Technology is becoming marvellously intuitive. After booking a holiday with friends, we were surprised to discover Google had already added the dates and location to our Gmail calenders, in the blink of our eye once we confirmed the booking.
Convenient – if a little scary.
But smart technology can and does often make mistakes. We all know how digital images and news can be ‘enhanced,’ for nefarious activities.
Google Maps Fail
Years ago, when GPS navigation was in its infancy, Google Maps directed me to drive off the edge of a steep cliff, insisting that a road existed, only it didn’t. Naturally, I continued on the ‘real’ road, forcing the app to “recalculate [the] route.”
When the car repeated its deranged vocal message insisting I drive off the edge of the cliff, I stopped the car and asked a local resident tending her garden for directions. This was a much safer option!
Google Lens
Google Lens has also had difficulty identifying certain native Australian plants. Understandably, their unique weird shapes and forms confuse the megalithic search engine. This is called Banksia Giant Candles and once flourished in my garden.
However, I was quite surprised at Google, while looking at the following photo from yesterday.
It was taken at one of Australia’s biggest traditions, the soldier memorial ceremonies on April 25th, otherwise known as Anzac Day.
You see, each year, I write a post about Anzac Day and talk about the history, significance, various local ceremonies or Anzac Day Cookie recipes. This year, I didn’t want to repeat the same information over again and wasn’t even going to write at all, but then, well, Google did have to go loco on me.
And I had to say something!
As I glanced at the following photograph, my finger accidentally grazed/hovered close enough to ‘Google Lens,’ for a search listing to engage.
Up popped results of the photograph’s location, suggesting it was Cascais beach, Portugal, The Channel Islands or La Greve du Portieux, which I suspected was in France. Further investigation revealed that La Greve du Portieux was a bed of breakfast on the Eastern coast of France.
Seriously?
I admit, there is a association between Anzacs soldier in WWI and France, but given that location was enabled on the photograph, it was easy to detect to all and sundry that the photo referred to Redcliffe, a beach in Australia!
But it was nice to know that if I closed my eyes to the architecture, I could be on a French beach, or a bed and breakfast on the coast of France!
This begs the question:
Have you ever felt discombobulated with a Google Search or Google Lens result?
Has Google ever led you astray?
Does my photograph remind you of France or just any old beach at sunrise?
Not by any accident or disruption to the web connections. It was entirely voluntary, old school-like, along with another blogger, Sophie from the blog, Lingo in Transit, who is currently residing in a different part of the world to me. A self-imposed digital Detox.
Photo by Vodafone x Rankin everyone.connected on Pexels.com
Admittedly, going offline wasn’t a permanent action. It was one weekend offline – well thirty-two hours to be precise. In this world we live in, being offline, deliberately, could be seen as unusual.
Have you taken note of the speed of the online-creep in the post -covid world? More of our personal and work lives are absorbed online. Since Zoom/Teams/video chats, phone calls are becoming obsolete replaced by clipped abbreviated texts and face-to-face or in-person communication is diminishing.
We look up recipes, random facts, how-to videos, create and explore via Google and a myriad of apps, connecting online via a technological interface in an ever-increasing virtual world with the internet an omnipresent master.
If you’ve paid attention, it seems that being constantly connected to the net can ironically lead to a lack of focus or high levels of distractibility.
Notifications bling, WordPress and social media posts ping, phones buzz, sing, and vibrate their way into our focus, EVERY SINGLE MINUTE of EVERY day. I don’t know about you, but I began to find this bordering on stressful, overwhelming even. I felt pressured. There was not enough time to read, respond and relate to everything my smartphone threw at me. I needed some peace and quiet. I needed respite from this information overload.
The Digital Detox Experiment
From late last Friday night to early Monday morning around 7.30, I was offline. Notifications were silenced, and connections severed. No email, no social media and no googling or reading websites – and this included WordPress.
Blogger Sophie and I decided the parameters should exempt phone calls (for emergencies) and I postponed unimportant texts (I sent two Sms) and calendar checks, but definitely no messenger or tweets, (Twitter lost me months ago), Instagram photos etc.
How did the Digital Detox Work Out?
My offline experiment proved enlightening. Therapeutic even.
Much to my surprise, I didn’t crave connection to the web at all. Instead, I felt untethered, liberated almost. The smartphone noise was silenced. I could walk out of a room without thinking twice about the location of my phone, safe in the knowledge that this weekend, it didn’t matter.
What are the Benefits of Being Digitally Offline
I felt calm and focusing was easier
I was definitely more productive
I had significantly more time to complete tasks
I completed tasks faster
Tasks felt more satisfying
I improved my time management
What are the Pitfalls of Being Offline
Very little. I reached absentmindedly for my phone a mere three times to fact-check something over the weekend and easily stopped myself. It could wait a little longer. And guess what, I survived.
