#personalhistory — Public Fediverse posts

My latest #LocalHistory post has more than a tiny element of #PersonalHistory, as it's about my elementary #school (and its predecessor of the same name). I was lucky enough to find some great #ClassPhotos and shots of the #playground, where I spent thousands of hours of my youth.
#histodons #upstateNY #UpstateNewYork #Schenectady #ScotiaNY

https://hoxsie.org/2025/12/10/scotias-mohawk-schools/

Today I worked on a desk that is almost a hundred years old.
It was commissioned in the late 1920s or early ’30s by my grandfather, for his sons. One of them was my father. It’s made of walnut, built in a workshop somewhere in Muntenia, in a time when objects were meant to last.

This desk has travelled through three generations, through houses, wars, relocations, and decades of quiet persistence. My grandfather touched it, then my father, and now it’s the surface where I write.
There’s a small crack on the top — old wood has its own memory. I don’t hide it; it’s part of the story.

When I rest my hand on it, I feel a steady line stretching back through the people who came before me. Not nostalgia, but orientation.
A reminder that I’m not starting from nothing.
That I belong to a thread that continued, even when lives became complicated or broke apart.

This desk is not furniture. It’s a witness. It’s the only family object that still works alongside me, almost a century later.

The photo will come later.
I just wanted to write this down first — a note to myself, at a time when I need to remember that some things do remain steady in this world.

#WritingCommunity #FamilyHistory #Heirlooms #Memory #WalnutDesk
#Romania #PersonalHistory #WritersLife

Today I worked on a desk that is almost a hundred years old.
It was commissioned in the late 1920s or early ’30s by my grandfather, for his sons. One of them was my father. It’s made of walnut, built in a workshop somewhere in Muntenia, in a time when objects were meant to last.

This desk has travelled through three generations, through houses, wars, relocations, and decades of quiet persistence. My grandfather touched it, then my father, and now it’s the surface where I write.
There’s a small crack on the top — old wood has its own memory. I don’t hide it; it’s part of the story.

When I rest my hand on it, I feel a steady line stretching back through the people who came before me. Not nostalgia, but orientation.
A reminder that I’m not starting from nothing.
That I belong to a thread that continued, even when lives became complicated or broke apart.

This desk is not furniture. It’s a witness. It’s the only family object that still works alongside me, almost a century later.

The photo will come later.
I just wanted to write this down first — a note to myself, at a time when I need to remember that some things do remain steady in this world.

#WritingCommunity #FamilyHistory #Heirlooms #Memory #WalnutDesk
#Romania #PersonalHistory #WritersLife

Today I worked on a desk that is almost a hundred years old.
It was commissioned in the late 1920s or early ’30s by my grandfather, for his sons. One of them was my father. It’s made of walnut, built in a workshop somewhere in Muntenia, in a time when objects were meant to last.

This desk has travelled through three generations, through houses, wars, relocations, and decades of quiet persistence. My grandfather touched it, then my father, and now it’s the surface where I write.
There’s a small crack on the top — old wood has its own memory. I don’t hide it; it’s part of the story.

When I rest my hand on it, I feel a steady line stretching back through the people who came before me. Not nostalgia, but orientation.
A reminder that I’m not starting from nothing.
That I belong to a thread that continued, even when lives became complicated or broke apart.

This desk is not furniture. It’s a witness. It’s the only family object that still works alongside me, almost a century later.

The photo will come later.
I just wanted to write this down first — a note to myself, at a time when I need to remember that some things do remain steady in this world.

#WritingCommunity #FamilyHistory #Heirlooms #Memory #WalnutDesk
#Romania #PersonalHistory #WritersLife

Today I worked on a desk that is almost a hundred years old.
It was commissioned in the late 1920s or early ’30s by my grandfather, for his sons. One of them was my father. It’s made of walnut, built in a workshop somewhere in Muntenia, in a time when objects were meant to last.

This desk has travelled through three generations, through houses, wars, relocations, and decades of quiet persistence. My grandfather touched it, then my father, and now it’s the surface where I write.
There’s a small crack on the top — old wood has its own memory. I don’t hide it; it’s part of the story.

