6. "Kids These Days" - Documentary Proposal

Reading Marshall McLuhan and Walter J. Ong got me thinking about media and how our culure is affected by how we communicate. Ong discusses the switch from a primarily oral/aural culture into a visual one aided by writing which was greeted with much hostility many centuries ago. The same thing is happening today with the conversion of communication into electronic forms.

Texting, IMing, Twittering, social networking, etc. are closely associated with my generation. We were the first ones to grow up with these devices, so we serve as a sort of mediator between the analog and the digital worlds. In essence, we're cyborgs.

One criticism of digital communication is that it alienates people--"kids spend too much time on the computer" or "texting isn't as 'real' as a phone call." Does it really? Or is this an alarmist reaction? Why are older people more hesitant to adopt new technologies?

I'd like for my final documentary to illustrate the culture of web-savy American teens and 20-somethings, and perhaps contrast it to the adolescence of their parents. Overall the theme is digital communication and how it affects our culture--more specifically, personal interactions.

5. The iGeneration

I'm a proud child of the digital world. Wednesday's discussion on communicating in our newly digital nation got me riled up for this blog. Most of the arguments tossed around in the conference room were that "texting is ruining the English language" and that social networking is "alienating people." I'm not here to say that you all are wrong (even though you are), I just want to draw some parallels.

Many intellectuals were upset by the invention of writing. Culture was primarily aural/oral, and was the natural way to communicate. Plato wrote that writing disrupted this natural speech, and that recording words in writing destroyed memory (in the way that today, the calculator handicaps peoples' mathematical ability). He emphasized that writing and reading were passive and "inhuman," as external resources that alienated people. (Ironically, his argument presents itself in text.)

When books became more readily available for the common person, what today we call "progress" and "revolution," then, was greeted with mixed feelings. Many felt that replacing the dominant oral/aural culture with an increasingly solitary visual culture was isolating people and making them more disconnected from the "real world."

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Texting, Twittering, and social networking are causing many of the same alarmisms to resurface. Every generation believes each successive generation, ("kids these days") are getting stupider. Texting is making people stupider (not true), the internet is making people stupider (not true), television is making people stupider, sock hops are making people stupider, telephones are making people stupider, jazz music is making people stupider, books are making people stupider, writing is making people stupider, etc.

Our culture is changing via the way we communicate, for better or for worse. It's coming, and you have two choices: Embrace it, or GTFO.

I'm Ruthie, and I'm a child of the internet generation. I've had an AIM account since I was ten. I'm a member of several forums ranging from artistic endeavors to crude entertainment. The #1 Google result for my name is actually me. I've watched over 20,000 YouTube videos. I'm a master Googler, Facebooker, Twitterer, texter, Gmailer, Hulu-er, Skyper, BitTorrenter, Flickrer, Wikipedian, Tumblrer, craigslister, FourSquarer, LiveJournaler, Omegler, Newgroundsling, Sporcler, Vimeoite, an eBayer, a Blogspotter, and a worthy internet pirate.

4. Inherited Material Culture

My family believes in saving everything, wasting nothing, and accumulating mass amounts of useless scraps in the process. I never really thought about why we do it--I suppose it's a trait passed down from my grandparents who grew up in the Depression, an era characterized by economic frugality. But today in a nation whose plastic cutlery comes wrapped in plastic, packaged in cardboard, and shrinkwrapped in plastic once again, thriftiness can build into excess.

Moving my grandparents into a nursing home was quite a task. Their sizable house was filled to the brim with newspapers, calendars, boxes, condiments, napkins, bottles, and so on. Cleaning it out wasn't the hard part; all we had to do was throw everything in a dumpster. Convincing my grandparents they didn't need all this stuff was more difficult. With each box of old hotel soaps or worn-out shoes or pre-used wrapping paper my grandmother would say, "But I might need that some day." Will you? Probably not.

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When I made the move to my own apartment, I went through something eerily parallel. Pulling out boxes of old ribbons, scraps of plastic, and barely recognizable broken objects from under my bed made me realize that I was hoarding junk just like my grandparents. Just this afternoon I found three small containers of coffee creamer I'd indubitably stuffed in my pocket at 711 last week. I don't even use creamer.

Why do we hoard things when we don't necessarily need to? I suppose it's something to do with "getting your money's worth." But it's most likely just compulsive behavior, something done unconsciously, with no rational motive. It's just the way I've been taught to act, and no matter how hard I try to fight it, and call me an old lady, but at the end of the day I still manage to find myself with pockets full of bottle caps and ketchup packets.

3. My Observations on the Bus

This weekend I tried to think of places I go that have a defined culture within them. I went to Kroger. None there--people of all walks of life shopped there. Same for the big-box office supply store in Willow Lawn, whose unremarkableness can be characterized by my forgetting whether it was Office Depot or Staples. But on my bus ride back to downtown, I had a 'DUH' moment. The bus and its riders have their own culture and mannerisms.

The Greater Richmond Transit Company (GRTC) system runs all over Richmond's city limits, extending into the surrounding counties for more direct express routes. I ride the bus solely within the city limits, and mostly travel in the same area (from my house in Jackson Ward to locations in Richmond's West End, on buses 3, 4, 6, 16, 24, 74, and others). However, the demographics of the bus are never the same.

The first factor that affects the type of riders on the bus is the time of day. Early morning buses are crowded with people dressed for work, in dressy clothes or uniforms, and teenagers going to school. Mid-day is slower paced, and has an increased number of elderly and disabled people and families with young children. Late nights are sparse; if anyone is on the bus at midnight, they look tired, and are trying to go home.

I rode the bus this weekend which was a little, but not much different, than riding on a weekday. Around noon I departed 1st and Broad on the 6 bus toward Willow Lawn. There were several elderly people on the bus, one of which had a walker. She was white, very small and fragile-looking. She thanked the bus driver very loudly when she got off at Madison, confirming my assumption that she couldn't hear very well. A black family sat in front of me, with two toddlers who couldn't sit still. Other black teenagers were scattered around the bus, some chatting, some glued to their glowing cell phones, all of whom got off with me at Willow Lawn.

Only one person talked to me on the trip--the person who identified with me the most, appearance-wise. She was white, had long brown hair, and looked to be a college student. Unlike me, she was dressed very fashionably, with a long blue peacoat and matching beret. She asked me a question about the bus route--a sign that she'd never taken the bus before. She was the obvious outsider but nobody really treated her as such.

Despite the bus demongraphics' wide range of ages, colors, and class, we shared one thing in common: our winter coats. Every person on the bus (save for the blue beret girl) was wearing a puffy coat. Those who were not wearing their hoods up were wearing toboggans. I noticed that no one took their gloves or hats off once inside the bus, even though the climate was hot and muggy. Most people held their belongings close to them, in their laps, their figures distorted by layers of bulky winter fabrics and piles of bags.

Bus etiquette is something found nowhere else. Students in Cabell Library spread their belongings all over tables, couches, and floors, and elsewhere it is rude to not take off your coat and hat once indoors. Why, then, do bus riders seem to encapsulate themselves in "bubbles?" After some thinking, I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with being germaphobic, antisocial, fearful of theft, or even being cold, because the bus was warm, comfortable, and full of friendly people. In the end, I thought way too hard about the "bubbles" and it finally dawned on me, as I scooted over to give the rider next to me more room, that it's all a matter of convenience--taking off one's coat means adding extra space to your bubble; placing bags in the seat next to you doubles the space and leaves them less secure from Richmond's craterous potholes jostling them around. It's an act of convenience, courtesy, and nothing more.