I am sitting out back on the patio, writing this.  I am listening to music by Hellogoodbye, wishing that it would be scrobbled to my last.fm account, but it wont be, because it is streaming.  Nevertheless, I am feeling quite hip, cool, moderner, and a bunch of other trendy adjectives that one could associate with a yuppie socialite person who is engaged in the latest technology.

My problem is with the false sense of enjoyment that I am having.  I mean, here I am outside.  It is a beautiful day, err, evening, and my dogs are roaming around the yard.  However, I am still looking at my weather widget to tell me what the temperature is, what weather to expect.  I am sitting outside!  I should be observant and notice that I am comfortable with my t-shirt and shorts.  I should be happy that it isn’t raining and that I could see the moon up until the cloud covered it moments ago.

Perhaps technology is mixing with our lives too much.  I mean, we integrate our selves with is and rely on it to the point where we wouldn’t know what to do with out it.  How many people turn on the TV in the morning to get the weather?  I mean just look outside already!  If it’s cold wear a jacket.  If its 80 degrees (F) don’t.   Alright, I understand that you want to know if it will rain later and that convience is provided to you by the girl on TV.  But take a step back into reality and use your senses once and awhile.

Maybe I am taking this too far.  I do like that I can sit out here and enjoy the evening with my laptop.  I even enjoy that yuppie feeling I get by doing it. I’m just saying, maybe your don’t have to from time to time.  Turn the technology off.  With that being said, I’m going to go take a Claratin because my eyes are getting itchy, then bundle up inside where the pollen can’t get me and I can be just as hypocrtical as I want.

Watching Clay Shirky speak about the pitfalls of TV may not seem like you want to do, but believe me, it will change how you think about your favorite pass time.

During his speech, which can be found on Making Light, he throws around a couple of figures.  The first of which, is that the Wikipedia project took about 100 million hours of man time to create.  Then he compares that with the amount of time we, as Americans, spend watching TV each year: 200 billion.  He preaches what we could do with that time, if we devoted it to something constructive rather than just passively sitting on the couch.  Even games, yes video games, he says, are more productive–the thirty year old man pretending to be an elf in his mothers basement–is better than watching TV.  I would have to agree.

But the point here, isn’t that we should be playing more video games; and not that we should cut TV out of our lives.  The point is that we should remove some of our passive time, and replace it with something worth while.  A blog, taking the kids to the park, writing a book, working on Wikipedia, teaching someone, playing an insturment, et cetera.  If we moved even one percent of the 200 billion hours we spend watching TV, think of the amount that could be accomplished with those 2 billion hours.

Later in the video, he speaks of someone’s four year old daughter running behind the TV and looking for a mouse.  This is because society is now being raised to interact with media.  Kids do not want to sit passively by, they want to be a part of it.  Don’t you?

Watch the video and let me know what you think.