When I rest my hand on it, I feel a steady line stretching back through the people who came before me. Not nostalgia, but orientation.
A reminder that I’m not starting from nothing.
That I belong to a thread that continued, even when lives became complicated or broke apart.

This desk is not furniture. It’s a witness. It’s the only family object that still works alongside me, almost a century later.

The photo will come later.
I just wanted to write this down first — a note to myself, at a time when I need to remember that some things do remain steady in this world.

#WritingCommunity #FamilyHistory #Heirlooms #Memory #WalnutDesk
#Romania #PersonalHistory #WritersLife

Today I worked on a desk that is almost a hundred years old.
It was commissioned in the late 1920s or early ’30s by my grandfather, for his sons. One of them was my father. It’s made of walnut, built in a workshop somewhere in Muntenia, in a time when objects were meant to last.

This desk has travelled through three generations, through houses, wars, relocations, and decades of quiet persistence. My grandfather touched it, then my father, and now it’s the surface where I write.
There’s a small crack on the top — old wood has its own memory. I don’t hide it; it’s part of the story.

When I rest my hand on it, I feel a steady line stretching back through the people who came before me. Not nostalgia, but orientation.
A reminder that I’m not starting from nothing.
That I belong to a thread that continued, even when lives became complicated or broke apart.

This desk is not furniture. It’s a witness. It’s the only family object that still works alongside me, almost a century later.

The photo will come later.
I just wanted to write this down first — a note to myself, at a time when I need to remember that some things do remain steady in this world.

#WritingCommunity #FamilyHistory #Heirlooms #Memory #WalnutDesk
#Romania #PersonalHistory #WritersLife

The Day I Said No to Google – DrWeb’s Domain

A personal essay… from DrWeb

The Day I Said No to Google

“I am probably the only person I know who said ‘no’ to Google in a meeting with Larry Page and Sergey Brin…”

Confession: Given my birthday coming up (hint!), I am older than dirt. Some of the memories remain, thank genes I guess. But, others are foggy. I remember the day, but the exact date escapes me. I remember the meeting, but in many ways, it has blurred into meetings of my life for business. So, I cheated, kinda. You get to decide. Claude, a creative intelligence, assisted me with the writing. I edited. This is what we did together. It felt like the best way to tell this old story now. Let’s travel back to yesteryear.. the Internet was young… One history note, I was the first Webmaster at DIALOG, and employed there from 1995-1997, when along with many others, MAID bought DIALOG, and I was let go, fired. Carry your things out in box time. My time at America Online was December, 1998, Product Manager for AOL NetFind, until November, 1999. Enjoy the memory lane!

The Meeting Above the Shop

The afternoon sun streamed through the windows of that small conference room above a Palo Alto shop, casting long rectangles of California light across our makeshift boardroom table. It was one of those perfect Silicon Valley days where the air itself seemed to hum with possibility, but the fluorescent overhead lights and generic office chairs reminded us this was business, not a social call.

I’d arranged my materials carefully before they arrived—a brief summary report for my AOL team, printed specs for what we needed, bottled water for everyone. The kind of preparation that had become second nature after years in this business [and later becoming DIALOG’s first webmaster dealing with sophisticated databases and searches], now managing search for America Online in this digital Wild West. Twenty-five million AOL users were counting on decisions like this one, though they’d never know it.

When Larry and Sergey walked in, there was something almost academic about them—Larry doing most of the talking while Sergey hung back, observing. Their energy was unmistakably that of people who believed they were onto something big. But belief and business results were different things, as I’d learned the hard way. Perhaps it was like meeting Steve Jobs, early, in his garage.

We think we can scale this in ways nobody else can, Larry was saying, sketching out their vision with the kind of confident hand gestures. You could hear the enthusiasm.

The algorithm they called PageRank sounded revolutionary in theory—ranking pages by how other pages linked to them, like academic citations. Elegant, certainly. But elegant theories didn’t always survive contact with millions of real users hitting your servers every day. Then, at AOL, we were still in the era of typing in code and managing data with spreadsheets, so, yes, after all—proven performance mattered more than brilliant concepts.

