It's Not Just An Out-Of-Date Idea, It's A Lost Way-Of-Life

I've been car shopping lately and have received some less-than-respectful jabs when salespeople hear that one of the qualifications for my new car is that it have a CD player. 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2012/12/04/best-selling-cars-2012/1745385/

"Why do you want a CD player?" "It has Bluetooth! You don't need that" The most upsetting one is the mocking: "You want a CD player?"

Yes, I do. And what if I do want to maintain a piece of my childhood? Since when did all respect for and appreciation for the past go away? When salespeople respond in this rude manner I feel like they are mocking my very cultural background.

I'm an old-soul born in 1995. I grew up on movies from the 1950s and 1960s: Yours, Mine, and Ours starring Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda and a plethora of Gene Kelly musicals. When I was born we were using video cassettes and tapes. I remember seeing adds about flip phones, and when I got my first flip phone in eighth grade I was stoked. 

By the time I turned ten, CDs and DVDs were replacing cassette tapes. It took me some time to warm up to these new ideas but eventually I did. I gradually came to like the new features. And not having to rewind was a nice bonus! Not long after that, phones with slide-out keyboards started to come out, and I thought those were the coolest phones ever. 

However, when I see moving from CDs to MP3 Players, from DVDs to Netflix, and from qwerty phones to smart phones, I see something different happening. I see our way-of-life and our way of CONSUMPTION completely changing.

Part of my love for the old is a nostalgia, and there's nothing wrong with that! Nostalgia ought to be an acceptable excuse when it comes to choices in media intake. That said, there's something more going on here.

https://www.123rf.com/photo_79080974_dvd-cd-rom-on-a-computer-opened-to-show-disc-top-view.html

https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/11/15953012/spotify-marketing-data-listening-habits

Think of what is happening to our culture as Netflix and YouTube (yes, I'm guilty of addiction to the latter one) replace DVDs. We no longer intentionally go to the library or search through a plethora of DVDs to find the one that we've been wanting to see. 

The intentionality has gone out of it. People scroll through Netflix completely absentmindedly. They get so lost in this never-ending world of media consumption that they stop appreciating or intentionally choosing what is in front of them. In thinking they gain control of their choices, people actually lose control as large media outlets swarm their screens and news feeds with an endless plethora of entertainment and information they want to feed into their brains. Presence in time and place is lost as our brains become addicted to taking in more and more information and entertainment. The content of that information becomes less important to us than the amount of information we take in.

(FYI, Netflix addiction has become an official diagnosis. I could insert links about it into this blog post and with a click of a mouse... or cursor... you could instantly be transported into an entirely different world on the internet, but I would rather you remain focused on one argument and piece of information at a time. In this world of right and left click transportation, we can't keep our minds in one place at one time. We are actually losing the ability to do so as with the click of a cursor we can be transported into a new world of thoughts and ideas while forgetting where we started in the first place.)

Speaking of juggling multiple thoughts, let's get back to what we were talking about --> forms of media intake and their effects on people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq7LO_GTzVg

https://www.123rf.com/photo_79080974_dvd-cd-rom-on-a-computer-opened-to-show-disc-top-view.html

There's a term used for a treatment of anxiety called grounding. It involves conscious presence in time and space (a lost art). When a person practices grounding, they intentionally concentrate on the present moment using their five senses. They become aware of the textures around them or the movement of the air (touch). They examine what odors they are taking in (smell) and the distinct flavors activating their taste buds (taste). They look closely at the colors and shades of things around them (sight). They listen for the sound of a soft breeze, gentle music, or white noise in the background (hearing). They become AWARE of where they are and how they interact with the things around them.

This is something I think we lose as we enter into the digital age of smart phones, MP3 players, and Netflix binging. We become like the machines we are using: automated. Why are we so blind to this?

I know from personal experience that this is the case. When I go on YouTube, I never stop clicking. Sometimes I'm only partway through one video when I notice another video in the sidebar that intrigues me. With a simple click, I abandon my train of thought and look for something more stimulating. Even if the next video is interesting, something on my new sidebar might look more interesting, and all it takes is a click to transport myself mid-thought or mid-sentence into a whole different world.

We begin to live in a world of incomplete thoughts and incoherent thinking.

If you still don't think modern, media consumption methods are having this effect on our brains, just look at people with smart phones (yourself almost certainly included). Do you really think the person sitting in that corner of the airport on their iPhone sat down with a certain set of information that will take two hours to scroll through in mind? Possibly but very unlikely.

Picture yourself on Facebook, absentmindedly resetting your News Feed. In most cases, you're not intentionally looking for a specific piece of information to inform a train of thought. You just want information: any information will do. And if one piece of information does catch your eye, it will only be on your mind for a moment before you continue scrolling mindlessly (trying to fill some mysterious, empty void within you).

You may be wondering how on earth any of this information has to do with CD and DVD players. (I promise I didn't simply lose my train of thought.)

The case is simple. Put your iPod on shuffle, and there will be no predictable twists and turns in your journey of music for the next half hour. The brain becomes less accustomed to a pattern of thought (or, in this case, a pattern of tunes) and instead becomes accustomed to randomly firing in unpredictable ways.

...or perhaps you're NOT on shuffle, but you sat down in your car thinking that you wanted to listen to Selena Gomez's newest CD only to notice that you also have playlists for Taylor Swift and Demi Lovato that actually sound rather interesting. It's "the side bar effect" again. Forget what you had in mind; you're driven by impulse. In an instant, you forget the playlist you intended to listen to and switch to a different track.

In the moment, this might not seem like a disaster, and in the big realm of things it's not. But I think it's worth taking note that it is becoming more and more common to not stick to our original intentions but to instead act on impulse. This makes us very unpredictable people. I don't just mean it's hard for other people to predict your next move. I mean it becomes hard for you to predict or even to control your next move.

Isn't this growing anomaly a bit disturbing?

When it all comes down to it, my argument is that in a world of smart phones, MP3 players, and Netflix we start to lose our presence in-the-moment, and we start to act on impulse. We stop exercising our God-given ability to reason through things as we simply take in the next tempting thing that comes our way.

We begin to live in an absentminded state and, although this state-of-mind may start out as a choice, it gradually becomes our default state. We hibernate from intentionality and from step-by-step, forward/coherent thinking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=327upEeFC2c

When I say I want a CD player in my car, I am saying a whole lot more. I am saying that I want to maintain some predictability and coherence in my life. I am saying that I want to live with intentionality and presence. I want to live in-the-moment. I'm saying that I want to appreciate one piece of art at a time (in it's fullness). I want all of this... with a bit of nostalgia to go with it.

Please respect that.

As we lose our ability to reason, don't you think we lose a very piece of the humanity that God gave us? Let's become what God made us to be rather than growing into the idols that we make.