Are You Able to Enjoy the Silence?

Terry Olaes

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
Joined
Nov 27, 2006
Messages
4,646
This column introduces the reader to the concept of Digital Natives (those born after 1985) and Digital Immigrants (those born before 1985) through a book called The End of Absence by Michael Harris. We "Digital Immigrants" are the last generation to remember the world before the Internet. I think I have a new book to add to my Kindle list.

He writes: “We have in this brief historical moment… a very rare opportunity… These are the few days when we can still notice the difference between Before and After… There’s a single difference that we feel most keenly; and it’s also the difference that future generations will find hardest to grasp. That is the end of absence – the loss of lack. The daydreaming silences in our lives are filled; the burning solitudes are extinguished.”
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Terry Olaes said:
I think I have a new book to add to my Kindle list
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Book? Like those old things the Bible was written on? I'll wait for it to come out on BluRay, thanks.
 
Thanks for the link. That's an intriguing slant on an issue that affects us all, really. I know I read fewer books, darn it.
 
I'm still amazed at the fact a google search can bring up information on just about anything.
Makes doing reports for the kids now a days a breeze. Something not even dreamed of when I was a kid. Growing up we had a set of World Book encyclopedias that some old folks gave my parents. A way out of date set from the 50s but still a gold mine of information for doing reports, etc for school.
 
I'm going to take some umbrage with the choice of terms. We are not Immigrants we are Pioneers. I have lived in the land of digital for 40 years. At the age of 7 in 1975 I started writing games because they did not exist. I co-wrote a digitized sound system for the 8085 in 1977 - mind you the samples were crap by todays standard and sucked up almost all of the 24k I had be were really cool for combat sounds.

We carved out and created this world they were born into. An immigrant moves into a place that has already been set up. The attitude I get from a lot of the kids I manage is the "we are younger, faster, and better" because they went to school for things we did not event have in our day. Hell most of their classes are based on the work we did pioneering their field. (FYI I make games and have been doing it professionally for 25 years). I give guidance and get blown off because they know better and I let some of them fail so they learn I might have a thing or two or 10 to contribute/teach them.

Sorry for the rant, but I get tired of getting treated by younger generations that this is their world not what a bunch of us actually built. I am going to read, but binary comparisons of my generation with the latter ones tends to get my hackles up.

PS: Yes some of us still read physical books. There is something to holding one compared to using a tablet.
 
Croaker said:
I'm going to take some umbrage with the choice of terms. We are not Immigrants we are Pioneers. I have lived in the land of digital for 40 years. At the age of 7 in 1975 I started writing games because they did not exist. I co-wrote a digitized sound system for the 8085 in 1977 - mind you the samples were crap by todays standard and sucked up almost all of the 24k I had be were really cool for combat sounds.

We carved out and created this world they were born into. An immigrant moves into a place that has already been set up. The attitude I get from a lot of the kids I manage is the "we are younger, faster, and better" because they went to school for things we did not event have in our day. Hell most of their classes are based on the work we did pioneering their field. (FYI I make games and have been doing it professionally for 25 years). I give guidance and get blown off because they know better and I let some of them fail so they learn I might have a thing or two or 10 to contribute/teach them.

Sorry for the rant, but I get tired of getting treated by younger generations that this is their world not what a bunch of us actually built. I am going to read, but binary comparisons of my generation with the latter ones tends to get my hackles up.

PS: Yes some of us still read physical books. There is something to holding one compared to using a tablet.
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Great points Croaker. I'm from about the same time you are. We used to write games on the C64 with BASIC, a HESMON Turtle Graphics cartridge and it was awesome.

We did not have the Internet. We had to dial into a BBS. Anyone remember the Hayes commands?

