Life Without Music

When we received this assignment, we were told that we were expected to fail. This angered me and I immediately thought that I could easily go an entire day without being exposed to the media. I failed.
Last Friday was the day I decided that I was going to avoid all forms of electronical technologies. I woke up at eight and simply turned off my phone. I was home for spring break and sitting at the kitchen table when my mom laughed at me and said, “This is going to be a looong day for you.” Still, I was determined. I baked a cake from scratch, as well as made icing and I even made brownies complete with cookies inside them. Baking is a hobby. It was only ten in the morning when I finished all that. I read magazines, took a nap, walked the dog and tried to stay busy. The thing I found myself itching for most was music. I realized that my life comes with a soundtrack and I really hate silence. Around four, my mother sent me to the nearest country store to pick up some eggs and milk. Being a small country store, I figured I would be safe. However, this is where my day failed. There was a television playing the news in the store and just like that I failed. It wasn’t that I couldn’t stay away from the media, but more like the media can’t stay away from me. Unless you hole yourself up, you are going to constantly be exposed to the media.
According to Dianna Walker’s Washington Post article, “The Longest Day,” my generation is known as what is called “digital natives, or ‘millennials’.” A millennial is anyone what was born between the year 1980 and 2000. This generation was raised to have electronics be the main focus of their lives. Nothing completes the décor of a bedroom better than a computer or lap top. Not only do I one hundred percent relate to this, I feel as if those born before this time can also agree as an outsider looking in. While working out at my local YMCA the day before this project I was in the locker room talking to an elderly woman when a young girl walked in. She was wearing her iPod and playing it very loud. She came in, used the bathroom, washed her hands and left all with her music playing the entire time. Now I see nothing wrong with this situation, but the woman that I was having a conversation with said, “you kids are always plugged in.” Now, I never really thought about it before, but she was right. Internet on our phones, small music playing devices, all of these inventions allow us to be everywhere at once. Take it away for a mere 24 hours and we all seem to lose a very important piece of ourselves, almost like we lost an arm or an eye.
It’s the way the world has evolved and it will only progress from here. Times change as the years progress and the way people perceive life changes as much as the tides. Howard Gardner addresses this issue in his article, “The End of Literacy? Don’t Stop Reading,” which was posted in the Washington Post in February of 2008. “Even in the new digital media, it's essential to be able to read and write fluently and, if you want to capture people's attention, to write well. Of course, what it means to "write well" changes: Virginia Woolf didn't write the same way that Jane Austen did, and Arianna Huffington's blog won't be confused with Walter Lippmann's columns. But the imaginative spheres and real-world needs that all those written words address remain.” Just because things become more electronic does not mean that people are becoming dumb. We are not regressing into illiterate fools who depend on our computers to read out loud for us. Rather, we are becoming people who are learning how to simplify and how to become more efficient in today’s demanding lifestyle. I will agree with my aging acquaintance with whom I met randomly in a dingy locker room. I do miss the aesthetics of a good book or newspaper leaving inky black stains on your fingers.
I tried to make it a full 24 hours. I think I can do it without giving into temptation. However, in order for me to successfully give up all forms of electronic media, I need to hole myself up in my house because unfortunately for me the rest of the world cannot manage to give up electronics and therefore it surrounds me wherever I go. It is unavoidable in today’s world.

Speech vs. Writing

Before the era of computers and super cell phones, there was more of an emphasis on the printed word. Newspapers were a social norm and they were everywhere (my parents had at least 3 newspapers delivered to our house in my elementary/ early middle school years), the US postal service was probably working with a few more handwritten letters, and though libraries were never really known for their financial wealth, I am sure they had more business then they do now. Today everything is electronic. Newspapers, as well as book, can be found on line, and texts, emails, blogs and postings on people’s “pages” have decreased the amount of handwritten letters are sent. Along with this wave of new electronic advances, came a change on how people regarded the English language: both how it was spoken and how it was written.

