Sunday, September 20, 2020

THE DIGITAL WORLD

There are advantages and disadvantages to this digital world in which we live today. On the one hand, the Internet gives us all the opportunity to stay in touch in ways that would have been unthinkable in the past. Where would we be without the (double-edged!) blessings of email, FaceTime, Zoom, and so on, which allow us to stay in touch even in times of pandemic-induced isolation?  It's not the same, of course. What we see instead of a real person is a complex assemblage of thousands--millions?--or pixels. What we hear is not a real voice, but that has been digitalized and reconstituted as something approximate to the one we know. 

Case in point: our daughter, Sarah, left Los Angeles a couple of days ago on a flight to the Netherlands, to visit her friend there. The following morning, at seven o-clock already, we had an audio-visual conversation with her as the two of them sat drinking beer at a sidewalk cafe in Leiden. I clearly remember the days, not so long ago, when even a telephone call to family on the other side of the Atlantic involved an operator, false starts, endless waits for an open connection and, when connected, fuzzy voices and a lot of confused shouting. It was also expensive. You worried about the minutes as they passed. Now family is just a click away, with immediate connection, clear visuals and voices--all at no cost whatsoever. It was such a great pleasure to know that Sarah's flight had been an easy one and to see her happily enjoying the new environment several thousand miles away.

On the other hand... I just spent an hour "unsubscribing" from the mounting blizzard of unsolicited emails I have been receiving. I should, I suppose, have made a habit of unsubscribing a long while ago. In recent days, thanks to my neglect, I have been snowed under with 200, 250, 300 of these things a day. Two or three of them are personal. The rest are sales pitches or (mostly) political requests for money. The need is legitimate. It's a sad thing that American political life is dependent entirely on the flow of case, but that's the reality. And I understand the need. Our situation is now so dire, the need for change so urgent, the danger so great, the candidates are obliged to be unceasing in their barrage of requests for help.

Still, to sit every day, several times a day, and go through it all, and delete most of it, is a chore that has become increasingly... well, not burdensome exactly. Irksome, perhaps, is the word. Something of an unwelcome imposition. So I sat down yesterday morning and must have unsubscribed from at least 50 different sources. It's one of the penalties one pays, I suppose, for the convenient miracle of instantaneous communications.

And this morning... only 81 emails on awakening. More work to be done!

2 comments:

Marie Smith said...

I clean out the mailbox regularly. If I stay on top of it, it’s not so bad. Otherwise it can take hours.

Dr Mad Fish said...

I have also been unsubscribing and pulling back - even on causes I think are very worthwhile. I agree it is sad that political parties need us to fund them. It also feels pointless donating the meagre amounts of money I can afford, given the vast sums of money being donated by those standing on the opposite side of the equation.