The afternoon conversation had that particular rhythm of meetings where both sides already knew the likely outcome. We asked about customers—they had few. Performance metrics under load—they were working on it. Detailed technical specifications—still being refined.

I felt those were all reasonable answers for a startup, but AOL couldn’t run on reasonable answers. We needed proven, and growign solutions, the kind Excite was delivering with their concept-based search algorithm and comprehensive portal approach—news, weather, email, the one-stop destination our users expected. I used Excite, so were many early adopters.

I found myself watching Sergey more than listening to Larry at one point. There was something in his quiet attention that suggested he understood exactly what we were really evaluating. Not just their technology, but their readiness to handle the weight of AOL’s scale and expectations. Maybe he knew, as I was beginning to suspect, that this was more a friendly courtesy call than a serious negotiation.

The meeting wound down with handshakes and the kind of polite enthusiasm that masks mutual recognition—they knew we weren’t ready to bet on an unproven system, and we knew they weren’t ready for us yet. Outside, that sunlit, warm California afternoon continued, indifferent to the small pivotal moment that had just passed in a conference room above a Palo Alto shop.

Later, writing up my report for the team, I found myself thinking about Steve Case back at headquarters in Virginia. Our larger-than-life CEO had built AOL by making bold bets, but also by knowing when to stick with what worked. Excite had customers, track records, proven performance under the kind of load we’d throw at them. Our homework showed the numbers, and it was a future option we felt we had to explore.

Their concept-based searching could understand meaning beyond mere keyword matching—sophisticated technology that had already proven itself with millions of daily users. It wasn’t glamorous compared to Larry and Sergey’s academic theories, but it was safe. And yet, choosing Excite felt like the next step, of what would be many.

I never found out if my report made it all the way to Case’s desk, but I liked to think it did—one small decision in the endless stream of choices that kept twenty-five million people connected to the emerging world of the web. At the time, it felt like the right call. Careful. Responsible. Business-smart.

The irony, of course, would only become clear later.

History Snapshots: Search Before Google

Archie (1990)

Before the web itself existed, Archie emerged at McGill University in 1990 as the first widely used search tool. It did not crawl the content of files, but instead indexed file names on FTP servers, creating the first searchable index of distributed online information. While crude by later standards, Archie was revolutionary: for the first time, a user could query a remote database and discover resources without browsing manually. The very idea of building an automated index to navigate digital information became a foundation stone for everything that followed.

WebCrawler (1994)

By 1994, the World Wide Web needed something more than Archie. Brian Pinkerton’s WebCrawler, launched at the University of Washington, became the first engine to allow full-text searches of web pages. Suddenly users could search within page content, not just titles or filenames, and the results reflected the words as they actually appeared on the page. This was a dramatic leap forward for usability, and WebCrawler quickly reached millions of queries per day. It also popularized the notion that search engines could serve ordinary consumers, not just information professionals or academics.

AltaVista (1995)

Introduced in December 1995 by Digital Equipment Corporation’s research team, AltaVista was a marvel of its time. It featured an enormous index, lightning-fast crawling, and support for natural language queries at a scale that felt futuristic. For many users, AltaVista was their first exposure to advanced search operators, real-time translations, and near-instant indexing. It quickly became one of the most visited destinations on the web, demonstrating how technology and infrastructure could turn search into a mainstream activity. In many ways, AltaVista defined what people expected a modern search engine to be.

Excite (1995)

Launched commercially in late 1995, Excite took a different approach by expanding search into a broader “portal” experience. Beyond simply indexing the web, Excite offered news, weather, email, and community features that encouraged users to stay on its site. Its acquisitions and partnerships helped it grow into a household name, and by the late 1990s it was considered one of the most important online brands. Excite’s strategy was not only to provide answers but to create an ecosystem of services, an approach that reflected the business logic of the early Internet era: keep users inside your walls, and monetize their time.

