Do You Know Your Frenemy?

Hey hey there party people! Anna here. This week, I've handed the task of posting on my blog to my friend Jordyn, who has her own blog about music. Check it out here! Enjoy her post!


"Hi there! My name is Jordyn, and I am guest blogging for my friend today. Since her blog focus is interpersonal relationships (and today is my birthday), I figured I'd say something about some of the people that make birthdays the best: your friends. I spend a lot of time with my friends; we like to go out, hang out, and just be together. But according to one of the surveys I took in 17 Magazine, there at many different types of friends -- and I can't even be sure my best ones are even all that close to me.

A couple of weeks ago I was thumbing through an old magazine looking for a specific picture to show my mom, and I came across a survey, "Who Are Your Best Friends?" It had questions like: how often do you spend time with your friends, what do you like to go out and do with your friends, and what do you like to discuss with your friends (kind of like this one). So I checked all the little boxes that applied, and looked at the "results", and the magazine writers' analysis. According to the results page, none of my friends were actually my friends. Why? Because we like to discuss TV shows that we watch together. 

Does discussing something as simple as a TV show that we like to watch mean that we're not really friends? It's not like we don't discuss other things - heavier and more important issues - because we do. But I think that there is some value to being able to talk about things that aren't so important. It's the same way that a student needs a ten minute break while writing a twenty page paper; it gives people time to relax and take a break. So I think that, while it may be superficial and a "filler" conversation, it shows that people understand when their friends need to take a break. A conversation about something silly like a TV show or song may not have much real depth to the actual conversation but it may have depth depending on the nature of the friends. At least, I know it does for me."

With which race do you identify? (Mark all that apply)

From the Population Reference Bureau's Questions on Race in the Census (2010)

The blog Sociological Images recently featured a post about the past and present of the US Census, detailing the change from 200 years of enumerators to the past 40 years of mail-in surveys. The ultimate effect of the sudden shift away from sending government workers out to collect a family's personal information with a *knock knock knock* on their door was... an explosion of race.

Not literally an explosion, as race had existed in the United States since its foundation. Rather, certain races suddenly multiplied while others shrank in number, undergoing changes to the racial population on par with a major ethnic cleansing. Only no such occurrence took place. The truth was that the enumerators had classified the US population's race based on sight-- a first impression. But in 1970, people were free to self-identify their race, causing the astronomical changes that augmented the Native American population by 110%, for example. No longer were people just white, black, or brown.

This post got me thinking about first impressions of race today, 40 years after the aforementioned change, and their implementation on the most recent census. A good friend of mine (check out her blog here) is half-Indian, half-Norwegian, giving her a slightly-darker-than-olive-but-lighter-than-black skin tone. I have been approached by countless classmates over the last five years asking me whether she is Puerto Rican, Arab, half-Black, or Mediterranean. This, along with the changes to the census, obviously proves that you can't categorize a person's race and ethnicity merely by sight.

Speaking on a personal level, I was treated as French in France, was assumed to be Italian in Italy (I got babbled at a lot, but they stopped when I responded with a petrified look), have been asked if I am Russian, Irish, German, and more. Sure, they're all predominantly white countries, seeing as I am clearly a white person. I admit, lots of white people look like they can be from anywhere. But if it's so difficult to discern from sight, why am I not afforded the chance to tell the US government with what race I identify? If I were given the chance on a census, I would call myself what I am, Eastern European or Czechoslovakian, over just "white".

Ultimately, since the census has made such important changes as to allow self-identification, why is it that "white" is still a category? Isn't that as culturally insensitive as calling everyone from Central America, Latin America, India, and the Middle East, "brown"? I don't think of myself as being the same as a person from France, England, Russia, Finland, or Greece; I have very different cultural and ethnic roots that help to define my identity within America. Different races of people from the Asian continent have nine categories on the census, which is a fantastic change.Yet why are all of us white people (with subtle but definite differences in appearance) still lumped together? Thoughts? Post them below!

Careful! Your Oedipal Complex is showing.

One of the most well-known aspects of Freud's theory of the psychosexual stages of development is the Oedipal Complex, named for the title character in the Sophocles's ancient Greek tragedy, Oedipus Rex. It states that many young boys between the ages of 3 and 5 feel desire for their mother and therefore feel anger and animosity toward their father, a competitor for their mother's love.

