week two: digital wellness
A Reflective Week...
At the start of the week, I introduced my partner to the world of Ray Bradbury. He never saw the show as a teen and we randomly watched an episode that connected erringly to this week's readings on digital wellness. This specific episode is a cautionary tale about the consequences of too much technology. Veldt follows Lydia and George's struggle to combat the technology that has overcome their lives. It showcases a family living in a futuristic, high-tech home that does almost everything for them. The story incorporates the two parents, George and Lydia, and the two kids, Wendy and Peter. Inside the futuristic home lies an extremely high-tech room referred to as the nursery. The children become deeply connected to this room as they can telepathically control this virtual reality room and simulate any environment they wish. At the story’s beginning, the parents walk into this fully immersive African landscape and realize it has been like this for a while. Following this, the parents soon get concerned and conclude that something is wrong with the nursery. The parents then attempt to shut down the nursery, but the children become irrational (addicted), override their commands, and lock them in the nursery amongst the lions of the African savannahs. It is later revealed that the children had imagined their parents being killed in the veldt; therefore, their imaginations became a reality, leaving us to conclude that lions devoured the parents in the veldt.
After my partner and I watched this episode, we reflected on how eerily this episode connected to our reality. I often find life imitates art, books, and shows/films. And here we are, on a Tuesday evening, reflecting on how dependent we are on technology in our homes and in our daily lives. I remember once we spoke about how we would never support a self-checkout machine, because it was replacing jobs that people could have. We are now guilty of using them all the time due to convenience most times and sometimes because there are no other options. Not to mention our two Google Homes in our home, automated lighting system, VR gaming system, to electronic door locks for the house, we have it all! It was hard to ignore the themes in the episode - humans vs technology. Ray Bradbury confirmed to us what we already knew. Even though technology can look sheek and save us time - it's really damaging and disruptive at its core. In addition, the story shows how technology can’t be a substitute for human interaction.
Some changes…
Things we do well: We eat dinner as a family at the dining table every evening with his son and we make sure his phone is out of his room when he is working on homework. We do want to make sure we go out on group walks together and make it a point to have fires outside because we have way too much wood. I hope this will provide a space for us to have some meaningful conversations about what’s going on, personal goals and simply checking in. My partner also lost his grandfather, earlier in the week and the funeral was a reminder of how short life is. I was reflecting on how life is just what you make of it. What I do know is that you’re born, you get older, and you try to stay alive and make money before you die. It’s what you do with your time between birth and death that matters. The funeral and this week made me promise to myself, to not waste it away by doom scrolling and making life more meaningful.
Stay tuned for next week!
PS, I am warming up to the idea of blogging. I love that it is more like a running record than a visual diary that helps me connect my learning with my experiences.
References:
Bradbury, Ray, 1920-2012. (1988). Ray Bradbury's The Veldt. Woodstock, Ill. :Dramatic Pub. Co.,
Ray Bradbury: Story of a Writer (2012, August 2). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHSaxHI3upA
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