Frankly, although I think the President is taking us down a road toward disaster, in this instance I think he is right.
Take a ride on a bus or a train these days, and you never see any kids reading, and you rarely see an adult reading. They are playing games on their phones, or talking with their friends obsessively. Go to a store and if kids are walking around with their mothers, if they are very young they may be carrying around a teddy bear.. just a bit older and they'd got some kind of electronic game with them to keep them quiet while mom does her shopping.
Then there is the news. People have a tendency to believe what they read if it appears in print, and the last few generations have a tendency to believe what they read on the internet without question - despite the fact that they surely must be aware that anyone can write anything on the Internet. But it would require thought and common sense to realize that if a piece of news doesn't come from a reputable news source, it should be dismissed. And when a piece of news conforms to a reader's beliefs, he or she is more apt to believe it without question.
Thanks to devolution media which has brought this about.
Obama Warns Grads of iPad Perils
BlackBerry-loving President Barack Obama declared war on technology, singling out Apple’s super-popular iPods and iPads for criticism at a commencement ceremony in Virginia.
BlackBerry-loving President Barack Obama declared war on technology, singling out Apple’s super-popular iPods and iPads for criticism at a commencement ceremony in Virginia, the New York Post reported Monday.
Obama -- whose election was credited in part to his skillful use of modern media, from smartphones to Twitter to Flickr -- on Sunday told college graduates that high-tech gizmos and apps were straining American democracy.
"With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation," Obama said at Hampton University in southeastern Virginia.
Obama described the most popular offerings of companies like Apple, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo as distractions that are putting unnecessary pressure on the country.
Obama also lamented the spread of social media and blogs, through which "some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction."
"All of this is not only putting new pressures on you," Obama said. "It is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy."
"We can't stop these changes," he said, "but we can adapt to them. And education is what can allow us to do so. It can fortify you, as it did earlier generations, to meet the tests of your own time."
The bolded sentences are the key. Obama is stressing that education is the key to success in life, to knowing good from bad, good from evil. And spending your life twittering it in 30-character increments is such a waste of time.
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