A Digisexual?

I guess you could say I was thankful to see the girlie poster hanging in my son's bedroom when I visited him yesterday. A shy young man, Brady has not shown a great deal of interest in romantic partners of any gender - or at least kept any such interest well hidden from Dad, whose damn business it is none of anyway.

What does concern me is that the objects of Brady's sexist objectification are not, well, really human, but computer generated. Very nicely formed virtual persons, but virtual none the less. Does this mean my son is a digisexual? (Not that there is anything wrong with that.)

Oh, in my younger years, I too experimented with relationships involving alternative media - Burrough's La of ancient Opar in print,  Honey Ryder on the big screen in Dr. No, and TV's Barbara Eden in her little Jeannie costume were all fantasy creatures to be sure. Even the Eerie, ahem, "graphic novels" with their voluptuous, but always nipple-less, heroines were, I thought, pretty hot. But I will say this - I have always known my sexual orientation was analog, no matter how cheap and tawdry the paper constructs where these characters lived.

I can only hope when Brady finds a real girlfriend, she can measure up to Laura Croft and her Flashy ilk. Or at least he will discover that cells may have some advantages to pixels, no matter how well programmed.

Danger of the Digital Age

An email with the subject line "Danger of the Digital Age" sent  12/7/06 7:50 PM goes to show that not every young person is a technology enthusiast...

Hi Doug,

I just finished reading "Dangers and Opportunities: Challenges for Libraries in the Digital Age" and I felt compelled to send you a message. I'm 18 years old, attending  ...  College in  ... Canada. I'm in my first year going into the profession of teaching and majoring in English.

The role of future technology in the classroom scare me. I just finished a required course .... which is about technology integration in the classroom. The textbook describes many things that you talked about in the paper to do with digital backpacks, internet watches, etc. The e-book is my greatest fear. My goal is to teach junior high Language Arts and I have some personal goals in mind to satisfy technological requirements (which are now in the curriculum and known as ICT objectives) but at the same time teach my future students how to be human, as opposed to the walking robots that the textbook describes.  I dream of my classroom as being a place where I can instil my passion for handwriting and reading into the minds of my class.

I remember learning how to handwrite in grade 4, and that was the last I ever heard of it. By junior high my peers were quited in saying that they had forgotten about handwriting, let alone how to handwrite. I want to take time in class at the end of the day to write journals, in response to critical thinking questions, that will be handwritten. If my students need help with their handwriting then I will help them.

I cannot stand being classified into the Internet generation, or the digital generation or whatever they're calling us now. I'm still trying to figure out my own personal ethics towards technology, but it is definitely leaning towards less computers, more books, and no I-pods or cellphones.

In light of this frightening technology evolution I see teaching as the most important profession of now and the future. I have the opportunity to shape young minds into being passionate about good things and to question new tech gadgets and material goods as the best things going. For this reason, I can't wait to start teaching.

What kind of things can I do now to help save writing and books? Any suggestions? Thanks for your time.
 
sincerely,
Jesse ...

Hi Jesse,

Thanks so much for taking the time to write. I am curious how you found my “Dangers and Opportunities” paper – I had a hard time locating it myself! But I am glad you did.

Good luck on your English studies. I was an English major as well and even taught junior high language arts for 5 years, but I have still managed to retain some small degree of respectability and keep a roof over my family’s head. There is hope in your vocational course.

I don’t share your concern, necessarily, about e-books. In fact, I am really looking forward to day of the practical, affordable e-book reader. Perhaps I am not thinking deeply enough, but does one really gain less by reading a fine Margaret Atwood novel on electronic paper rather than on a cellulose page?  We need to be careful not to confuse the substance with the format, despite McLuhan’s admonition that “the medium is the message.” I state a number advantages to a mature e-book reader here.

