huckstering. What is it about the concept of a "sale" that sets some folks alight? Why is it so impossible for so many to pass up on what merchandisers tell them is " a real deal" What ever it is, it's spores have blanketed my neck of the woods this week. " Hot deals" " insane savings " and " unheard of discounts " have become instant mantras.
Even at the gym/swimming pool where my LSBH and I do our fish impersonations four times a week there was a big whiteboard easel plonked at the entrance to the little tuck shop emblazoned with a " Black Friday Specials " list of stuff. WTF!
Anyhow, I'm hittin' the brakes before I lapse into a full-monty rant here since it's like kvetching about the weather or death or taxes. Besides, even though I've already let the tongue loose for a few lines of humbugging I'm reminded, in spirit at least, of Mark Twain's counsel:
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
Glad to hear that you got to see some of your offspring this Thanksgiving, messy driving conditions notwithstanding. There have been so many times over the years that I've found myself driving treacherous winter roads to make family get-togethers and thinking just how super-cool a Star-Trek style transporter would be.
Your musing about any Canadian sayings or phrases that Americans wouldn't understand has set me to thinking. I don't really expect there would be many, or perhaps even any just because we share so much in the way of cultural and linguistic backgrounds. Let me get back to ya on that one.
On that note, I'm bidding adieu .
Don
All images sourced from Google Images
Fig. 1 - tvo.org
Fig. 2 - gizmodo.com
Fig. 3 - www. reuters.com
Fig. 4 - pyxurz.blogspot.com
Fig. 5 - www.paranormalpeopleonline.com
Fig. 6 - abearsrant.com
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