The world didn’t collapse while I wasn’t watching.
I got up Saturday morning, and rather than check my phone, I commenced tasks that needed to be done. I accomplished several tasks before 7.30 am. In fact, I haven’t been as productive for several years!
Time seemed to slow down. There was ample time to get household tasks completed; there was time to plan my next task or goal, time to chat to friends, family and neighbours without interruptions, and time to relax, to look around.
Time to process deeper thoughts.
The Loss of Quiet Time and Relaxation
Don’t get me wrong, I normally would have time to relax a little on the weekend, but for many, that downtime has now become a chance to pick up the phone, check messages, shop online, read stuff, watch videos or play a game that gives some respite from reality. There is no chill factor included.
Heaven help us if we had to become bored – just for a few minutes each day.
I do complete tasks when connected, as I would not say I am not addicted to my phone But, I do notice that sometimes I don’t complete household tasks fully. They become jumbled as I flit here and complete another bit there. It’s slow progress. But this weekend was incredibly productive.
Computer Technology and Time-saving
Computer Tech was supposed to save mankind time by eliminating certain menial tasks. It may have done that, but technology has also filled any ‘saved’ time with a multitude of new tasks. We are swamped with information overload and apps for every little thing. It’s discombobulating trying to keep up.
If I was cynical, I’d compare technology to the Tivoli amusement park in Denmark. Worried about a revolution, the King built an amusement park to keep the people happy and distracted. The Park just keeps chugging along, and the public keeps filing through the gates.
Post Digital De-Tox
So what now?
Well, dear bloggers, I was so thrilled with the outcome of the experience I might just expand and repeat it. Check out Sophie’s blog to see her reaction.
Do yourself a favour. Try a Digital Detox sometime.
Feeling overwhelmed? Distracted? Struggling under an avalanche of work and social media, blogging, personal and marketing notifications, adverts designed to keep you from the task at hand? You are not alone.
This weekend I’m challenging the modus operandi I have followed for the last twelve years with a self-imposed digital detox. Two days of cold turkey. No screens, tablets or smartphone apps.
Joining me on this experiment is the brave Sophie from Lingo in Transit. Sophie has agreed to embark on a whole weekend without email, phone apps, computer screens. The only exception is phone calls and of course, emergency situations.
Will we be able to remain offline until we awake Monday morning?
What differences in our behaviour and routine will we notice? If any?
Are you game enough to join us and try this detox experiment for yourself?
With the online world entrenched in an everyday part of our lives, will Sophie and I crave the connection to the online world, perhaps reaching for our phone absentmindedly when we hear someone’s phone ‘ping’, as some have suggested?
When I first started blogging, I had a family to raise and worked four or five days a week. Back then, it seemed I had so much more time to write blog posts.
The goal posts have changed, suddenly and almost inexplicably.
But now, I am confused.
How did a semi-retired life living by the sea, away from the big city, become busier than it was living in the inner city juggling work and raising a young family?
Am I really far busier in years gone by? Is there really more to do online, or am I just using it as a knee-jerk reaction to a boring moment? Are the notifications distracting me from completing tasks in a timely manner?
Or has technology just stolen my focus?
This weekend should give me an indication.
Stay tuned for the follow-up dissection next week.
Those who read, own the world, and those who watch television, lose it.
Werner Herzog
Reading for meaning or comprehension, as opposed to skimming and scanning pages of a text to find salient points, requires sustained attention.
Books are more accessible than ever before, yet reading rates have continued to decline over past decades.
A Gallup study found that U.S. adults are reading roughly two or three fewer books per year than they did between 2001 and 2016. mainecampus.com/2022
Why?
Our world is full of distractions.
Be that from phones, media, emails, texts, games, streaming, news and more. We receive notifications on our wrist, via smart watches and smartphones are never far from our hands – 24/7.
The Myth of Multi-Tasking
Multi-tasking, considered a necessary skill for employees for the last few decades has now been proven to be counter-productive to sustaining focus and concentration. It may have even contributed inadvertently to an epidemic of ADHD.
Believe it or not, our brains require more energy to shift attention from task to task and less energy to focus on just one. [‘Stolen Focus’~ J. Hari]
Technology and email/social media/message pop-ups on our work screens exacerbate the act of repeated switching from task to task. And many messages are simply spam or junk or advertising. Things that are attention-wasters but still a distraction from the task at hand.
My least productive days, the days when I have spent the most time jumping between projects and emails and Twitter and whatever else, are also my most exhausting days. I used to think that my exhaustion was the cause of this lack of focus, but it turns out the opposite might be true.medium.com
It is little wonder many people feel chronically fatigued, despite work that is becoming more and more sedentary.
People who organize their time in a way that allows them to focus are not only going to get more done, but they’ll be less tired and less neuro-chemically depleted after doing it. [The Organized Mind ~ D J Levitin]
Regular periods of silent reading without any technological distractions might be a way to regain the ability to sustain focus and concentration.