Having never had good handwriting and finding keyboarding and the word processor indispensable to my own writing tasks, I’m afraid I don’t share your concern about penmanship either. But others will argue that a handwritten piece differs from that composed on a screen. Perhaps. But to me the difference is not as great as that between the writer who has had good instruction in basic composition, sentence structure, vocabulary, style, etc. and the writer who has not. The difference is not as great between the writer who writes often, purposely, and joyfully as the one who does not. Nor is the difference as great between the writer who has found a personal voice and one who has not.

In my observations of the “net generation” students and their use of technology is that the technology allows them to be more, not less human. The cell phones, social networking sites, chats, IMing, and networked game play allow kids to be more, not less social. Certainly not the “walking robots,” you fear. But YES, always question new gadgets. Learn to use the gadgets to accomplish your deeper goals – co-opt them! (Might your students actually listen to you as a podcast?)

I suspect this was not the response for which you were hoping. Happy to continue the conversation. I am going to share your very interesting letter on my blog with your name and school affiliation removed. If you have an objection to that, please let me know.

Thanks for writing and all the very best,

Doug

And your advice to Jesse? 

Generation gap or generation gorge?

It was when my generation, the boomers, began flexing our public voice and political power that the term "generation gap" came into popular use. Our hair styles, political values and even life-views seemed wildly different from those of our parents who had been children during the Great Depression. My shameful insistence on wearing bell-bottom jeans and allowing my hair to touch the collar of my shirt was a bone of contention between my parents and me. Dad was more of an unmerciful teaser about such matters than autocrat, and I remember getting my haircut for my 1970 high school graduation when eventually my mother cried out of frustration over the matter. Coolness was not worth making one's mom weep.

Strangely though, I believe the gap (or gorge) between my son and me is greater than it was between my my father and me, though perhaps less obvious.  Look up Net Generation in the dictionary (oops, make that Wikipedia), and you will find Brady's picture. But he's not made me cry.

Music is one thing which divides us, as it has recent generations. But our difference in music go well beyond simple taste.

While the electric guitars, rock and roll, and drug-referenced lyrics I loved were all off-putting to my dad, we both listened to music in the same way - on LPs (or 45s) or on the AM radio station. There was no disagreement that one purchased music. That one listened to music as it was played by the artist. That one felt blessed when just the right song was played at just the right time when "parking" on a lonely road late at night with one's girl friend. Yes, 'Hey, Jude" or "Close to You" could get you to first base. Our musical experiences, Dad's and mine, in the end, were not vastly different.

My son caught the tail end of CD purchasing. But since he was 16, he's had an iPod and only purchased songs online. Music is not a physical object (my vinyl disk) to him, but a file, endlessly duplicable and transferable. The right song at the right time is his now up to him, not the DJ's. It's the right "mix" that gets the girl in a romantic mood today, I'm guessing. Or he'll go one step beyond making a mix, remixing song parts or combining them with visual images or text or  programming. Music is not an object, but a substance from which objects are made.

 We have different views of music ownership as well. I did not buy "the rights to use an audio recording." Hell, I bought a record - a thing. If I stole it from the store, it was stolen. I had it; the store did not. Intellectual property did not factor in. For my son, music is not something one can hold in one's hand. That can get scratched or melt if left in the back window of the car. The expression "sounds like broken record" doesn't, well, track. The property aspect of music for Brady seems to be more  fluid, less bound by strict rules of ownership. He understands and respects the need for an artist to be compensated for his work. But he's looser about things than I ever would be.

Finally, music seems a more private than public entertainment to him than me. While I listen via air molecules stirred up by speakers, Brady is usually attached to his music through ear buds. I have to think about the tastes and needs of others who may be sharing my audio space; Brady doesn't.

I believe Brady and I see other things quite differently as well - books, movies, work, school, and friendships to name a few. His attitude shaped so much by personal communication technologies. I love the child dearly. I respect him. I believe he is a good person. But he is strange to me.

I'm not sure what the impact of all of this is. Different generations have different values and the world seems to keep on turning. I am just not sure generational differences have ever been so subtle...or so deep.

Of course the gorge between Brady and any sons he may one day have has every chance of being even greater.