Quotable Quotes: Things, the Internet and Us
by Miki SaxonFirst a note; I’m sure you noticed that I’ve started linking the people I quote to a Wikipedia reference. I did it after an irate email that scolded me because the writer didn’t know who David Brinkley was when I quoted him a few weeks ago and found it difficult to look him up, (I would have understood if he hadn’t known Donald Kendall.) hence the links.
Now on to today’s Quotable Quotes.
At times I wonder if there is anyone else who feels the way I do about cell phones, social, automated checkout, and other technology incursions. Well, it turns out I’m in good company (full credit to Business Week for all but two of these quotes).
Start with Ray Bradbury, who wrote some of the best science fiction about machines, but who now says, “We have too many cell phones. We’ve got too many Internets. We have to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now.”
And before you chalk Bradbury’s attitude up to his age, consider what 26 year old Keira Knightley has to say, “I hate the Internet. I find it dehumanizing to constantly check e-mails, or social sites that have become fashionable.”
Edward Albee highlights one of my main peeves with those who constantly stare at those tiny screens, “I walk along the streets of New York and I find people bumping into each other, bumping into things, and they have these things in their ears or in their face. They’re not seeing anything of the real world.”
Drew Barrymore, also not exactly in her dotage, sees the same problem, “Ironically, with all this ‘We’re now more connected than ever with technology’ I don’t think we’ve ever been further apart.”
I am also fed up with those who claim that technology is the answer to the world’s ills. Jimmy Carter thoroughly debunks that idea, “Globalization, as defined by rich people like us, is a very nice thing… you are talking about the Internet, you are talking about cell phones, you are talking about computers. This doesn’t affect two-thirds of the people of the world.”
Esther Dyson adds another nail in the ‘Internet is good’ coffin, “Few influential people involved with the Internet claim that it is a good in and of itself. It is a powerful tool for solving social problems, just as it is a tool for making money, finding lost relatives, receiving medical advice, or, come to that, trading instructions for making bombs.”
Finally, a special thanks to George Clooney, who sums up all my feelings about Facebook in one graphically descriptive sentence. “I’d rather have a rectal examination on live TV by a fellow with cold hands than have a Facebook page.”
Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/symic/4323860889/