In the years since Freud published his theory, much application of his ideas has taken place in conjunction with modern and past literature and history-- psychologists and anthropologists like Clyde Kluckhohn, Weston La Barre, and Margaret Mead have expanded and applied this theory to the early history of man and to traditional folklore, involving everything from the development of traditional patriarchy and marriage laws in tribal societies, to a psychoanalytic treatment to Shakespeare's classic tragedy, Hamlet.

When thinking about the Oedipal Complex, I inevitably begin to apply it to modern life: is the Oedipal Complex still relevant, almost 100 years after Freud postulated it? Subsequently, has our modern technology world quashed all context for Freud's theory? Can the Oedipal Complex be applied to changing familial relationships?

Considering the fact that technology now mediates almost all of our social interactions and that only about 25% of families in America are nuclear, the stage for the Oedipal Complex may have changed. The way I see it, I need only attend a family gathering to see my toddler cousin reach for his mother, sneakily trying to pull her cell phone out of her pocket to play with the touch screen. It's almost shocking how easy it is to set a baby down with an iPad and watch them wile away the hours, leaving the child entertained, happy, healthy, and without a strong connection to their parents. And the societal changes don't end there. According to the 2010 census, 115,000 households in the United States consist of same-sex partners with children, and of those households, roughly 30% contain adopted children as opposed to biological children. Freud certainly couldn't have predicted that!

The questions come down to this: when a 4-year old is more preoccupied with Fruit Ninja than his mother's affection, is there any possibility for the development of an Oedipal Complex? When a family contains two dads, two moms, a single parent, or non-biologically related families, is there any possibility that a little boy can cling to the parent of the opposite sex in competition with their father figure? Some psychologists don't think there is, namely those who belong to the movement among behaviorists ending in the conclusion that the Oedipal Complex is only of the 20th century.

Summing it up, all evidence seems to point to the fact that an Oedipal Complex can't exist within the framework of a landslide shift in the necessary interpersonal relationships. Even more prevalent than the statistics are the "shivery yuckies" I feel when I think about little boys in love with their mothers. And yet, even with all this evidence on my side, I still find myself wondering if perhaps this psychology that has been mapped in history for hundreds of years can't find a way to survive the modern era. So what do you think? Is the Oedipal Complex innate, or is it socially contextual?

Understanding Interpersonal Relationships

A typical familial relationship between my father, my big sister, and me.

I've spent half of my school year posting about instances of interesting interpersonal relationships in the news, in history, and in literature, but I've only recently realized that I have never written a post about the topic itself. Maybe this is only happening now because lately I've been in a very meta mood, but regardless...voilà!

Interpersonal relationships, in their simplest form, involve the social connections made between people; these obviously include romantic and family relationships, but also some that might be missed, like the relationship between a teacher and a student, a pastor and his congregation, several families of neighbors, a pair of identical twins, or the President and the people of the United States. Sociology, psychology, and anthropology all make use of an understanding of interpersonal relationships in their research and practice. This field of thinking is limited to an undefined number of people, but generally transitions to international relations when concerning populations of people, nations, and MNCs/NGOs.

However, a few aspects remain the same when considering relationships on the people-to-people and nation-to-nation level: dominance, submissiveness, interdependence, and vulnerability. Essentially, there is usually, but not always, someone who is more prevalent in the relationship, someone who listens to and obeys the dominant person or group, a reliance on each other, and a feeling of weakness without the relationship that helps to sustain it.

Such relationships can be harmonious as with a couple that has been married happily for 50+ years or two life-long friends. On the contrary, they can be tense, as between two colleagues competing for the same promotion forced to work together. They can be necessary, like when a group of nations allies together against destruction by another force (think WWI). Or they can even be dangerous, as is the relationship between a drug dealer and their clients.

Using these universal tools of analysis for interpersonal relationships and even international relations, it is possible to analyze the people and nations in the books we read, the movies we watch, the news we hear, and in our own lives. Applying a more scientific approach even makes it possible to quantify that which seems to be beyond rational comprehension. It's all a part of the analytic approach to people and to life.

The Faces of the State of the Union

Jackie Bray stands with Michelle Obama at the State of the Union address.

As you probably know, on January 24, President Obama delivered his third State of the Union address to Congress. And whether you're a Republican, a Democrat, or a die-hard Ralph Nader supporter, you were subjected to the rhetoric in his speech (assuming that you were, in fact, listening to what he said and not just staring at the orange hue of John Boehner's face for over an hour). Maybe what stuck was his repeated use of the phrase, "built to last", or his delightfully tacky joke about spilled milk. Perhaps it was just his unique speaking style that made the entire country feel infallible for 70 minutes.

