A month ago, Conan O'Brien had comedian Pete Holmes on his show, and Holmes touched on something that had been knocking around my mind at the time. The whole segment is pretty good, but I'm referring specifically to the bit he launches into at the 3:50ish mark below:
For those with smartphones, be they iTelephones or otherwise: Do you ever find yourself, like Holmes, pondering a question about some known facet of our our world, mundane or obscure? Or asking it of someone else? If you're like me, you then catch yourself and think, "Why do we ask these questions anymore?!"
Five years ago, being away from your desktop computer, or sans laptop, was excuse enough to pose questions beginning with "What is ..." or "How do you ..." or "Where is ..." Now, though, it seems almost a waste of breathe.
I suppose we're in a transitional period in our digital culture as we become accustomed to having these devices, and thus answers, at our immediate disposal.
Do you think these types of questions will even be uttered 50 years from now? What about 10 years from now? Now THAT'S one answer I can't look up on my smartphone yet.
Ramblings on media issues and trends, technology, higher education, and human culture in the digital era.
1 comment:
Haha! I need to get one of his iTelephones because my scenario is usually more along the lines of, "Yah, hang on... its... Yah, I know I can talk and browse the web on AT&T... I am, its just... loading. There. Oh, wait. The screen turned into a chess board. Hang on, Yah, OK. Right. Ask for a Griddle, Girdles are something else. And queen to A6. Your go."
I'm still betting on direct-to-brain downloads in 2060... It's funny though, not too long ago I was relieved to be on vacation and away from phone-calls and computers. Yet last year, I had definite signs of anxiety in Jamaica when I learned (while checking in) there would no wireless or wired internet for the whole week. How was I supposed to know what the weather was going to be?
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