I have kids that are 7 and 8. They have grown up with on-demand TV. They had never even watched a commercial until a few years ago when we stayed at a hotel! Amazing. They also did not believe me when I told them that a show did not start until a specific time - it was totally alien.
I hear my parents and other people saying how amazing it is for kids now. I have to remind them how amazing it was when I was growing up. If I had a choice, I would not change it for anything - it was awesome watching (and participating!) in the birth of the new era.
I'm not sure I like it as much now. iPad's, Xbox's, and the like - meh. They do not give people the ability to experiment or write software. You download (or buy) drizzle from app stores. Everything (more or less) just works.
When I received my first modem, I had to learn a lot. There wasn't a library I could go to to ask questions. My teachers had no clue about these devices. My parents? Yeah, right.
I think I'll try to read the book. It sounds interesting.
 
Croaker said:
I'm going to take some umbrage with the choice of terms. We are not Immigrants we are Pioneers.
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For something that some will dismiss as pedantry, you are spot on. A lot of us weren't immigrating into the digital/internet world, we were fucking building it up and cultivating it to become what it is now. There's a lot of things I did online in the early 90s I know I can say were firsts, however not-worth-bragging-about-it it all was... but it hardly seems fair for me to be classed as an immigrant because of when I was born.
 
Dr. Righteous said:
I'm still amazed at the fact a google search can bring up information on just about anything.
Makes doing reports for the kids now a days a breeze. Something not even dreamed of when I was a kid. Growing up we had a set of World Book encyclopedias that some old folks gave my parents. A way out of date set from the 50s but still a gold mine of information for doing reports, etc for school.
Click to expand...

+1
I've embraced it but I remember it still being a slog just 15 years ago trying to find anything useful on the internet (or worse find the same thing twice). now its all right there, all the time and usually only improving.

I read an article once about how technology used to appear pretty much out of nowhere and have to be SOLD to the consumer, now consumers are aware of products months and years before they reach retail and know everything about it. One example was the Microwave oven just kind of showed up one day in the late 70s and people were like 'huh'? a massive leap forward for consumers that they had no idea about until it was available.
 
I remember it taking 1 hour to download a 600k picture.... and then having to hack my Amiga to have enough video memory to actually show the picture....

In a lot of ways, I think the days before the internet put everything at our fingertips was better. Social skills were better, as were general attitudes.

Like many things, the internet is amazing, but its had so many bad effects on society as well.
 
Just because the political rhetoric of today suggests being an immigrant is something sub standard does not mean that it is true. The first European settlers in the US were immigrants, and we know how that turned out.

Immigrants are builders. It's the natives that have it easy, all they have to do is survive in the world that exists.
 
spugm1r3 said:
The first European settlers in the US were immigrants, and we know how that turned out.
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It turned out really bad. In the first year, only 38 of the original 108 settlers were alive, and barely at that and during the following year they shipped more settlers and out of the 500 total only 60 remained at the end of that year.
 
Technically they were more invaders or settlers than immigrants. Again immigrants join something functioning. For the most part they sure as hell didn't immigrate to be part of the nations that already existed. I have ancestors who were among them as well as my ancestors with the Dutch settlement and the Scot's. Many of them were right bastards an a few actually tried to work with the natives primarily the Lenape and Iroquois.
 
We have a far better understanding of what we have both GAINED and LOST in the transition.

We are able to better define a good and bad use of technology.

And this: "...That is the end of absence – the loss of lack. The daydreaming silences in our lives are filled; the burning solitudes are extinguished."

What hubris. What unparalleled arrogance. To imply that the internet or the technology of today somehow fills a spiritual hole in man? To imply that people no longer have burning solitudes? Obviously untrue. Facebook likes have nothing to do with whether you feel ALONE in the world. In our past events like the industrial revolution didn't make mankind feel "complete." Nor did the invention of the telephone, the automobile or the airplane. Nor did going to space. Libraries in every town didn't do it. The internet, fast CPUs and even new VR technologies won't do it.

Those born after the 70s simply have faster access to a wealth of information both good and bad. It means you can complete a cycle of getting some certain questions answered quicker than at any time in human history.