Personally, I absorbed how often he brought up the stories of ordinary American citizens. Yet that alone would not have stayed with me for long; it was the surprise of settling in for a story about the perhaps-fabricated struggles of *insert name here* from Middle of Nowhere, USA, and then BAM! I was looking right into their surprised face. It was unsettling initially, to say the least, because I actually felt guilty for doubting the truth of Obama's words when I saw that these people were not just rhetorical devices.

For this reason, I would argue that the use of Jackie Bray, Bryan Ritterby, and Warren Buffet's secretary, Debbie Bosanek, were the strongest rhetoric in his speech last week, in the same way that "Joe the Plumber" redefined John McCain's 2008 political campaign.

The strategy is not unique to politics. Everyone has seen the long commercials for UNICEF that present the name and dirt-streaked face of a weeping African orphan left to raise his five siblings, infected by malaria and HIV and without hope. While this example takes on a decidedly more depressing spin than those in a political campaign, the basic idea is the same: choose a person to represent a larger group, give them a name, give them a story, and give them a face to prove that they're not hypothetical. A play on pathos, if you will.

Thus the questions remain: why does this strategy work? Why have such diverse organizations been able to exploit this rhetorical strategy when everyone has seen it before? And why does it continue to surprise me?

The truth of the matter is that as a world, we've become unaccustomed to having to look at people. With the ease of telephone and online communication, face-to-face interaction is less important than ever and eye contact is becoming a memory of a bygone era.

I always thought I was immune to this loss on interpersonal interaction; after all, I speak competitively every weekend, where connection with the audience is essential. But I realized that while I can dish it out, I can't take it. Sure, I am able to express my point while locking eyes with my listeners and appealing to every sensitive bone in their body, but I can no longer sit comfortably as someone uses those strategies on me. I am a citizen of this changing world like anyone else, speech team or not. So to see the people who were being referenced, to put a face to the symbol, unsettled me. And if this is the case, this rhetorical strategy's power will grow as we continue to become a faceless society.

Capote's Masterpiece: In Cold Blood

Written by Truman Capote and published in 1966, In Cold Blood follows the true story of the murders of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas on November 15, 1959: After hearing about this quadruple homicide and before any killers were implicated, Capote and his friend Harper Lee traveled to Kansas and took thousands of pages of interview notes, which he then synthesized into a true-but-somewhat-fictionalized account of the people involved and events leading up to this tragic event.

Let me start out by saying that I loved this book. I think the most apt word to describe it is "page turner", for that it truly what it was. Yet it's not a mystery as many murder novels are, because from the beginning, you are introduced to the entire Clutter family, as well as the two murderers, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. The plot thus unfolds as the events start to make sense: it's not "whodunit?", but rather "whytheydunit?".

In a literary sense, one of the main things I noticed is that the story is characterized by juxtaposition. Starting with the recreated last day of the Clutter family, the events are juxtaposed against the musings and plannings of the two murderers, who often delve back into their pasts to justify their actions and give the reader a sense of why they were doing what they were doing. After the Clutters were murdered, the focus switched to the fleeing murderers and their continued crime spree juxtaposed with the agony of the evidence-less investigation. Everything came together to make one stellar novel for a blogger exploring interpersonal relations.

Basically, this book is pregnant with people relating to people: the Clutter family relating to themselves, Herb Clutter's kindness to his employees (one of whom told Dick about the Clutter's whereabouts initially, which ultimately ended in their deaths), Nancy's gentle nature that caused her to be revered among the other youths in the town, Perry's rough relationship with his dysfunctional or dead family, Dick's abuse of the trust of his simple-minded his parents, the town postmistress' hatred of the gossiping neighbors... Pick any character, and a complex web can be drawn relating them to everyone else mentioned in the novel.

But the most poignant relationship between people in In Cold Blood concerns the residents of this sleepy town (population 270) and how the murder changed their lives. Neighbors who knew each other for thirty years began gossiping and speculating that the killer was among them; the crime was as mentally harmful to random townsfolk as it was to the remaining members of the Clutter family. Truman Capote puts it best when, on page 5, he says,

"At the time, not a soul in sleeping Holcomb heard them-- four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives. But afterward, the townspeople, theretofore sufficiently unfearful of each other to seldom trouble to lock their doors, found fantasy re-creating them over and again-- those somber explosions that stimulated fires of mistrust in the glare of which many neighbors viewed each other strangely, and as strangers".

