This is something I always noticed sitting in lectures trying my best to listen (and writing occasional brief notes) while other students attempted to scribble as much content as they could into their notebooks. I think one of the main reasons that lectures are pedagogically terrible (that is, don’t lead to the learning they are supposed to) is that student audiences are too worried about writing things down to think about what it means.
It seems so strange that those that own
a computer, though they are the neatest of folks,
keep desktops which to me evoke
a big litter of icons chaotically strewn.
And picture folders seldom rise
much above this low bar, a numerical swarm
of filenames which never can perform
their old duty of bringing some peace to our eyes.
That we might break these habits which haunt
us, I offer some simple advice.
In this case, as in life, I think it is wise:
to give up those things we neither need nor want.
If Project Glass or its competing initiatives ever turn into a usable reality, perhaps we don't have to make the tradeoff between experiencing and documenting. (Even if it might be strange to wear those to your wedding.)<p>Maybe a strong MVP of head-mounted displays would focus on capturing and sharing, be it from Google or anyone else.
This is not a new thought. From Rent (Jonathan Larson, 1996):<p>---<p>Roger: Mark hides in his work<p>Mark: From what?<p>Roger: From facing your failure, facing your loneliness, facing the fact you live a lie.
Yes, you live a lie. Tell you why.
You're always preaching not to be numb, when that's how you thrive. You pretend to create and observe, when you really detach from feeling alive.<p>Mark: Perhaps it's because I'm the one of us to survive.<p>---<p>For those unfamiliar with Rent, Mark is a documentary filmmaker who constantly has the camera rolling. To a great extent, technology has turned all of us into that, and Larson's observations apply.
What if Facebook suddenly just crashed? People all over the world would look up from their screens and start seeing reality again...<p>I cant go into public without seeing people staring into their devices. Its kind of interesting to notice how much like sheep people are. :)
As with many things, this is all about finding a healthy balance between the two.<p>+1 on the article for expressing something I've also thought about recently.
Some of the best story-tellers and happiest people I know take few pictures and have little twitter or Facebook presence.<p>In order to truly experience something at the level where you can recount it for the rest of your life, you have to be in the moment - not worried about documenting the moment.