Gadget Overload

I was recently making my list of items to pack for the beach.  Among the standard beach towels, sunscreen, bathing suits and clothing were the following items:

* my iPod
* Jake's iPod
* camera
* camera batteries
* fan (we need it for white noise while we sleep)
* GPS for car
* my cell phone
* Greg's cell phone
* Garmin Forerunner (runner's watch)
* baby monitor
* Kindle
* cell phone charger
* iPod, Garmin and Kindle charger
* Sonicare toothbrushes for boys
* Sonicare toothbrushes for Greg and me
* toothbrush chargers (just in case)
* DVD's (We are not taking the portable DVD player for the car, because it makes Jacob car sick, and I don't want to run that risk with Andrew as well...especially not in our new car!)
* CD's
* Jake's DS and games

Good grief!  That's 19 items dedicated solely to the electronics category!  It just made me think about beach vacations before the technological age.  We certainly didn't have all this stuff when I was a kid going on vacation.  I don't remember my grandmother bringing 300 books all compacted into a tiny reading device, or my mom bringing an electric toothbrush.  When my aunt Kathy went for a run, she didn't even have a Walkman, let alone an iPod and GPS enabled running watch to calculate her pace, distance, and calories burned. Forget about a digital camera, with instant review and delete features, which allows you to share 500 of your favorite beach pictures with friends on Facebook before you even start the drive home.  We were amazed with the Polaroid cameras, which ejected little square snap shots  that you had to shake dry while the image magically appeared before your eyes!   We didn't have a GPS to talk us through every turn en route to our rental home.  We didn't even have Map Quest to print out turn by turn directions.  Instead we used a real map and stopped at gas stations to ask for directions!  We didn't have an entire extended family of cell phones all connected to the Verzion network for free, unlimited calling and texting, so we could check-in with each other every inch of the way, forwarding information on traffic, weather, or just dumb correspondence to beat the traveling boredom.  In fact, I remember driving to the beach with my friend's family when I was a senior in high school.  My friends and I drove in one car, and her parents and sister drove in another.  We took walkie talkies to communicate to each other in case of emergency!  Heck, at one point in my life we didn't even have a car with air conditioning!  I remember driving to the beach with my mom one year when I was probably 8 or 9.  It was so stinkin' hot  and we were stuck in traffic somewhere in Maryland.  My mom took her shirt off and drove most of the way in her bra!  My mom has never been a modest person, and in heat like that, any remaining inkling of modesty had completely evaporated!

In a lot of ways, technology has improved and enhanced our lives.  We are more connected with friends.  We keep in touch with people who we might not stay connected to otherwise.  We don't have to try to unfold and refold big bulky maps, locate our destination and read the routes while maneuvering a large vehicle full of screaming kids (hey, some things never change!) through unfamiliar city traffic.  We don't have to worry about staying within eyesight of each other on the road, because we can call or text at any time.  We don't waste tons of money developing film to find only one or two decent shots in the whole roll.  We don't have to suffer through taking turns with control of the radio, listening to each other's vastly different tastes in music. With satellite radio, we don't even have to scan through the channels when we lose signal anymore!  We don't have to lug along 4 or 5 big novels to keep us entertained while we soak in the sun.  Our teeth are whiter and healthier, and if the weather is bad, we are not stuck at the mercy of local television programming, but can rather watch any movie we want, any time we want.   How wonderful things have become!

But sometimes I wonder if it really is all that wonderful.  All this technology makes our lives easier...until you are trying to set up something unfamiliar, or worse something you thought was familiar stops working.  Is there anything more frustrating than trying to figure out how to fix a computer problem?  Is there anything more confusing that trying to start up a new gadget by reading an instruction manual seemingly written in Swahili?  Isn't there something to be said for knowing how to read a map, and learning the value of tolerance by listening to your brother's hokey Sesame Street tunes?  Isn't it good for us to sometimes completely unplug ourselves?  I mean, no cell phone, no Internet.  It is a vacation, after all - a time to get away from your normal life, a time to recharge your internal batteries, to disconnect from the stresses of every day life.  How can you do that when work is calling you and people can find you (quite literally) at any given moment?  I have heard it said that this age of complete connection has in fact disconnected us from one another.  I believe that is at least partially true.  I think it is especially true for the younger generations.  When we are all sitting in the living room of our beach house, and my teenage cousins are on their laptops, texting friends back home or listening to their iPods, how are they actually spending quality time with family?  All of this technology creates, in a way, a generation of people who are not fully present with one another, but instead connected to media.  When they need support  and comfort in their lives, can they really meet those needs via computer interactions?  Technology is a great means to stay connected, but I think that we need to make sure our children (and ourselves for that matter) are also cultivating true real-life relationships, ones with living, breathing bodies which can hold and comfort one another, laugh and play together, as both children and adults.

Don't get me wrong.  I am a media junkie on some level myself.  I check my Facebook account every day.  I check my email several times a day.  I blog and read other people's blogs.  If I want information, I look online.  I send frequent text messages and I love my iPod and my runner's watch.  I'm just as guilty as the next person.  I'm not denying it.  I think the difference for my generation is that we still remember  a time when technology was not as available, so we appreciate the value in real face to face relationships.  I worry about the generation of teenagers and younger children.  Quite honestly, I worry about my own generation at times too.  I think a gadget overload can do much more harm than just weighing down your suitcase.  I fully recommend unplugging, at least a little, every once in a while.