AOL NetFind (1997)

In March 1997, AOL — already the largest Internet gateway in America — launched its own branded search engine called NetFind. Instead of building new technology, AOL partnered with Excite to power the service, ensuring scale and reliability for its millions of subscribers. For users, it meant search was seamlessly integrated into the familiar AOL interface. For the company, it was a strategic move to control not only access to the Internet but also discovery of information within it. The choice to align with a proven engine like Excite over a then-unknown upstart like Google reflected a natural preference for stability and trust in the late 1990s corporate environment.

Inktomi (1996)

Founded by Eric Brewer and Paul Gauthier in 1996, Inktomi was often described as the “early Google.” Unlike portals, it focused on scale and infrastructure, indexing more than 100 million web pages and delivering results in fractions of a second. It licensed its search technology to popular services including HotBot, Yahoo, MSN, and Disney’s Internet Guide, making it a behind-the-scenes powerhouse of the search ecosystem. For a time, Inktomi appeared destined to dominate the field, with a high-profile IPO and enormous venture support. But within a few years, it would be eclipsed by Google’s more elegant algorithmic model — proof that even the giants of one generation could quickly become footnotes in the next.

Bibliography

• Ars Technica. (2024, May 16). Archie, the Internet’s first search engine, is rescued and running. Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/05/archie-the-internets-first-search-engine-is-rescued-and-running/
• Capitol Technology University. (2020, February 3). Alan Emtage, creator of Archie, the world’s first search engine. Capitol Technology University. https://www.captechu.edu/blog/alan-emtage-creator-of-archie-worlds-first-search-engine
• Encyclopedia.com. (2018, May 14). WebCrawler. Encyclopedia.com. https://www.encyclopedia.com/science-and-technology/computers-and-electrical-engineering/computers-and-computing/webcrawler
• History of Information. (n.d.). Brian Pinkerton develops the “WebCrawler,” the first full text web search engine. History of Information. https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=1067
• McGill University. (2021). The first Internet search engine. McGill 200: Bicentennial. https://200.mcgill.ca/history/creation-of-the-first-internet-search-engine/
• Search Engine Land. (2009, January 12). AOL search: The history of AOL’s search engine. Search Engine Land. https://searchengineland.com/aol-search-history-16238
• StackScale. (2021, September 10). Archie, the first Internet search engine. StackScale Blog. https://www.stackscale.com/blog/archie-internet-search-engine/
• TechRadar. (2025, September 10). Long before Google took the world by storm, this search engine paved the way for everyone. TechRadar Pro. https://www.techradar.com/pro/long-before-google-took-the-world-by-storm-this-search-engine-paved-the-way-for-everyone
• Web Design Museum. (2022). Archie – The first search engine (1990). Web Design Museum. https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/web-design-history/archie-the-first-search-engine-1990
• Web Search Workshop. (2009). A brief history of the Excite search engine. Web Search Workshop (Australia). https://www.websearchworkshop.com.au/info-excite.php
• Web Search Workshop. (2009). A brief history of the Inktomi search engine. Web Search Workshop (Australia). https://www.websearchworkshop.com.au/info-inktomi.php
• Wikipedia contributors. (2025, August 24). Archie (search engine). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_(search_engine)
• Wikipedia contributors. (2025, June 5). WebCrawler. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebCrawler
• Wikipedia contributors. (2025, August 30). AltaVista. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista
• Wikipedia contributors. (2025, September 12). AOL. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL
• Wikipedia contributors. (2025, September 10). Dialog (online database). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialog_(online_database)
• Wikipedia contributors. (2025, September 1). Excite. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excite
• Wikipedia contributors. (2025, September 2). Inktomi. In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inktomi

#1999 #2000 #2025 #AI #AmericaOnline #AOL #California #Essay #Excite #Google #History #Irony #Opinion #PaloAlto #PersonalHistory #Science #searchTechnology #Technology #UnitedStates #UniversityAvenue

I ran across this picture of the most important person in my life and keep feeling all the feelings over it. We were 18, and she was helping me out with a class project, glamming herself up in a way that she didn't ordinarily do then to pose for this picture (the purpose of which I've forgotten).

All I can see is: we were so young, and she is so beautiful. And still is, an awful lot of years later.