I give this book 5 stars out of 5. From what I understand, the film version is gruesome (though I've never actually seen it). But this book is tasteful when addressing the violence of this crime, getting into the mentality of the act rather than the gory details. It's simply fascinating.

Bobby McFerrin Hacks Your Brain With Music

All throughout life, I've lived in the paradigm of being a music person. That being said, I've had an innate understanding that everyone who did not live in the same realm, all the others, were decidedly non-music people. After one of my close family friends told me that he thought all music except for country pop was irritating noise, I damn near lost it. For me, it was a classic case of "us vs. them", and the "them" were just unenlightened, lazy, boring, soulless people. I simply could not imagine someone not loving music, not wanting to listen to it, study it, play it, and appreciate it for the rest of their lives.

I'll admit that my opinion hasn't changed very much in recent times. This isn't a post about how my world was turned upside down when I discovered the dark side of music, the evil lurking below the surface of the Dorian mode. In fact, what I began to realize is that there are no such thing as non-music people. I know it might sound ridiculous, but the more I read and research, the more I discover that music as a form of enjoyment and expression of identity is something unique to humans, something for which we all have the capacity.

Sure, some people may claim (sometimes rightfully so) that they don't like most types of music: I even understand complaints against rap music as being obscene, against classical music as being boring and stuck-up, and against rock music as being abrasive and shallow. The thing is, not enjoying certain genres of music is no longer enough for me to condemn someone to the dreaded cult of the non-musical. In fact, this video shows that everyone has the ability to understand music and to be surprised by this ability in themselves. And the fact that every audience that hears Bobby McFerrin, every person, whether they have instruction in music or not, can figure out a basic pentatonic scale is a uniting force among the world.

So while this video didn't make me view non-musical people in a better light, it helped me realize that this group is much smaller than I previously thought. It's not about "us vs. them", it's just all "us". Everyone has something about them that is musical, whether they realize it or not, and this is the last time I view anyone in a negative light for claiming ignorance. There's no need for music to become a divisive force among people, especially not in my mind. It really has the power to bring the world together in a song.

In the immortal words of the Coca-Cola commercial, and in the cheesiest ending that will ever grace my blog, "I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony..."

It may just be easier than you think.

The Gay Gene and What It All Means

It's a growing trend in my household: every mention of a gay, lesbian, or bisexual classmate is met with a falter as my parents inquire as to whether news of the homosexuality of my friends surprises me. I consistently reply with, "of course not", but I often forget the novelty of liberty to be gay; when my parents were teenagers, hardly anyone was out of the closet. Homosexuality was repressed and seen as foreign, uncomfortable, or even slightly repulsive. The times certainly have changed, and only some have changed with them. I admire adults like my parents and even my grandmother, who are clearly unable to view homosexuality as "any old thing", but try their damnedest to be as accepting as possible. In any case, homosexuality certainly is a hot topic right now.

Generally, the issue among people with traditional (and often religious) values is that homosexuality is morally wrong because it's not transcribed in *insert religious text here*. This causes people to try to simplify the issue by determining a justification for the immorality so that "them crazy liberal folk" will finally see the error of their ways in accepting such behavior. Thus the argument foments into whether homosexuality is a decision or something you're born with. Choice or gene, essentially.

Now it's pretty apparent that viewing homosexuality as a choice is a dangerous mode of thinking; it's for this reason that there are reprogramming clinics and "pray the gay away" camps for LGB teens, as well as rampant hate crimes against homosexuals. One need only look at the comments section on any popular YouTube video to find alarming use of anti-gay language in a nonsensical context to see evidence of the anti-gay sentiment among those who believe homosexuality is a choice.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are those who believe homosexuality is genetic, that it is an inevitability and should be accepted because it's not something that's about to just disappear. Among this crowd, there is heavy support for gays, with pro-gay cries echoing just as loud as those that are anti-gay. Basically, the whole issue is a noisy, reverberating mess.

