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 Think: had we not been born with opposing thumbs, how would we ever
send text messages?
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Where would so many of us be if our ear buds turned to dust?
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According to a recent survey by JupiterResearch/Ipsos Insight
Wireless, practically no one uses a handheld device to surf the Web.
The numbers are startling. Only 4% use it daily for the Internet and
another 4% use it weekly. Four more percent only use it monthly.
That same number, four percent, use it twice a quarter and five
percent use it once of twice a year. It gets worse. Fifty-eight
percent never use a handheld device, meaning a cell phone or PDA, to
go online and 22% have a cell phone without the ability to go
online. Advertisers must be crying in their collective beer as they
search for answers as to how they might make these devices better
outlets for selling products that probably most people don’t want,
anyway.
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Most people on social network sites contend that the online behavior
they engage in is not public, nor should it be. Oh? If not public,
what is it? As soon as someone posts something, anything, on the
Internet it is automatically public. It is impossible to be
otherwise. Therefore, anyone who complains about being under the
microscope because he or she posts parts of his or her life on a
public site has little to support a contention of privacy. Privacy
is important to me. Clearly, it is another reason for my not joining
or participating openly in any of these sites where my life and
thoughts are there for everyone to see. As a writer, I control what
I want published. I tell you only what I want you to know about me
without you knowing how many friends I have or even those who want
to befriend me. However, I haven’t read anything about the invasion
of privacy on these sites in months. Either Facebook solved it, the
people originally offended no longer care, or, as is often the case
in this jittery world where we live, some new concern came along to
displace it. For the record, Facebook has over 80 million
subscribers. In June it had 123.9 million unique visitors and 45.4
billion page views. The chance for shenanigans is so high it is
impossible to calculate.
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Here is something else to ponder. By all estimates there are now
more than a billion personal computers in the world. More than three
billion people have cell phones. Three billion people! Think of all
the advertising space waiting to annoy all those people. Or, maybe
not. Add to all these numbers a serious estimate that I believe is
too low, that in the next six years we are likely to see another two
billion people with mobile computers, meaning the next generation of
cell phones and the like. These numbers contrast with recent figures
from Nielsen Mobile that contend about 40 million mobile phone
“subscribers” use their phones to go online. These people want to
know the weather, they look for a restaurant, search for sports
scores. It is unclear how long they stay online and if the content
they seek is anything more than a jittery click in time. But maybe
that is all an advertiser seeks – that one small click that says
look Ma you do recognize my ad.
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Twitter demands that anyone sending a message use only 147
characters, or is it 140? No matter, but you got it right – yes,
characters, and not words, to get across his or her message about
“what you are doing.” The twittering class wants everyone to be
“hyper connected” in an effort to downsize “the information
overload” we all face. Talk about small minds. “The Critique of Pure
Reason” by Emanuel Kant is 800 pages long. How many twees, and how
many years, would we need, if we were so inclined, to send Kant’s
monumental. but mostly inaccessible, work to everyone we knew and
those we do not know but want to tease with something that is nearly
incomprehensible? Some fun, huh? Or, as they used to say, it would
be a super way to blow one’s mind in addition to anything else of
our being, we could find to dismantle. Oh, the wisdom gained from
using twitter. Let me count the ways and be thankful that for me
explaining something in detail is not frightening. It is clear that
we have become a jittery, of-the-moment-only people. Importantly,
thinking tiny removes the pressure of having that occasional big
thought. We have now advanced to the world of small minds. How twee.
Oh, remember, with the Hula Hoop, at least you got some exercise.
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Am I the only one who doesn’t understand a word of what Jim Cramer
says on his nightly TV show? Worse, how he says it and presents it.
We have all these “Dummy” books. We could probably make a fortune on
a book called, “Jim Cramer for Dummies.” I am sure Jim will approve.
It is obviously making something out of nothing and there is no
better way of creating a profit than that.
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Here are a few of my recently favorite words culled from campaign
rhetoric. They all have the same “father” or “mother” if that is how
you are so inclined to think. Dissemble. Evade. Hedge. Quibble.
Dither (how I love this word.) Put off. False appearance.
Essentially, meaning the appearance of something that is not.
Perhaps dither defines anyone who is a politician.
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At NBC News for 35 years, Ron Steinman was bureau chief
in Saigon, Hong Kong and London, was a senior producer on Today and wrote
and produced for Sunday Today. At ABC News Productions, he produced
and wrote documentaries for A&E, TLC, Discovery, Lifetime and the
History Channel. He has a Peabody, a National Headliner award, a
National Press Club award, a International Documentary Festival Gold
Camera Award, two American Women in Radio & Television awards and
has been nominated for five Emmy's. He is a partner in
Douglas/Steinman Productions, whose latest documentary, "Luboml: My
Heart Remembers," aired on PBS' WLIW/21 and the History Channel in
Israel, April 29, 2003. He is the author of, "The Soldiers 'Story",
"Women in Vietnam," and most recently, "Inside Television's First
War: A Saigon Journal," University of Missouri Press, 2002. |
