I like my phone and I like to be alone most of the time but you are completely correct. I was near suicidal during covid. It’s one thing to choose solitude and quite another to Have everything you do that makes your life worth living stripped away from you. I compete in dog agility. That’s what keeps me sane. That’s where I interact with others. Everyone that is sane has some sort of touchstone like that . . . I think so anyway
Seems to me that most of the time if you started out without cell/internet tech and integrated it into your life as it developed you are probably better able to manage it. I see kids that it has hurt as well as those that use it in a positive and balanced manor. Like everything else, it all comes down to parenting i think. I am amazed at how cell/internet tech has changed the military experience. Part of my growth was the isolation of foreign deployments and garrison in Germany. Modern troops no longer experience that.
Maybe. When you are isolated from home you learn how to be alone. Alone in the sense that the familiar things you relied on growing up are not readily available for support. Pulling guard duty in the field at 0300 on Christmas was an experience i will never forget. That sense of isolation contributed to helping me mature and be more introspective and in some ways made my relationship with my unit better because it forces you to keep your head in the game and be in the here and now. I can see the argument that having a constant electronic connection with family and friends at home allows moral to stabilize or improve, thus cutting down on behavior or psych issues, but on the other hand, i think it also detracts from unit cohesion and personal emotional development. I don't know about you, but i felt a distinct feeling of isolation when deploying, patrolling and when we were sitting on berms watching the oil fires burn. I turned to people around me for support which actually increased our effectiveness because of bonding.
I generally agree. The fact is that there is no turning back from the connection to "back home" wherever that might be for a young soldier. I would only add that leaving home and bonding with new people in a new environment is one of the major benefits to joining the military.
As you know well... many of the young people who sign up are doing so because it's better for them to leave a dying town with pills flooding the streets and no good future. Severing that connection has turned more future failures into successful adults than could ever be counted.
Then, when it comes to combat... understanding that the man to your right is the only family you have when the bullets start flying is how soldiers have historically survived and succeeded in battle. So there's good an bad I guess.
That Ian Malcolm quote was so prescient, and I remember being struck like a damn gong the first time I heard the line delivered. It’s colored my outlook on things ever since. Weird how you can find that kind of truth in a campy dinosaur movie from the 90’s.
I’ll have to pick this book up. There are elements of the argument against technology in the book Ready Player One, even as it seems to celebrate the inevitability and burgeoning omnipresence of tech. But yeah, a lot of the tech we use is flat out is destroying people. And of course, I’m writing this comment on my phone that is glued to my hand most of the day…
You should definitely pick it up. He works pretty hard not to be a Luddite and is a pretty urban, liberal guy. The book is really about trying to find balance... which should speak to all of us.
I like my phone and I like to be alone most of the time but you are completely correct. I was near suicidal during covid. It’s one thing to choose solitude and quite another to Have everything you do that makes your life worth living stripped away from you. I compete in dog agility. That’s what keeps me sane. That’s where I interact with others. Everyone that is sane has some sort of touchstone like that . . . I think so anyway
Even loners need their tribe... and you can't replace it with a computer program.
It all comes down to how tight you are wired.
Seems to me that most of the time if you started out without cell/internet tech and integrated it into your life as it developed you are probably better able to manage it. I see kids that it has hurt as well as those that use it in a positive and balanced manor. Like everything else, it all comes down to parenting i think. I am amazed at how cell/internet tech has changed the military experience. Part of my growth was the isolation of foreign deployments and garrison in Germany. Modern troops no longer experience that.
That's an interesting point. Do you think it hurts the camaraderie among the men?
Maybe. When you are isolated from home you learn how to be alone. Alone in the sense that the familiar things you relied on growing up are not readily available for support. Pulling guard duty in the field at 0300 on Christmas was an experience i will never forget. That sense of isolation contributed to helping me mature and be more introspective and in some ways made my relationship with my unit better because it forces you to keep your head in the game and be in the here and now. I can see the argument that having a constant electronic connection with family and friends at home allows moral to stabilize or improve, thus cutting down on behavior or psych issues, but on the other hand, i think it also detracts from unit cohesion and personal emotional development. I don't know about you, but i felt a distinct feeling of isolation when deploying, patrolling and when we were sitting on berms watching the oil fires burn. I turned to people around me for support which actually increased our effectiveness because of bonding.
I generally agree. The fact is that there is no turning back from the connection to "back home" wherever that might be for a young soldier. I would only add that leaving home and bonding with new people in a new environment is one of the major benefits to joining the military.
As you know well... many of the young people who sign up are doing so because it's better for them to leave a dying town with pills flooding the streets and no good future. Severing that connection has turned more future failures into successful adults than could ever be counted.
Then, when it comes to combat... understanding that the man to your right is the only family you have when the bullets start flying is how soldiers have historically survived and succeeded in battle. So there's good an bad I guess.
From one digital avatar to another, did you end up trying out that babka?
I'm not much of a baker... But I've thought about trying cinnamon bread.
That Ian Malcolm quote was so prescient, and I remember being struck like a damn gong the first time I heard the line delivered. It’s colored my outlook on things ever since. Weird how you can find that kind of truth in a campy dinosaur movie from the 90’s.
I’ll have to pick this book up. There are elements of the argument against technology in the book Ready Player One, even as it seems to celebrate the inevitability and burgeoning omnipresence of tech. But yeah, a lot of the tech we use is flat out is destroying people. And of course, I’m writing this comment on my phone that is glued to my hand most of the day…
You should definitely pick it up. He works pretty hard not to be a Luddite and is a pretty urban, liberal guy. The book is really about trying to find balance... which should speak to all of us.