The Importance of Reading Books
Reading is important to our children’s development and cognitive health.
According to the Center for Adult Education, reading helps adults reduce stress, decrease feelings of loneliness and isolation, sleep better at night and reduce their likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Setting a weekly or daily goal can help encourage a deeper level of reading.
I personally like to set a particular time of day when I sit down to read without distractions. Late in the night doesn’t seem to work for me as it is guaranteed I will fall asleep after reading only one page. Mid til late afternoon is better. I aim for at least 30 minutes of reading.
What are Your Thoughts on Reading?
Do you still read books? Has the amount of books you’ve read declined in recent years?
Do you find it harder to concentrate for a sustained period?
Am I just like generations previous, who lament the ineptitude and inabilities of youth?
I guess it is just another sign of getting older and crankier. Whinging about the youth of today?
Who can blame the kids? The goal of our evolving human race appears to be to make our time here on earth as easy and as convenient as possible. In making life comfortable and so tech-focused, we might be creating a culture of lazy inadequacy, or at least one where many self-reliant skills are fast disappearing. They ask such funny questions.
“You mean you had to walk to the television to turn it on and off or change the station?”
Young people ask incredulously.
“Yes, such was the bane of my late 20th-century life,” I respond. “It was hell.”
“Are you serious?” they ask wide-eyed, “You had to walk outside in the cold to go to the toilet?“
That was hell. But you get my drift?
Today, I was at the local department store, no names mentioned, collecting a small product, I had ordered online. In my mind, Click and Collect is the most wondrous of tech inventions. Press a few buttons, wait a couple of days and hey presto, your parcel is wrapped and waiting for collection at your nearest store, all within walking distance from my home!
Fantastic. Like magic.
I don’t have to worry about the postage getting lost, or searching up and down aisles for products in-store. Nor do I have to chase around several stores to find what I am looking for. Such a time saver for busy people.
It would have been another delightful time-saving experience today if the process was not stymied by the young people who confounded me with the contradictions in their inabilities.
They know their way around a multiplicity of software applications, downloads, uploads, Apple Pay, Google Pay, smartwatch configurations and yet sometimes I despair for them. They lack initiative.
Heading for the store, I clicked the link on my phone to say “I am on my way” to collect my parcel. Wow, I thought, they will even have my parcel ready to hand to me. What absolutely marvellous technology. What a time-saver. Seriously. I smiled widely as I approached the store’s entrance.
I then clicked the button on my phone indicating, “I have arrived,” as I neared the pickup counter, grinning. Fantastic.
That’s when it all went a little awry.
The queue to the counter was long and while that didn’t bother me, the confused look on the attendant’s face when I finally reached the counter, showing him the barcode and Order number, as instructed in the email, was the first red flag.
He waved his scanner at my phone and an unhappy sound emitted from his screen.
“Hmm mm“, was the most conversation he could muster to allay his customer’s click and collect anxiety.
He scanned it again and again, saying nothing to explain what was happening.
“Is something wrong?” I enquired to break the silence.
“Oh, sometimes the scanners don’t like the orders.”
Don’t like the orders? I thought to myself. It’s a sales order, not a popularity contest, for goodness’ sake.
Minutes elapsed with no further progress. Another attendant, now finished with her queue of customers, leaned over his shoulder and suggested he scan the barcode. That would have been helpful advice, if he hadn’t already done just that, twice.
“Enter the number manually,” she suggested.
Shall I just say there was a lot of ‘rinse and repeat,’ happening?
“Oh it’s an order from Catch,” she says, – “sometimes they go missing, and we can’t find them. They say they have arrived, but we can’t find them,” she says thinking I would be satisfied with that explanation. I wasn’t.
“Could it be out the back in the storage area?” I asked, trying not to sound too much like a know-it-all.
“I’ll go look,” says the first attendant, but returns after five minutes empty-handed.
More discussions take place between the two before they announce, “Oh, it’s a Catch order?”
I thought we’d established that fact sometime last century, I think under my breath. Although I do have to give the girl credit for again checking the storage area ‘out the back,’ and calling the front desk to see if it had arrived there. Again without any positive result.
The first attendant finally started a conversation, not a fruitful one, but nevertheless, he was finally speaking more than a one-word sentence to me, babbling about how delivery might come in just as the store was closing. My blank look must have initiated some kind of higher-level thinking as he then responded,
“I will get the Manager. He will ah, you know, see what he can do.“
To be fair to these two kids, they looked no more than 15 years of age and it was likely their first job dealing with people. They were rusty on customer service and rusty on communication. The Store’s policy to employ a young workforce to minimise costs was a flawed business strategy that came at a heavy price. Unhappy customers.
