Exhausted by Technology

This weekend I went to the movies with a group of girlfriends to see the newly released film, He's Just Not That Into You. I am sure you are wondering what in the world this has to do with our class readings for this week, but I promise it has a connection.

In Bree Nordenson's "Overload!" she writes about how we have news and information coming at us through all different directions and modes of technology. It becomes quite difficult to differentiate between signals and interpret what is important and what is not.

This reminded me of a scene in the movie when Drew Barrymore's character is in the store and recollects her recent date with a man and communicating with him. "...just to be rejected by seven different technologies. It's exhausting," she said.

I thought this was such a great line, because it is so true on so many levels. It's like we try and make communication easier for us every day by releasing new technologies, but in the end it sometimes makes things more confusing, complicated, and tiring. Don't get me wrong, I love technology and the conveniences that it brings, but it does have its cons just like everything else.

I agree that the many technologies that feed us news on a daily basis ultimately strain our attention spans, because we are often left with skimming just to take the important information in quickly enough to move onto the next task at hand. It's hard enough already to just make it through one news source at a time without having to stop and switch over to another medium!