OK Computer - Where to Next?

Last thing at night first thing in the morning...I know what you do!

You switch off your phone and place it by your bedside - seconds before
you nod off.

You wake up and immediately switch your phone on. 

If I'm wrong I'd say you're perhaps an exception to the modern world regime of umbilical connectivity. OK - I admit I've adopted this strange habit. Not sure when I did, not sure why I have. I now seem wired for sound and vision and text for far too much of the day (and night) and I'm wondering what it's all about?

more productive...
comfortable...
a patient better driver...

Tom Yorke - Radiohead

Or as another writer suggested a few decades earlier...

Turn on
Tune In
Drop out 

Timothy Leary

Tom was undoubtedly referencing "the darker implications of technology...a vague sense of dread, and a touch of Big Brother foreboding"...

...whilst Tim's proposition was a touch more 'whimsical' perhaps?

Oh get to the point I hear you cry!

Well it's this.

When is more technology enough technology - and should we at some point carefully calibrate how much of our lives remain 'off-line'?

The great family Gurus Grandma & Grandpa have been usurped for some by Google when it comes to the what-when-where-why challenge, and the old adage that less is more has been erased from the records to be replaced by more and more - and more. The need for speed seems to have joined up with the need for greed...I want more stuff and I want it NOW! 

Are we truly building a better world for ourselves or simply constructing a global cashpoint for the super-rich?

The recent Davos-demographic might incline you to the latter conclusion. 

I'd hope you know me well enough by now to agree I'm not a technophobe, and like you I've warmly welcomed how a connected world seems to be a better world in many ways. However, I wonder if we are somewhere near a point where we need a bit of check and balance? A bit more community and a bit less connectivity perhaps?

In truth I'm torn.

Electric, Connected, Shared, Autonomous vehicles will surely make for a cleaner  better way of getting around.

Renewable energy - cleaner, safer, and sustainable and smart homes et al will without doubt make for a world more likely to accommodate the many billions living and breathing on it.

This computer I'm writing on is more than OK! - festooned as it is with music and video and news and views and trivia and games and so on and so forth...

Meanwhile, this modern world seems to fill up my senses with an increasing host of time-consuming and ultimately unfulfilling distractions. More hands-off than hands-on I'm beginning to wonder if it's liberation or capitulation? 

Having said all of the above, maybe it's simply a case of personal discipline?...

I'm going to read this poem out aloud and hope it does the trick!

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

William Henry Davies

I'll leave the last word(s) to some friends of mine from 'back in the day'. Ian Martin ('The Thick Of It' / 'Veep' ) wrote some very prescient lyrics... 

And finally, as always, I'd be very grateful if you'd consider sharing this piece with your network - thanks!

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