It's official: I am feeling my age. The modern world is leaving me behind.
The other day, I heard some university students on the train (I'm a big fan of eavesdropping). They were musing on the distant past.
Student 1: How did people manage before mobile phones?
Student 2: I don’t know. You couldn’t do Uni without them, could you?
Student 1 : No way! I mean, how would you meet people? You’d have to, like, say you were going to be at a certain place at a certain time!
Student 2: Yeah, and then be there! Unbelievable!
Student 1: I know. How would that work? (much laughter)
Mobile phones!? My family didn’t even have land line. The hours I’ve spent over the years in drafty phone boxes. Or writing letters (remember letters? Pen to paper handwritten letters?)
I love email but no-one writes page after page of them do they? Is it possible (at least to some generations) to treasure them for ever? Oh, you can save the ones that mean a lot to you until your computer crashes and dies, that is.
It’s not that I don’t understand the appeal of these new technologies - I totally do. If I was a teenager, I would be 'poking' (a Facebook thing for those who don't know) my friends every half an hour, and texting them every ten minutes about my anxieties at not having a boyfriend, and not going to the right parties.
But I'm new to the stuff and perhaps a little bit scared of it. I'd love to set up my own blog - but haven't (I wouldn't have had to write three unpublishable autobiographical novels if I had set up a blog ...)
So, I'm thrilled to be trying out my blogging style on Writers' & Artists' Yearbook users. It's such a great book and this blog such an imaginative and inclusive use of all this new online networking stuff.
But as anyone who has Googled me will see, I don’t have many links (of the virtual kind). Time’s winged chariot is breathing down my neck - I haven’t got enough real time left to make them. If my friends relationships are breaking up, I still need to find out about it the old-fashioned way, in person, face to face, with words I can hear, rather than read 'all about it' on Facebook.
And quite frankly, all this virtual communication is depriving eavesdroppers of their fun!
So as a writer, I'm here to say 'bring back talking!'.
Mary Cutler has been a scriptwriter for The Archers since 1979. Read more from Mary in the Writers' & Artists' Yearbook »
PS On the subject of eavesdropping, a curio of a book came out a while back called One Million Tiny Play about Britain - maybe one for those who prefer their chatter in condensed form.
While I agree that the art of letter writing on paper may be in terminal decline, I fail to see a decline in meaningful communication. In fact if one were to compare the amount of written communication that takes place between people in today's society, with those of yesterday the difference would be unparalleled.
How many people would read this blog for example, and reply by steam powered pen and paper ? I remember well, before the days of electronic communication that there were three main streams of written communication .They were pen pals,love letters and of course letters to the editor of some magazine,comic or news paper.
There can be no comparison as to the level of intercommunication between people in today's world and those of yesterday ! If we were still reliant on pen and paper what a dull world it would be.The only occasion I ever read paper is when it is in the form of a book. Who genuinely prefers a Kindle to a book ? When my erudite grandfather died he left me thousands of beautiful books I cannot simply imagine leaving my future grandchildren a Kindle !
My last parting thought is this, how many of you computer age critics use the term e-mail instead of electronic mail ?
Regards Richard
Mary,
What a great blog to end the year. It is fascinating how our perspectives of age change with well… age. Ever noticed that, up to ‘tween’ years, it seems people cannot wait to ‘grow up’? Then the ‘teens arrive, mixing things up depending on their experiences: the easygoing ones like it just where they are, hoping they’ll be young forever so they won’t miss a single party; the harder working ones either wish they were carefree kids again or yearn for the time in the future when they can enjoy the rewards of all their hard work. Past 30 or so, we pine for happier days of our youth, when we notice things changing from the way we remembered. 60 onward, and almost everyone would settle for being 30 again. I hope that young or old, we all pause this New Year to see ourselves as the wonderful, unique people we are. For a moment, take a visionary journey to the land of contentment within our hearts. I’ll await you there to say Welcome. Happy New Year, Everyone!
Xean
12/31/2010