When the Manager arrived, he looked only a tad older than them. But thankfully, after that, we did make progress.
The Manager looked at my phone barcode and then asked for my full name. Within ten seconds, he had turned on his heel, darted into the storage area behind the door and returned with my parcel in hand. My parcel was – you guessed it – out the back!
My faith in this wondrous technology was restored instantly.
“How come you found it so quickly when these guys, (indicating the two attendants), couldn’t find it – out the back?” I asked.
The Manager shook his head, I really [pause]… don’t [head shake]… know.” I guessed the pause was most likely replaced under his breath with a silent expletive.
With that, I thanked him, took my parcel and was on my way home.
Freedom is a need. I have a cat. People feed this cat; they pet this cat; they give the cat everything he needs. But every time the window is open just a little, he runs away.
~Dalai Lama
Freedom is a fundamental need for humans; and controversial in terms of geopolitical refugee issues. We might ask ourselves why people are running away from their homeland; why they are so terribly unhappy in camps/detention: why they don’t return home; why they want to don’t want to change their way of life/traditions or even their attitudes – part of the answer to this, is freedom. Freedom of choice.
It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you.
~ Unknown Proverb
How often do we lament about our own country’s regulations preventing us from actioning something we want to do? Bureaucracy sets us more and more rules and society exacts unwritten ones.
Emerging nanny states ignore the need for personal freedom and decision-making. Machines and technology perform routine or repetitive tasks that eliminate the need for us to think, to choose, to do. They even decide for us how many steps we should take each day, the routes we drive, they eliminate the need to remember facts, as Google knows all. Is technology in a sense, preventing physical freedom whilst giving us a kind of intellectual freedom. Many folk today are addicted to checking email, notifications and their phones, and do not allocate time to just be, to self- reflect, to enjoy the liberty of a human on this planet.
If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbours. There is no other.
~Carl Schurz (German revolutionary and American Statesman)
Picasso’s quote hints at liberty in a metaphorical sense. How do you interpret it?
“Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.”
~ Pablo Picasso
Proverbial Friday
Several years ago, I created ‘Proverbial Friday’ on my blog.
I became fascinated with traditional proverbs and sayings, their metaphorical layers and the many different interpretations found within just a few, succinct words. I marveled at their ability to transcend race, religion, opinions and age.
Mostly anonymous, proverbs are a portal through time to generations past and echo a diverse range of cultures.
They speak of the experiences of many lessons learned and the wisdom from thousands of lives already lived.
They offer us knowledge; knowledge that is passed to us in much the same way relay runners might pass a baton. Once it’s handed over, it is up to us what we do with it and how we pass it on.
Join in the discussion by leaving a comment below. Everyone’s opinion is important. What is yours?
Proverbial Friday – always Something to Ponder About
Many people feel that they are not at all artistic. Yet there are many things you can do to create artistic flourishes or decorations, on objects in your world, with a few simple household tools and very little artistic technique. If you can hammer in a nail, you could paint a primitive, and delightful, border design.
Dot Daisy Border
A border can provide structure to a loose, flowing design. It will frame the design which pleases the eyes’ sense of order. Not only that but a line or motif border can direct the viewer’s eyes to the rest of the design, whilst still allowing for “breathing room” – negative space around the design itself. This, in particular, applies to primitive or folk art/ traditional art.
Beginners can easily create borders by combining a few basic strokes with dots made with the handle end of a brush dipped in paint, or press a series of dots with a Q-tip cotton bud, or a worn pencil eraser to form a four or five-petaled daisy.
Here are a few ideas:
Source: Jackie Shaw
Elongate the dots made form dipping the handle of a brush into oval shapes to make flower buds.
Place two dots of paint side by side, pulling each to a point, with a fine brush or brush handle, to form a heart. Use the chisel edge of a flat brush to make carefree straight lines. These irregular lines result in a more primitive look, less rigid and more free-flowing than lines carefully painted with a liner brush.
Children can begin to develop an appreciation of border art by dabbling decorative edges on photo frames or the cover of study books. Cover the books with plain paper or card stock and arm the kids with a q tip or paintbrush as a “dotting tool.”
Rule some lines in pencil as a guide and let them create patterns in rows across the paper with Q-tips or brushes. You will be surprised as what they come up with. They are limited only by their imagination. And you can even incorporate apply a bit of mathematics at the same time, teaching division skills.
Something to remember when painting strokes and border designs is to aim for a flowing design. Otherwise, the rhythm of the design will appear disjointed and the eye will not flow smoothly from one section of the design to another.
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Decorate an object with one colour and then add a solid, contrasting colour border design
A solid contrast border colour can be further embellished with geometric shapes, dots, stripes or swirls.
As your confidence and ability grows, build up each row upon row, to form an intricate border designs, based on basic shapes and form such as can be seen in this preliminary sketch below.
Something to Ponder About 