Trafficking's Victims

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It happens every hour

                              of every day

                                                in every country in the world.


And the tears...they may not always show...but they never stop.

*** UPDATE (4/18/12) ***

Exhibit "A" - this Secret Service "Hooker" Scandal...

***

Games

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As I come to the tail end of my twitters and FB sabbatical, I'm finding that some things have changed with respect to my social media diet (and my thoughts on same), but I recognize that my displaced habit simply manifested in new ways.

Namely, I just channeled a lot of energy into Instagram (which was pretty much my only other social media outlet, besides email and blogging). But, life also happened and without constantly looking into my iPhone screen (or laptop or desktop screen), I found I read more, did more, and was present more.

But...the thing is, social media is just part of our landscape today. And I like it. I've made some really good friends via social media and I really wouldn't want to trade that for anything.

Understatement of the year - Twitter is a great source for news. But, it's a constant streaming of "eye-bites" that unless you do a little (or a lot) of digging on your own, can often lead to a really distorted picture of what that piece of "news" is really all about.

One way I've counteracted the loss of Twitter "news" during my day was to subscribe to two newspapers that I now read over breakfast or before going to bed. One is my local paper (the San Antonio Express News) and the other is the New York Times. I'm aware (at least via my folks) of a bias against the Times for being a liberal rag, but I find it excellent. A very wide array of news, entertainment, opinion, that reaches globally. I've enjoyed the heck out of my subscription to date.

I bring up these two reading items to say that one downside I've discovered from my Twitter usage was just that I'd stopped reading as much as I used to, and I hate that. I think there's a lot to be said about the many stories of late that have come out illustrating how much our attention span is impacted by using things like iPads, and iPhones, and other electronic devices to read everything from books, to work documents, to our newspapers. For me, anyway, I do find myself in the middle of a kindle book, or news story, and if I want to look something up, it's just a swipe of the finger to connect me to the internet, which can lead to indiscriminate surfing or gaming, and before I know it, an hour's passed and I haven't returned to the book, or the article, or the whatever.

It's an issue. And apparently, it's changing the way my brain works (and your brain, too!). I'm reading The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains right now, and it's some interesting stuff.

Then, last night, I read this great piece from the Times that realllllly resonated with me. If you've ever found yourself inexplicably drawn for the kajillionth time to a game of Angry Birds or Words with Friends or, my personal favorite, Land Grabbers (don't judge me), it'll probably resonate with you, too. It's called Just One More Game...Angry Birds, Farmville, and Other Hyperaddictive 'Stupid Games'. And, it even has a poker component that I find amusing.

The author, Sam Anderson, makes some great points. One, simply being his description of the iPhone itself: they're "sophisticated game console(s)" that otherwise non-game playing consumers can now carry around and interact with at all hours of the day and night.

Think about people you know on Facebook who you constantly "see" playing Farmville or the Sims. This stuff is addictive, and Anderson tries to find out why.

He writes:

Stupid games, on the other hand, are rarely occasions in themselves. They are designed to push their way through the cracks of other occasions. We play them incidentally, ambivalently, compulsively, almost accidentally. They’re less an activity in our day than a blank space in our day; less a pursuit than a distraction from other pursuits. You glance down to check your calendar and suddenly it’s 40 minutes later and there’s only one level left before you jump to the next stage, so you might as well just launch another bird.

Hmmm. I know the feeling.

The poker component comes in at the tail end of the article, when Anderson spoke to Frank Lantz, the creator of a game (Drop7) that had overtaken Anderson's life. Lantz claimed that poker was the game to which he had the deepest relationship. To him, poker was:

...like a tightrope walk between this transcendently beautiful and cerebral thing that gave you all kinds of opportunities to improve yourself — through study and self-­discipline, making your mind stronger like a muscle — and at the same time it was pure self-destruction. There’s no word for that in English, for a thing that does both of those at the same time. But it’s wonderful.

I can definitely relate to that, too.