In an article written by Eric Havelock entitled, “The Greek Legacy,” Havelock discussed the original emergence of print and how it changed the world. In the article he says that writing, “…democratized literacy, or rather made democratization possible” (55). Though reading and writing was still only a skill the elite seemed to uphold, it allowed a bigger group of individuals to learn this skill, thus making the opinions and facts of other available to a larger group. This not only changed the way people communicated, but also how they viewed the world. It allowed opinion and views of other people to be communicated, as well as information to be passed as well as documented for future references at a more convenient and quicker rate. This introduction of print media began to change the way people viewed the world in the aspect of print versus speech. It made people realize a new way of communicating. However, oral record remained the primary use of communication and record keeping (Havelock 57). Though the development of writing let people experience a new way of communicating, people found communicating orally to be more beneficial and convenient. Today, the way people communicate is different in that we rely heavily on textual communication. Newspapers, internet, email, texts re all ways in which we communicate on a daily basis. Even when it comes to communicating orally on a phone, people opt to text a message instead.

However, because of these advances in technology that allow us to communicate in a quicker, more convenient way, some people feel as if it is causing humans to regress literally. Susan Jacoby is one of these people. In an article she wrote in the Washington Post in February 2008, she exclaims her fear that the United States in is danger of losing it’s dignity of cultural “capital” due to a mixture of “anti-intellectualism, anti-rationalism and low expectations.” She states that the literacy level amongst college students has steadily decreased between 1984 and 2004, claiming the reason for this decrease is due to the video and thus a decrease in the ability to hold attention for a long period of time. “The shrinking public attention span fostered by video is closely tied to the erosion of general knowledge (Jacoby 2008). Though I can understand Jacoby’ concern about the lack of reading amongst today’s youth, I feel that it isn’t so much of a lack of literacy, but more of a decrease in time. While reading does provide a person with the opportunity to exercise their imagination and also increase their vocabulary, I also feel that in today’s culture time is scarce and a video allows for entertainment in a shorter amount a time that can also allow the person to do other things at the same time. While Jacoby may argue that the need to multitask just proves her point of a short attention span, I think it really is more of a issue of people becoming more efficient.

Not everyone has the view of doom on the American public’s literacy level. Howard Gardner also had an article in the Washington Post in February of 2008, but he had a more optimistic view on things. He believes that people are not becoming dumber, but they are instead adapting to the times and finding better and more convenient ways to convey information to others. The fact that people are no longer writing letters formally to each other means nothing. Rather, he says, people are morphing literacy into a new form. “Few media are likely to disappear completely due to the fact that there are those people that are too stubborn to change and they like things to stay the way that they are. (Gardner 2008). I agree with Gardner and what he is saying. Just because people do not feel that it is necessary to write out long notes and send them in the mail for the recipient to receive it 4 days later does not mean they are stupid. Rather, they are time efficient. The same goes for the way that people now write over text or even email. As I previously mentioned, the American lifestyle is a very busy one that doesn’t allow for much time. If it is possible to write in short hand that is understood by the recipient, then it doesn’t make the sender (or the receiver) illiterate, but instead speaking in a different language.

Gardner also addresses the possibility of disappearance of material books disappearing and becoming completely electronic (Gardner 2008). Though I can see why this may be a concern for many people, I do not think it should be a huge concern. I know that many libraries are putting their books online and make them available to the general public and that books can be purchased online to be put on an ipod for books (of sorts). However, I don’t think that print media will be disappearing completely. People still express a need for books. People like having the physical book in their hands: to underline, to read again and again, to take places where maybe technology isn’t available (such as a plane or the beach). I think the demand for physical books may always be there, t just may not always be as strong as it used to be.

Works Cited

Crowley, David and Paul Heyer. Communication in History: Technology, Culture, Society, 5th edition. Boston: Pearson, 2007, originally published in 2003. (chapter 7)

Gardner, Howard. "The End of Literacy? Don't Stop Reading." The Washington Post 17 Feb. 2008. 2 Mar. 2008 .

Jacoby, Susan. "The Dumbing of America." The Washington Post 17 Feb. 2008. 2 Mar. 2008 .