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The Short of It

Posted by Roger on August 30, 2008
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Think: had we not been born with opposing thumbs, how would we ever send text messages?

Where would so many of us be if our ear buds turned to dust?

   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.

   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.

   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.

   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.

   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.

   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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The Short of It

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