Anderson ultimately concludes that 'stupid games' "force us to make a series of interesting choices about what matters, moment to moment, in our lives."

With an iPhone or other mobile device constantly at the ready, it seems to me (from experience) that it's easier than ever to leave 'real life' decisions to later in favor of one more drawing, or one more level, or one more...something in whatever game I find myself then immersed...that, ultimately, really just doesn't matter.

And at what cost? Seems to me that as these devices become more and more prevalent in our society, the people who are better able to compartmentalize and detach will be the purveyors (of what?) to those that can't.

At any rate, just some food for thought. One thing that's been a blast in helping me to 'detach' is my daily trail chronicle, which I've been keeping a record of over on Instagram.

This is from today (I'm never gonna be able to get a job as a camera person in Hollywood, that's fer dang sure. Back story, over the past couple of days, I've come across a nest with chicken-size eggs. Before Tuesday, the nest has always been unattended, and what started out as four eggs, turned into seven. Maybe she's now sitting on babies?):

*** 

Technology

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I sent 2 tweets and answered three emails before I rolled out of bed this morning...before the alarm even went off, actually.  Squinting my eyes from the glare of the iPad, I continued scrolling through my timeline...and ran across this Wall Street Journal Article.  Just a few days ago, I'd read another interesting article about cyberspace (when you're dead) in the New York Times (both of which I believe were tweeted by the ever-wonderful @nikiblack).

I spend a lot of time online.  For work and for fun, but especially when I'm playing poker.  While playing, I generally have twitter up in the background, music playing through iTunes, an iPad for email, and my BlackBerry for calls.  I generally don't have the TV on, but...sometimes I do.  That is a lot of distraction and a lot of multi-tasking (which, of course, is detrimental to playing solid poker).  And when I'm not in front of a computer, I'm never without access because I'm never without my BlackBerry. 

While in Germany for 16 days, we had very little access to the internet and because I was unsure of the roaming costs, I completely shut down my BlackBerry. In addition to all the sights I was able to see while there, I read four books, played a bunch of charades, enjoyed a great family viewing of The Sound of Music, and just generally reconnected with reality and the truly meaningful loves in my life.

I find myself questioning technology and these articles that recommend "detoxing" or/and logging off.  On one hand, I recognize the all-consuming time suck that such technology can be.  I can spend an hour going off on a Google search tangent or playing on YouTube.  And Lord knows I know how much of an effort (read - time waste) it can be to create an award winning State video (I Haz Chips, anyone?). 

On the other hand, this technology is a part of our lives.  It's not going anywhere.  Indeed, 8% of internet users are Twitter users; and, as intimated in this Pew report, Twitter usage has risen 18% between 2008 through 2010.  I guarantee that number will rise in the coming years.  (For me, twitter is where I spend the vast majority of my online time.  While I have a FB account, I very rarely post things on it and very rarely use it to keep up with friends - I do that in "real" life...and via twitter - ack!)

I certainly understand the need to stay grounded in reality by logging off and going tech-free.  At the same time, this technology IS reality in that it is and has become a part of our every day lives.  While one could log-off and go all luddite, the fact remains that, for most of us (at least everyone I know), technology is necessary.  Sure, you could send snail mail letters and/or conduct business solely in person or on a rotary dial telephone...but, who would your clients be?  And how would you get them?  And what exactly would your business be?

Do you see my point? 

And every technology we have now will either be obsolete or completely different for our children. I can't even begin to imagine what things will look like twenty years from now.

I guess my issue is the feeling that "logging-off" or "detoxing" from technology kind of misses the point.  It's kind of like drugs or alcohol...if you have to "detox" from it, then that implies there's a problem or that you're using it wrong.  Like alcohol (and drugs), all this technology is not going anywhere.  Since that's the case, rather than eschewing what is reality, find the middle ground for you.

There's always something to work on, isn't there?  Then again, maybe I'm just an addict.  What do you think (rhetorical question - what do you think about technology, detoxing, etc.  As always, I'm interested in your thoughts)?  Don't answer that, Mom.

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