USA Today – Real vs Virtual

Okay, this is exactly the first time in my life I have bought USA Today, the Newspaper. There are about 100 newspapers I would have preferred, but an assigment is an assignment.

I logged on to USA today the virutal newspaper early this morning, while waiting for it to get light so I could go shovel snow. I recall the headlines were about the Grammies, which interest me not at all. Eventually, I shovelled snow and went to work. On the way home I bought a USA Today. To my shock and surprise, the headlines on the hard copy USA Today were about the “Potomac Primary” and the Mexican economy, subjects far more interesting to me than the Grammies. But then, further shock, when I re-logged on the the USA Today website, the virtual headlines had changed to a Chinese spy case, a Zurich art robbery, and a Blackberry outage.

All the versions of USA Today that I checked had the date February 11, today’s date. Yet over the course of about 12 hours, all were different in content. I have no idea how many times the virtual newspaper changed in this time period.

Obviously, the paper edition of USA today that I had was fixed and would not change. There was still a Grammy article on the front page, but it was not the major item.  The Democratic Primary and the Mexican Economy were. At some point during the day, those two headlines were eclipsed by the Chinese spies and Zurich and the Blackberry outage.

Point to take away, I guess is that with on line papers, at least big ones like USA today  news is fungible. My guess is that people who like this newspaper can keep going back to it all day and getting new news.  Perhaps they even keep track of the number of hits and count them and put the most popular articles up front. Just speculation. That is what I would do.

Another thing I noticed was that on virtually every page of the virtual newspaper there were ads. I didn’t see a single ad on the hard copy until Page 5A which was all one big ad. And of course some of the virtual ads were interactive.

I clicked on some stories and was sent to other virtual pages which had more ads and referred the reader to even more stories. The virtual paper never seemed to end. The actual paper, was obviously quite finite.

Which did I like better? Sorry guys, but I like reading hard copy. Habit I guess. It’s why I still buy books even when I can read them free on line. There is something about holding what you are reading. It’s also why I buy CDs and do not own an IPod. I have a nice stereo system, however, which fills the living room with sound. Somehow, that seems more real to me than an IPod.

I am unquestionably from another generation.

So sue me. 

God’s Waiting Room

The times, they are a changin’

100 years ago, or so, when I was born, there was no internet. There was very little Television, and Radio was the Medium of Choice (not that you had a choice.) I suppose there was also Broadway, and Vaudeville. Sometime in the 1950s television started making it big. I still remember when we got our first Black and White TV, a Stromberg-Carlson. While I was at Penn in the early sixties, I would always find time to watch Laugh-in, the Smothers Brothers, and other really cool shows. Most of the time, however, I didn’t watch television. I hung out with other people and talked.

Fast forward to the present.

My son challenged me to take a course called ”New Media” at Tunxis Community college where he also attends. He is 15 and almost has enough credits for his AA from Tunxis, and has taken a variety of ancient language courses at Trinity as well.

My son is bright, young and hip. He thinks I am totally uncool and, if you will, Media Illiterate. He has tried to get me to play his Wii, and I did. Once. Boring! Zelda? Boring. Mario? Boring.

Huge time wasters. I know people who do not have real lives. They only have virtual lives. One such woman, for example, was called once by my wife to talk about our kids getting together. After a few minutes, the woman was obviously uncomfortable and asked my wife if, instead of calling her and talking on the phone, she could IM her instead.

I think huge numbers of people have completely lost the ability to interact on a personal level, and can only interact with their computers. This is really sad. Imagine if the fondest memory you have is not of Graduation Day, going to parties, driving around with your buddies until dawn but instead of finally getting to the end of Zelda, and rescuing the princess.

Bytheway, my son is NOT one of these people, but could easily become one if we let him. We homeschool, and happily, there are tons of activities for homeschoolers with their peer group. We used to have a homeschool dance every two weeks, and tonight, for example, there is a homeschool twister party.  

Anyway, there are tons of people nowadays who only have virtual lives. Any interpersonal interaction they have is only with others who play the same games. This generation is becoming socially illiterate, and unable to analyze things logically. Because of the game culture, all they can do is relate to a good story, not a logical argument. IQs are falling. Learning FACTS is less important since, after all, you can always look them up on the internet. (Do you really believe that everything on Wikopedia is true?) In short, the country is going to Hell on a Bobsled.

If I had my way, I would remove every computer from every classroom in the country, and teach the basics. If people cannot read or write or do basic math, what do they need a computer for?

God’s Waiting Room, where people go right before they die, used to be poplulated with people talking about their exiting lives and all the wonderful people they knew. Nowadays it is full of people trying to win one last time at Super Mario. 

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