Methods of Expression
I got into a funny debate with my birthday-boy nephew last weekend while we were all gathered out in Joshua Tree. There was no set agenda, but rather a loose schedule of dinners and a few hikes with the rest of the time left largely unstructured for people to do as they please and commune both with one another and the surrounding desert landscape. The Airbnb that was the central gathering spot (we and others stayed in a nearby Best Western and the rest were lodged at the Airbnb), was set in the desert and had a big hillside as a backdrop along with the ubiquitous fire pit around which we could all gather in the evening. The great room was basically a kitchen, dining table and sofa with big-screen TV over a fireplace. Here was an outdoor covered patio with tables and chairs. After the schedule was announced to all before the weekend, my nephew emailed us all and asked that we refrain from using screens during the weekend. This basically amounted to a request that we not use our cell phones, iPads or watch TV for Saturday and Sunday when we were at the house.
The issue of excessive screen time is a big topic these days across the whole world I imagine. Lots of developmental psychologists have opined that our youth are getting too screen addicted and dependent and are losing their human interaction capabilities to some degree because they are always getting distracted by their screens. I know I get frustrated when I see Kim on her phone while we are driving and ask why we can’t talk instead and who exactly does she need to reach out to so desperately that it can’t wait. I imagine that to be a multilateral conversation happening all over the world at any given moment. We all do it and we all get bothered by it when it is done around or to us. I think it is too aggressive to suggest that Kim is doing this TO me, but rather I suspect that she is doing it either thinking she can multitask sufficiently so that it will not interfere with whatever we are discussing, or that she can finish it up in a moment and get back to our discussion, as it were, fairly quickly. Whenever I comment to her, I can guess how it feels to her. The kindest thought she has is that I am just too impatient and that I can wait for her to deal with the minutia of life with which we all must deal at times. The more strident reaction might well be that I have no right to be so egotistical as to think I deserve her total attention and demand it whenever I should want to open my mouth, only to leave her with her own thoughts if I have nothing particularly pressing to say. It’s a tough one for sure.
When I am at family gatherings and see someone always checking their phone I wonder what on earth can be so demanding. If I find out its just an online game (Kim likes Words with Friends, which is an ironic name since concentration on this scrabble-like game prevents words with friends and family in real time…), it all makes me even crazier. I do play Solitaire at times, but usually when I am completely devoid of other things to amuse myself or am trying to lull myself to sleep in good sheep-counting fashion. The point is that to me, gaming is only something to do when there are no human interactions possible and not as a preference to them. I’m sure there are plenty of opposing views to this. If it is texting that must be done, I think it falls into the same category as any interruption. Sometimes they happen and courtesy demands you seek permission from the one you’re with to excuse yourself, but just doing it on a multitasked basis strikes me as marginally rude. Again, lots of views I’m sure.
The point of my story is not to discuss my nephew’s request. As Leslie Gore said in one way or another, it’s his party and he can cry if he wants to. My job as an attendee at an event to honor him surviving until age forty, is to honor the request. But here’s the rub, exceptions are always made, aren’t they? There is the relative who has work-related screen needs who might declare that if he can’t do business as he feels he needs to, then he cannot attend. There are the minimal requests for research (“Who starred in that movie?”) that we have all come to rely on to settle disagreements or simply inform us. There are geospatial issues like, how long it should take to drive here or there. Surely all of these interruptions are legitimate since they involve the wellbeing of the gathered group….right? It is conceivable that one could be dogmatic about screen usage to ban it entirely, but that gets harder and harder each year as we become more and more dependent on our mobile technology. Checking your guns at the door really only works in courtrooms and the such.
In the course of the weekend I, like several others from what I am told, ran afoul of the screen regulations and got a stern talking-to from my nephew in front of some of the crowd. No one likes getting spanked, especially in public, but I chose to not fight back and to just put away my iPad. I had been writing a story, something I do every day. Everyone, including my nephew, knew that is what I was doing and I even offered to read it aloud since it pertained to the weekend, but was declined due to some impending pick-up decision to go shopping for unspecified items. Clearly it was not a high priority to anyone to whom I offered the reading since no one came back to me after the shopping and asked to hear my story later on (perhaps especially since I had been publicly chastised for writing it and to read it would have required opening up my iPad screen…a double penalty I imagine).
That got me to thinking. How does writing a story on an iPad compare to picking up a guitar or sitting at a keyboard (both of which were available and were done during the two days) to play music? Both are methods of creative expression, right? Neither is work, per se. Both are being done for the others in the group as well as for the pleasure of the generator. One is song and one is prose. One requires a instrument (strangely enough, one of which was electronic) and the other does too, just with a screen attached. One is done synchronously (most often), while the other is most often done asynchronously. When I broached that issue with my nephew he was simply not having it. To him, playing a guitar at a gathering was normal and to be expected in the best of the spirit of being present with friends an family. Writing a story was not…though I wonder if I had used pen and paper that would have been OK, just like reading a book was approved, but not a kindle book? It perplexed me and must have flummoxed him a bit because he didn’t like the direction of my arguments and simply shut down the discussion by asking that we not further debate it.
I am still scratching my head about it all, but I did drop it (somewhat with difficulty I must say) because he played the ultimate trump card in the game and declared that it was his party and he could define things as he pleased. That was a hard argument to argue and still stay in the spirit of the gathering, so the iPad stayed where I had imprisoned it, in the car, where at least we all know it is both illegal and stupid to use screens…other than the GPS and dashboard and the head-up display……