Glowing
Rectangles
As
you probably remember from my previous ramblings, the wife and I are members of
a square dance group; one that struggles to exist because we are unable to find
new members and our old-timers continue to disappear due to age and death.
Similarly, our church struggles with membership, and the regular professional
concerts we attend are becoming less regular due to falling attendance. What’s
going on here, you may ask? Do people have such a low opinion of us they refuse
to attend any function where we show up? Well, maybe… naw, at least, I hope
not!
In
fact, available statistics indicate that falling attendance is becoming a
common problem for many groups. Many fraternal organizations have begun a long
downward spiral of declining membership with vaunted organizations like the
Masons conducting surveys on the problem and its solution. Even America’s sports
empires are concerned: NASCAR can no longer fill its racetracks with die-hard
fans, eight professional baseball teams drew fewer than two million fans, and
now, even NFL teams are having problems filling their stadiums. It seems that
venues of all types are having attendance problems and no one knows the cause.
Except me.
I
have stumbled on to a rare piece of intelligence. Namely, we can’t attend all
the events that we used to because we are too busy staring at glowing
rectangles. Telephones, televisions, computers, tablets, and other smart,
glowing rectangles powered by electricity and controlled by computers, are now
in our hands in record numbers and compete for our attention with everything
else. And, they are winning. They win at the breakfast table, while riding or
walking to work, during work, at the park, at dinner, even while exercising.
Come on now, tell me you haven’t been annoyed at least once by someone’s
totally inappropriate use of their glowing rectangle at a restaurant or other
public place. The blamed things are everywhere, all the time. Folks are
addicted to them. I regularly see one man, in the gym, looking at his glowing
rectangle while lifting weights. Goodness!
The
addiction seems to affect most everyone in America. Even one of my
coffee-drinking buddies, the most old-fashioned person in Michigan with no
computer, no mobile phone, no knowledge nor interest in anything invented in
the last 40 years, has moved into the digital age. The television service provider
cancelled his analog signal and forced him to install a decoder for its digital
signal. He didn’t know what it was, didn’t like it one bit, but he was forced
to comply since he enjoys watching football.
Americans
are so busy looking at our devices, we barely have time to look at each other.
I predict a disastrous fall-off in the birth rate before someone wises up and
fixes this problem. Even my household with just the two of us and my strong
predilection for things old, outdated and cheap, has fallen prey to glowing
rectangles; three televisions, two computers, two mobile phones, and one
tablet. This equipment forces one into another time warp, once you have the
things you must use them. The Mrs. and I have become slaves with e-mail,
blogging, Facebooking, texting, Tweeting and all manner of other time-wasters
not indulged in when we had time to occasionally attend, say, a football game.
Therefore,
now that we know the problem, what is the answer? Of course, I don’t know but
here are some ideas: Since folks have indicated their preference in using
glowing rectangles, why not facilitate their use at venues with an attendance
problem, to wit; Make telephone recharging stations available at each seat in a
football stadium, Provide instant replay of controversial referee calls to
mobile devices, Allow fans to decide sports outcomes by voting on their
devices, Require parishioners to bring their mobile telephones to church with ring
tones set to LOUD, etc. You get the idea, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
Now,
does anyone know how to download Downton Abbey on this danged phone?
