inkbluesky

This is one of the most e-mailed articles at the NYT site this past week-end, Text Generation Gap: U R 2 Old (JK)

Children increasingly rely on personal technological devices like cellphones to define themselves and create social circles apart from their families, changing the way they communicate with their parents.

[ ]…“For kids it has become an identity-shaping and psyche-changing object,” Ms. Turkle said. “No one creates a new technology really understanding how it will be used or how it can change a society.”

[ ]…Mr. Hampton said his daughter Katie recently asked for a BlackBerry so she could better send e-mail to her friends and have unfettered access to the Internet.

“I said no,” he recalled. “It’s not necessary.”

But then again, Mr. Hampton said, he may change his mind. “No one is teaching kids how to use these things,” he said. “But in fairness, adults don’t know how to use them, either.”

I’m at a lost about the constant text messages. The one girl who’s friends just wanted to know what she was doing. Since Tweeter seems to be enjoying such success with twenty to thirty somethings its is not only teens. What do they have to talk about when text friends meet. No experiences have been saved, everyone knows what every one’s been doing. Any exceptional experiences are not given time for reflection, they’re instantly broadcast. Watching the daily near miss by adult cell phone users on the highway tell me adults are not exactly the more mature judges of the appropriate uses of technology. Then there’s the whole concept of communication. A somewhat over estimated panacea for all that troubles our relationships. Maybe we communicate too much at times - phoning, e-mailing, texting some interpersonal issue within an inch of its life. Can there be too much communication. In the classic Inherit the Wind (1960) Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy) remarks during the questioning of one witness that with every advance in technology (the telephone) comes a sacrifice, like privacy. If that play and movie were written today the author could have included the loss of reflection and solitude. Not every event in our lives requires some deep thought, but its just as true that not every little move we make needs to be texted. It becomes another source of mental clutter for the receiver and from reading the accounts of the texters in the article maybe a kind of compulsion.

county road 17

French women ‘are the sexual predators now’

French women are becoming increasingly assertive in their sexual habits, while one-in-five younger French men “has no interest in sex”, according to one of the most comprehensive surveys of the nation’s love lives.

[ ]…Carla Bruni, wife of the French president, has talked publicly about her conquests

[ ]…Female sexual emancipation has been a hot topic in France ever since President Nicolas Sarkozy met Carla Bruni, the Italian model and singer. The couple married last month.

Ms Bruni recently declared monogamy “terribly boring” and spoke in relaxed fashion about her numerous past conquests, including Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton.

“I am a tamer [of men], a cat, an Italian”, she told Le Figaro last year.

“I am faithful… to myself. I am monogamous from time to time but I prefer polygamy and polyandry [its female equivalent].”

At the same time, she reinforced old stereotypes that link status and virility, by reportedly declaring: “I want a man with nuclear power.”

Making for an quite a cultural contrast. Can you imagine Cindy McCain or Michelle Obama saying these things or posing for photos like the one below. John and Barack wouldn’t stand a chance being elected president.

carla bruni gentleman’s quarterly 2008