They say an entertainment tsunami is about to hit us. It’s called HDD DVD: “Hard drive disk, digital video disk.” Introduced into Japanese markets this month, it’s like TiVo, but better.
HDD DVD allows you to record programs and cut re-writeable DVDs, but it will not have a monthly charge like TiVo. From what I understand, the machine will record a batch of programs, and then you can click on the menu and select the ones you want to watch, just like you select a track on music CDs.
The unit will probably be available later this year for $299.00. Some speculate the cost could be only $99.00 by late 2006.
Other technology is coming, too. All cars, for instance, will be Internet compatible.
So is it all good? All fun and games and efficiency?
I have doubts.
Awhile back, the technological toys sucked me into the phenomenon of multi-tasking. I would, for instance, find myself reading correspondence, checking e-mail, and talking on the phone at the same time. At first, I was proud of my three brains. It wasn't until I started trying to do only one thing at a time—like read a book—that I realized my powers of concentration had deteriorated. I could scarcely do anything for more than three minutes without trying to distract myself with something else.
Was it the side effect of multi-tasking? I think so. I can't trace the defect to anything else. Moreover, I consciously started avoiding multi-tasking about six months ago, and my concentration has steadily returned.
Technology is full of these “side effects,” or what might be called “unintended consequences.” Consider TiVo, which markets its products in the name of efficiency. TiVo says it helps people manage their time by giving them TV when they want it. TiVo takes care of the TV “while you’re out living your life,” to quote its own materials.
So what are TiVo people doing with all that saved time? Curing cancer? Writing poetry? Volunteering at a local soup kitchen? Coaching their son's little league team? Hanging out with friends?
Naw. They're watching TV. An initial study shows that TiVo users on average watch about three hours more TV than regular TV viewers. Even Leo Laporte, a TiVo enthusiast, concedes, “We’d like to think that all of the time saved not watching shows in real-time and skipping over commercials is being used for the betterment of humankind…. But in point of fact, it’s probably just resulted in watching more TV.”
So am I against the new entertainment technology?
No, I enjoy it. My words so far have been a lead-in to the real purpose of this week's column: introducing people to Marshall McLuhan.
McLuhan was a Canadian who converted to Catholicism under the influence of G.K. Chesterton's writings. He was a daily communicant who became a household name in the 1960s. His claim to fame: understanding media.
His ideas might be broken down into four elements:
1. Technologies cannot be understood except as extensions of ourselves. The wheel is an extension of our feet, the telescope of our eyes, the telephone of our ears. All such extensions are properly referred to as “media.”
2. Every medium affects the user.
3. It is necessary to understand how media affects us or else we could be its victims rather than its beneficiaries.
4. Media is not neutral.
His famous saying is “the medium is the message,” meaning that the medium itself is its significant aspect. A cant phrase today (as it was when McLuhan wrote in the 1960s) is that “Technology X can be good or bad, depending on its content.” McLuhan said, “No. Technology X brings positive or negative effects, regardless of its content, and if people aren't aware of it, the effects are more likely to be negative.”
That's the message I want to see “out there,” especially among Catholics who should be leading a cultural revival. Are we the salt of the earth? Then we better not let ourselves be duped by all the new forms of technology.
My central advice: Don't be so cocky to think you can indulge yourself in all these toys and not suffer some sort of adverse effect. I can't predict the type of effect (loss of concentration? impatience and irritability? sloth?), but you will suffer.
My real fear: Many of us have been sucked into the new media and already suffer its adverse effects and don't even know it. In this, we're a lot like drug addicts who initially used a drug, not thinking it would hurt them and, once they were in the drug's grasp, couldn't see its effects.
Pick up a biography of McLuhan or read some of his books. Read articles about him on the Internet.
The new technology isn't bad. Its effects are just unknown. Know this and be cautious, and you're blessed.
© Copyright 2005 Catholic Outreach
Eric Scheske is an attorney, the Editor of The Wednesday Eudemon, a Contributing Editor of Godspy, and the former editor of Gilbert Magazine.
