[lit-ideas] Re: Implications of Multiplying Gadgets, was Poetry and Madness
- From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2006 06:49:01 EDT
<<Re IM'ing on the phone: My wife frequently uses IM for cross-talk
while participating in conference calls. She and a friend use IM to
make snide remarks or plot strategy while other call participants are
droning or ranting on. I wonder how widespread this sort of behavior
has become.>>
It's not uncommon for me to be chatting with a friend in an IM and be
talking to my Mother on the phone at the same time .... I think e-mailing or
IMing
while on the phone is pretty common -- the friends I talk to on the phone I
frequently hear typing. But I don't IM and phone the same friend
simultaneously <g>. That phenomena seems common w/ adolescents here, for some
unclear
reason.
Julie Krueger
========Original Message======== Subj: [lit-ideas] Re: Implications of
Multiplying Gadgets, was Poetry and Madness Date: 10/22/2006 10:05:54 P.M.
Central Standard Time From: _john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxxx
(mailto:john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx) To: _lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
(mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) Sent
on:
On 10/23/06, JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx <JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> Yeah -- my kids, 13 & 15, keep lobbying for a tv, vcr, dvd, and computer of
> their own, not to mention a cell phone. Considering that we are outside of
> cable country that would mean 3 satellites unless everyone wanted to watch
> the same thing at once (yeah, right). I am totally in support of positive
> use of TV (History, Discovery Channels) and computers (research for school
> work), but enough is enough....when they start IM'ing the same person
> they're talking with on the phone.....
I recall what I wrote in the final chapter of my book on Japanese
consumer behavior,
>>>>>>>>
It is virtually impossible to read an account of Japanese social
structure that does not enshrine the ie, the 'traditional' patriarchal
household defined in Meiji law and assumed to be the root metaphor for
social organization in Japanâfrom families to firms to the Japanese
state as a whole. As we have seen, however, the ie model has not gone
unchallenged. The American-style nuclear family in which relationships
are supposed to be free, open, and egalitarian has been an attractive
alternative for nearly a half century. The 'Husband-Wife Holon'
envisioned by HILL researchers can be seen as an attempt to balance
the claims of these two models in a 'Couple' as they define it, in
which patriarchal authority is only a powerless shadow.
The impact of modern technology makes even this compromise seem very
fragile indeed. In 'Tractors, Television, and Telephones: Reach Out
and Touch Someone in Rural Japan', William Kelly describes the impact
of TV on traditional household organization. In traditional households
in rural Japan, he writes, the center of family life was the chanoma
or family room. Family and household hierarchy were clearly delineated
by the seating arrangements around the open rectangular where the
family shared its evening meals and entertained its guests. The place
of honor was the seat with its back to the tokonoma, the ceremonial
alcove where seasonal flowers and paintings might be displayed.
Traditionally, that was the seat of the senior male, the household
head. When TV was introduced, however, the tokonoma provided a
convenient place for the set. To be able to watch TV, the household
head shifted his seat to one side, disrupting the traditional
hierarchy of places. The voice of the TV newscaster began to compete
with the household head as a source of authoritative pronouncements
(Kelly 1992:84).
The June 1997 issue of Brain, one of Japan's leading marketing trade
periodicals, carries a report that seems to carry Kelly's argument to
a new extreme. It begins,
One family, one TV has now become one person, one TV. One family, one
telephone has become one person, one telephone. The living room where
the telephone and the TV were the center of the household is buried in
dust. The household's members are in their own rooms each watching
their own TVs. They communicate with the outside world using their
portable phones. To begin the day, each gets up when he or she has to,
heats up some ready-to-eat food or stops by a fast-food restaurant to
eat a 'breakfast set'. The family core of the household is now
fragmented in time and space to a shocking degree
(Tomiie and Ãzawa 1997:5)
There is, to be sure, an element of dramatic overstatement here. The
analysis following this introduction reports that most Japanese still
have warm and fuzzy feelings about what they see as traditional
families. In their summary, however, the researchers write,
As the family dissolves into individuals, we are groping for a new
form of family. This group will be constituted in ways that turn a
fragmented family into a family after all. There will be no feeling of
constriction. Relationships will be like powder [not 'wet' and sticky
like traditional relationships]. Its members won't be pushy, they will
treat each other gently. New forms of consumption will be the tools by
which these families are formed
(Brain 1997:7)
Those used to reading and thinking about traditional Japanese family
ideals may be shocked by the final sentences.
No longer will families be the 'fated' families we have had until now.
Family relationships will involve different kinds of friendship and
love. In the movie Leon, the assassin who is the main character always
takes his plants with him wherever he moves. When asked if he likes
potted plants, he replies, 'They are my friends. They are healthy, and
they keep their mouths shut'. He and his plants form a household based
on gentle, non-binding, relationships.
(Brain 1997:7)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Re IM'ing on the phone: My wife frequently uses IM for cross-talk
while participating in conference calls. She and a friend use IM to
make snide remarks or plot strategy while other call participants are
droning or ranting on. I wonder how widespread this sort of behavior
has become.
John
--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
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