It doesn't make you more complete or more human. In fact learning to live in your own skin, in silence and alone sometimes, is PART of being human. We are not collective ants. We are a society of INDIVIDUALS. Technology is a threat to that part of our humanity. A constant one. It doesn't mean we should not have technology, but it does mean we should remain ever vigilant to where and how we use it.

Life does not have more or less meaning to a person with internet vs. a person who lives in a cave and forages for food. We would do well to remember that over the next 100 years.
 
Something I have said for a very long time - Technology is a means, not an ends.

Believe it or not I have had to break this out many a time making games.
 
steakman1971 said:
Great points Croaker. I'm from about the same time you are. We used to write games on the C64 with BASIC, a HESMON Turtle Graphics cartridge and it was awesome.

We did not have the Internet. We had to dial into a BBS. Anyone remember the Hayes commands?

I have kids that are 7 and 8. They have grown up with on-demand TV. They had never even watched a commercial until a few years ago when we stayed at a hotel! Amazing. They also did not believe me when I told them that a show did not start until a specific time - it was totally alien.
I hear my parents and other people saying how amazing it is for kids now. I have to remind them how amazing it was when I was growing up. If I had a choice, I would not change it for anything - it was awesome watching (and participating!) in the birth of the new era.
I'm not sure I like it as much now. iPad's, Xbox's, and the like - meh. They do not give people the ability to experiment or write software. You download (or buy) drizzle from app stores. Everything (more or less) just works.
When I received my first modem, I had to learn a lot. There wasn't a library I could go to to ask questions. My teachers had no clue about these devices. My parents? Yeah, right.
I think I'll try to read the book. It sounds interesting.
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I agree, with reserves, because i grew up the same way with the technology. However, 90% of our friends and folks from our generation did not embrace and pioneer it as we did. They immigrated once it became 'cool' and a 'necessity' to everyday life. So only a few minority of us from this generation were actually pioneers vs immigrants. We are the ones who are actually fortunate enough to have seen the evolution in virtually its entirety. My grandfather, rest in peace, may disagree considering he worked at bell labs pioneering far early technology that led to the microprocessor, but i digress.
 
I'm not sure I'd classify the timelines like that.

I mean the internet and all the of the widespread use of it like today didn't really start happening until the 90's.

I grew up in the late 80's/early 90's and I remember a time before everyone had cellphones, or the "internet" and what the Dewey decimal system is.

I'd say it's more of a late 90's/early 2000's where it cut off and everything has so far shifted vs before that.
 
Limahl said:
In a lot of ways, I think the days before the internet put everything at our fingertips was better. Social skills were better, as were general attitudes.

Like many things, the internet is amazing, but its had so many bad effects on society as well.
Click to expand...
Same could be said for other technologies, but it seems we eventually accept or adapt some time later. I personally think the good outweighs the bad, but we are still sorta in a transition so it's easy people's un-ease with it.
 
Not an immigrant, it sounds pretty stupid when used to label a generation. Not really a pioneer either, but I certainly remember typing lines of game code from a magazine into the one computer in the library at my school. I never had to time share with it, because I was the only one that knew how to use it. I remember saving not having a phone attached to my head. I remember not having cable, and then when we first got it, there were only 12 channels. I remember having a milk man. But these are things that every generation goes through. The world changes, and things that were common become rare, then almost unheard of. It has happened to the generations b4 us, and will happen to this generation as well as the next, and those that follow.
 
spugm1r3 said:
Just because the political rhetoric of today suggests being an immigrant is something sub standard does not mean that it is true. The first European settlers in the US were immigrants, and we know how that turned out.

Immigrants are builders. It's the natives that have it easy, all they have to do is survive in the world that exists.
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You've mixed up immigrants with colonists. Somebody coming to someone's land uninvited as part of an eventual large group is a colonist. The first European settlers were colonists and the 'natives' didn't grasp the consequences and suffered dearly.
 