What many may not realize, however, is that viewing homosexuality as being linked to genetics is also a dangerous mode of thinking. Recently, I've read several articles about scientist Dean Hamer of the National Institute of Health, who in 1993, announced that he'd isolated the "gay gene" on the q28 allele of the X chromosome in males. While his results were never able to be repeated, and he was later accused of fabricating them, this supposed discovery brought forth a new wave of talk about homosexuality. What arose from this was the shocking quote from prominent gay community members saying that viewing homosexuality as genetic is also detrimental because it makes people both pity those who "suffer" from it (in the same way we pity someone born with a physical disability) and makes the people with traditional values desire gene therapy to modify future children to prevent this "unnatural mutation".

Everything considered, my solution, and the mode of thinking that I most often employ in regarding this issue, is to stop trying to justify homosexuality. By trying to figure out why, we lose the ability to see individual people; in this way, justification, whether pro- or anti-gay, is dehumanizing. It doesn't matter why people are attracted to one sex or another, only that homosexuality is a reality in our world and that it's not going away, no matter how much we try to break it down.

Thoughts? Opinions? Post them below!

The Whistle-Blower

There is a nouveau-archetype evolving in our ever changing world, especially pertinent now because the Republican nomination for President is heating up: the whistle-blower. Republican nominee Herman Cain has been accused of sexual harassment by about four women in the last few weeks, occurring somewhere in the last ten or fifteen years. There is extensive evidence against him. Sharon Bialek (the only woman to come forward) lost her job in the 1990s and asked Cain, then the president of the National Restaurant Association, for help. She even remembers the clothing she was wearing at the time of the inappropriate conduct.

This is not the first time in history that someone has come forward against a politician in order to prevent them from winning a seat. In 1991, Anita Hill came forward against Clarence Thomas, running for a position on the Supreme court. He still won the seat, and as a consequence, Ms. Hill was judged, called delusional and a scorned woman out for revenge. She was viewed as someone meddling in politics, attempting to slander a candidate for personal gain.

This appears to be what is happening and will continue to happen to Ms. Bialek: already, her entire past has been chronicled, as well as her past job history and testaments to her character. It seems that everyone, especially the media and Herman Cain's campaign team, is trying to find a way to prove she's lying, whether in reality or through manipulating public opinion, it makes no difference.

Throughout literature, canon, history, and popular media, the one who spills the beans is seen as weak, spineless, and cowardly. Even as children, we mark the "one who tells" as a tattletale. Thus, in addition to the sexual harassment the women go through, there is an additional toll placed by those who should be listening. According to Laura Beth Nielsen, a researcher at the American Bar Association and an associate professor of law and sociology at Northwestern University,

"I can't tell you how many accusers have gone bankrupt, gotten divorced, or start having drinking or drug-use problems... Even if they win, they feel like they've lost. Some say, 'I'm glad I made the point that they couldn't do that'. But by and large, they feel pretty chewed up and spit out by the justice system" (Chicago Tribune, front page of the edition from Sunday, November 13, 2011)

So why do we hate the whistle-blower so much and why do we treat them in the way we do? I think the answer is multi-fold. It's partly because victims use public media in order to tell their story, which reminds us too much of the people who enter reality competitions like American Idol or Survivor just for fifteen minutes of fame. This occurrence is so common nowadays that we have lost respect for ordinary people (not politicians) propelling controversial viewpoints through the news. Perhaps we also view sexual harassment as something to be accepted or ignored, yet a major counterpoint exists in the reaction to the Penn State scandal, recently revealed; however, the difference is the nature of this scandal, involving young boys versus a grown woman with a past. Also, sexual harassment may not be viewed as a real crime because it's not necessarily rape and no one dies or gets maimed.

Irrespective of the reasoning, from now on, the public should operate under the knowledge that by exposing their harassment, the whistle-blower is putting him or herself into more danger than if they just remained quiet. Scrutinizing them for evidence of lies, bad character, or desire for fame is not necessary to the extent we make it seem. This is not meant to deter questioning the situation, but rather to keep that questioning productive, constructive, and considerate.

Agree? Disagree? Let me know!

Hobophobia

This graph, off of a post on the Sociological Images blog on the Society Pages, is the main message of the Occupy Wall Street protesters and the inspiration for today's post. When they say, "we are the 99%", they're referring to the minuscule 1% of the population that controls about 40% of the nation's wealth. But regardless of whether you agree with the Occupy movement, there is no denying the facts of wealth inequality. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer.

