Wine summit & technology

My posting has been a little wonky over the last two weeks... things should settle down next week for me.  Of course, both days, this happened after I tell people I post each weekday, something that hasn't been happening regularly for the past two weeks.  Anyhow.

So Wordbones, HoCoRising, Doug Miller, and I met over drinks last night to discuss social media and blogs and newspapers... very little real agenda.  I'm glad we did.  You can check out Tom's post at HCR about some details behind Miller's intentional withdrawal from technology.

We all choose to follow and do certain things: pursue higher education, follow politics and news, use technology, make time to exercise, keep in touch with friends and family, pour time and energy into our jobs, etc.  Our decisions are influenced by what we feel are important.  We only have so much time in the day-- if pursuing a graduate degree is important, for example, I might not work out or follow the news, etc.

For me, technology isn't something I feel like I have to actively stay on top of-- its involvement in my existence is fairly seamless.  I joined Facebook back in 2004 when it was still only open to college students because it was sweeping through schools at the time, and all my friends were joining it.  I've had a cellphone since high school because it seemed like my parents wanted to know where I was at all times, so they got me one.  I still have that same phone number.   I had a landline for about eight months once, and I don't think I got a single phone call on it.

It's easy for the tools, however, to start controlling you, which is something Miller is able to avoid.  And it's true-- we all know people (or are people) who check email compulsively, who are constantly texting, and who can't seem to put their Blackberry down.  You even get horror stories like "Police: Mom Was on Facebook When Child Drowned."  Miller is not the the only person I know who deliberately eschews technology.  I have a few friends who choose not to get cellphones, or have Facebook accounts, or who have them but use them in a very limited way.

While can understand and appreciate that, I personally prefer to try and strike that balance of "being connected" and "being chained" via my phone or the internet.  I have no problem letting my cellphone ring and go to voicemail.  If I'm hanging out with a friend for an evening, I don't pick up my phone.  I don't look at my phone.  My family and I have an informal system for the "this is an emergency-- if you can pick up, please do" by calling twice in a row.  For me, the advantages of using technology (really it comes down to connection and education for me, to put it broadly) far outweigh the negatives as long as I'm able to use it in a balanced way.  Using it in a balanced way is an active pursuit, to be sure.

Of course, behind all this technology is regular ole people.  It doesn't make us better people-- it can make us worse, or more accurately, bring out the worst in us, but it's easy to get caught up in the whole machine-robot-computer-screen thing.  Behind that Facebook status is a person (probably your friend in some regard).  Behind comments and blogs and articles and letters to the editors is a person who wrote it.

I mentioned a few weeks back in a comment on HoCoRising that I'd like to repeat here about what this blog is to me:  I have no illusions about my blog. I know the person who has benefitted most from it is me. I've met people, learned things, and done stuff I wouldn't otherwise do because of it. In that regard, I think has helped me with human interaction (especially as a relative newbie to Howard County) though it might have started with typing by myself. 

In other news, the LaMadrid Reserva Malbec wine at Iron Bridge is excellent.