Croaker said:
Technically they were more invaders or settlers than immigrants. Again immigrants join something functioning. For the most part they sure as hell didn't immigrate to be part of the nations that already existed. I have ancestors who were among them as well as my ancestors with the Dutch settlement and the Scot's. Many of them were right bastards an a few actually tried to work with the natives primarily the Lenape and Iroquois.
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I'm guessing being Dutch they were Reformed protestants like the Pilgrims. The world view was one that God's Providence led them to America and that being the cause it was their duty to bring Christianity to the native peoples. So this they would have treated the Indians as equals and and would have sought friendship since they had the survival skills that newcomers obviously lacked.
 
Not entirely fair to call all of us born before 1985 "digital immigrants"

I've been into computers and technology my entire life, and started getting on the Internet in 1993 when I was 13. Before that I used my 2400 baud modem to visit BBS:es, etc, so interconnected computers are a big part of my formative years, despite being born in 1980.

I feel more like those of us in the 1980-1985 group have a unique perspective of both being technology natives AND having experienced the pre-internet world.
 
steakman1971 said:
Great points Croaker. I'm from about the same time you are. We used to write games on the C64 with BASIC, a HESMON Turtle Graphics cartridge and it was awesome.

We did not have the Internet. We had to dial into a BBS. Anyone remember the Hayes commands?

I have kids that are 7 and 8. They have grown up with on-demand TV. They had never even watched a commercial until a few years ago when we stayed at a hotel! Amazing. They also did not believe me when I told them that a show did not start until a specific time - it was totally alien.
I hear my parents and other people saying how amazing it is for kids now. I have to remind them how amazing it was when I was growing up. If I had a choice, I would not change it for anything - it was awesome watching (and participating!) in the birth of the new era.
I'm not sure I like it as much now. iPad's, Xbox's, and the like - meh. They do not give people the ability to experiment or write software. You download (or buy) drizzle from app stores. Everything (more or less) just works.
When I received my first modem, I had to learn a lot. There wasn't a library I could go to to ask questions. My teachers had no clue about these devices. My parents? Yeah, right.
I think I'll try to read the book. It sounds interesting.
Click to expand...

Dealing with gsm modems in linux, I _still_ use the AT command set to talk to them. This boggles some of our younger admins. How do you KNOW that?
 
Robstar said:
Dealing with gsm modems in linux, I _still_ use the AT command set to talk to them. This boggles some of our younger admins. How do you KNOW that?
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Argh, can't edit:

I've also had them ask me why linux doesnt autodetect devices connected to the serial port upon plugin, like usb...
 
Reality said:
no depeche mode mentions?

-1
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OP is wrong. Enjoy the silence started in 1990.

Depeche_Mode_-_Violator.png
 
Robstar said:
Argh, can't edit:

I've also had them ask me why linux doesnt autodetect devices connected to the serial port upon plugin, like usb...
Click to expand...

ok I LOLed at that one... imagine giving them an ISA card with IRQ/address jumpers!
 
Dr. Righteous said:
I'm guessing being Dutch they were Reformed protestants like the Pilgrims. The world view was one that God's Providence led them to America and that being the cause it was their duty to bring Christianity to the native peoples. So this they would have treated the Indians as equals and and would have sought friendship since they had the survival skills that newcomers obviously lacked.
Click to expand...

Npoe they were driven to the new world with land grants to compensate for the crown princes inability to gamble worth a shit at their salon. He owed enough that my ancestors had a major chunk of Long Island. A critical point with it was that they were never to come back.
 
Croaker said:
Npoe they were driven to the new world with land grants to compensate for the crown princes inability to gamble worth a shit at their salon. He owed enough that my ancestors had a major chunk of Long Island. A critical point with it was that they were never to come back.
Click to expand...

Nice side came from the Brits. Roger Williams who wanted to work with the Indians.
 
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