This raises the greater issue of how people relate to those in lower socio-economic situations; generally, those with less money are pitied, or else seen as dependent on the wealth of the upper classes and treated with the same paternalistic attitude as the one embodied by imperial America in the early 1900s. But what especially interests me is how virtually the entire country, not just the richest 5%, treats those with nearly no money and nowhere to live: the homeless.

Because I'm writing a piece on the issue for my Speech team in my high school, I've been doing a lot of research into the plight and treatment of the homeless today. What I have found is shocking: people think the homeless are lazy, stupid, mentally ill, or addicted to drugs, otherwise they would have dusted themselves off and gotten a job already. Otherwise, they are considered as simple children in need of a parental hand to guide them to the enlightened realm of home-ownership. Even worse, especially since the early 2000s, the amount of violence against the homeless has shot up, with hundreds being brutally murdered without reason since 2006.

Yet the face of homelessness has changed drastically since 2008; with the economic downfall, more and more ordinary people find themselves without economic means to pay for their homes, moving into temporary or charity housing in order to get by. These are families with children in schools and hardworking individuals with jobs, currently homeless, but fitting none of the stereotypes of a dirty old man with a beard and a coat.

To discover the reason behind the relationship between the homeless and everyone else, we must look to the human tendency to project the situations we experience onto our own lives; as we encounter someone living under newspapers, we are subconsciously aware of how little separates them from us. All they'd need is a house and they could be our neighbor, or maybe even a member of our family. This painful awareness is what makes us so uncomfortable when we see someone sitting on a street corner with a sign asking for food, and this discomfort is implemented differently in everyone: as fear, as disgust, as sadness, as sympathy, or even as violence.

The Post-Apple World

Hello blogosphere! We all know that Steve Jobs just died. It’s everywhere and it’s a big deal. The end of an era. Instead of writing directly about him, my post is inspired by his legacy: the iPhone, the iPod, the iPad, and all the other competing technology he brought about indirectly.

It’s often talked about, that my generation is losing the ability to communicate interpersonally, that we spend all of our time staring at the little screen of our phones and not enough time really seeing the world around us. Our brains move at technology speed so we don’t have time for real human relationships; we turn to Tumblr, we turn to twitter, we live vicariously online before even trying to live in real life. We come out of the womb wearing earbuds and flicking our parents the middle finger. And to complicate the issue, we start revolutions through facebook and we change the world without even having to talk face to face.

Up until about a week ago, I thought this was just a huge over-generalization. Sure, there’s some truth there, some people are like that, but look at me! I only use my phone to text and make calls. I only have one iThing. I hardly ever buy products online. I hang out with friends in person. I’m on the speech team so I know how to communicate without saying the word “like”. Ding ding ding, here I am, the exception to the rule! But I was wrong.

I went with my mom to a store called Akira, where employees work on commission, to look for a homecoming dress. As soon as we walked in, we were greeted by a young salesperson named Julia. She started asking me questions about the dance and I was a little taken aback by her boldness, but I answered her inquiries, hoping she’d leave me to shop. But Julia did not—she’d give me about 10 minutes to look around and pull a few things, then run over to ask if she could add them to my dressing room. In my head, I thought, why can’t I just hold onto them and pick my own dressing room when I’m ready? Out loud, I said, “Uhhhh sure” (eloquent, no?). It didn’t stop there. Julia meandered by every time I came out, complimenting the dress I had on, making accessory suggestions. Just being a general bother.

In my mom’s generation, friendly salespeople were welcomed, even expected. Piling on compliments, making sure shoppers were comfortable, it was all part of what made a good salesperson. For me, I usually get in, find what I want, and get out, without ever having to speak to anyone. I’ve lost the notion of the shopper-salesperson relationship. And this is only the beginning of the relationships I’ve lost. I’m afraid that all the accusations mentioned a few paragraphs above are true, but they’re not attributable to owning the technology anymore. You don’t have to have an iPad to think in iPad speeds, you don’t have to have a facebook to feel more comfortable expressing yourself with the anonymity of the internet. It seems that no one growing up in this time is immune, not even me.

But this brings up the curious question of whether this change in the way we communicate, thus relate to others, is cause to regret the times of our parents. Is it okay that we communicate differently? Should we even bother criticizing the modern mindset and technology dependence? From close up, it seems like important values are being lost, but if we step back, are we just going through a normal historical change? Can the post-Apple world be equated with the post-automobile world or the post-Cold War world?

I’d appreciate any thoughts or comments from people of all ages. This is not an issue that can be addressed by one generation.