Why Kill Time When You Can Kill Yourself?

Over at David Silver's blog you can read about what happens when media studies students retreat to Melinda Stone's farm, and there are links to what Amber, LuLu & Sara had to say about the experience, too.

So you're in line at a cafe & you order a sandwich & a latte. How many times do you have to say medium decaf and how many times do you have to say mustard no mayo with avacado? Let's switch the question: when did you last get exactly what you asked for without having to repeat something?

Say what? We said: without having to repeat something.

You're in a cab. You assume, as you tell the cabbie where you want to go, that you will have to repeat this information at least once. It would be too much, in this world, to expect anyone to take in important data the first time around. It needs to sort of seep in, after several iterations, because the cabbie is -- a) on the phone; b) listening to the radio; c) watching the pretty girls; d) thinking about anything or anyone but you.

In our POP ARTS class students recently retreated from all media for 2-3 days & then wrote about that, partly in response to Thomas de Zengotita's article The Numbing Of The American Mind. Many students found this to be a real challenge, and the prof's experience of reading papers like this (an idea he stole many years ago from Prof. Michelle Wolf at San Francisco State University -- hi Michelle!) is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for students to -- a) isolate themselves from media input; and b) deal with the aloneness that results.

Recently on MSNBC a debate between Hillary Clinton & Barack Obama devoted a mere 16 minutes to the all-important topic of health care (is anything, ultimately, more important than this?) and host/presenter Brian Williams made a point, as he moved on after 16 minutes, to note what an extraordinary amount of time had been given over to the discussion (which was not in fact over).

Why do we have to move on? (Because it's time for a commercial break.) Why could we not talk about health care for another 16 minutes? (Because people might get bored.) Isn't life and death important enough? (Apparently not.) And if life & death is not important enough, then what is? (Whatever the next thing is, that's the most important thing.)

So you're in class and you make an announcement about office hours or whatever and anyway it's all in the syllabus, and you say the same things over & over & over again, and still there are questions like, when are your office hours again?

Students make appointments with you but then about half the time they do not show up.

The prof is not exempt. On Wednesday of this week he arrived in class with the wrong DVD. A first! Awful. But now we are all absent-minded professors, somehow it seemed easier to get away with the mistake. Appalling!

Sorry, what was that again? Oh, we screwed up on Wednesday.

Whatever.

We cannot escape mediation. It is a product of the division of labour. We depend upon this division of labour in order to maintain a global industrial economy, absent which millions more people will starve. And -- more importantly -- could not have cell phones or MTV. And since we cannot reverse history then we will have to determine some way to be mindful of our lives while we are dancing in the distraction factory. That's where we live.

Important always to remember that (mass)mediation, like writing, music & art, is also social connection. It's not the technology, stupid. It's how you use it. And which toys you choose. The prof says: blogging good, iPods bad.

Not everyone agrees with him.