#memories #LifeHistory #PersonalHistory #photography

Again, images from a 1946 #HighSchool #Yearbook from #Schenectady, NY. Again, the past is really a different country. It's always remarkable to me how each individual teen and young adult era has its own sayings and phrasings that make perfect sense to everyone in it, confuse those outside of it, and often become indecipherable decades later.

#history #LocalHistory #PersonalHistory

The In-Betweeners

https://therealists.org/?p=8116

Capturing Gen Z’s attention

In early December I was invited to give a 30 minute presentation about The Realists for recent graduates of a prestigious business school in Paris. Their teacher told me that the students were already aware of many of the topics I typically write about – Big Tech, surveillance capitalism, behavioral manipulation – especially after watching the documentary The Social Dilemma. My task: to keep my presentation fresh and original to impress an audience that grew up online.

In the days leading up to the lecture, I was really intimidated. I had shown my documentary The Illusionists to auditoriums with over 300 spectators – but presenting to a class of 30 or so Gen Z students felt far more daunting. What could I possibly tell them that would grab and hold their attention?

Until I found an angle – that the audience eventually appreciated.

Meet a Geriatric Millennial

I am a geriatric millennial: I had an analog childhood in the 1980s; discovered the Web 1.0 in my teens, and the birth of social media once I was a university student.

I have this unique perspective of being in between worlds: I experienced socialization away from screens for most of my childhood and early adolescence; and the tidal wave of the internet and the monumental changes it brought to us as humans once I was already a young adult.

My dad worked in technology and would bring home early computer prototypes. Our first laptop, in the late 1980s, came in a heavy grey plastic suitcase that opened to reveal a keyboard on one side and a small orange, low resolution screen on the other. The availability of the internet would be a few years away… all I could do was play around with DOS commands and Paintbrush.

An IBM computer from the 1980s. Source: Wikimedia

At home, I would be engrossed in these new technological tools. At school, none of my classmates could relate to these experiences, as personal computers were still rare and prohibitively expensive in Italy at the time.

While preparing the presentation for the class of business graduates in December, I realized that I have always felt in between worlds. One foot in the digital world; one foot out in the real world. It’s been my normal my entire life. And being an in-betweener can offer a powerful perspective to what is happening to our world today.

An in-betweener doesn’t accept new things as normal; an in-betweener is reminded of what “normal” used to be like and questions every innovation. Maybe this is why I am so drawn to the writings of the late Neil Postman – especially his superb book Technopoly – as he held the same critical attitude towards technology.

The Last Generation

I belong to the last generation that grew up offline. The LAST one. Generations that came after me experienced the internet and social media from middle school… or even earlier. The only people who could relate to this are my late grandparents. They were born in a world without television… and then, in their adult years, they discovered this “magical” box that would bring the outside world in their living room.

As a geriatric millennial I distinctly remember what friendships used to be like – nurtured in the real world, away from screens. Sure, I would spend hours on the phone talking to friends in high school, once I got home from school. But there weren’t technological companies involved in mediating our communications, gamifying our interactions with hearts and likes and visible metrics. I am not saying one way is better than the other. Do not mistake this as nostalgia for a time now gone. Mine is just the testimony of someone who remembers what it was like to hang out for hours with friends in the afternoon, after school, in the absence of the internet, social media and the walled gardens of Big Tech.

I was an in-betweener as a child and adolescent, dipping in and out of two worlds. And I am still an in-betweener today, in 2024. How? You may wonder.

Half the day online; half the day offline

I wake up at around 6am every day. I immediately go online to read the news (bad habit, I know) or resume reading a book on my Kindle. Then I have coffee, get ready, and wake up my little one at around 8am. As soon as my child is with me, the phone goes in my back pocket… and stays there until I drop her off at daycare. I go home to work, power up my computer and tablet and dip back in the digital world for about 6 hours. When, at 3:30pm, it’s time to go pick her up from daycare, the computer and tablet shut off for the rest of the day and the phone returns in my back pocket… where it will stay for the next 5 hours, until my child is asleep.

I’ve been putting away my smartphone when I’m with my child ever since she was born: I never wanted to give her the impression that whatever appeared on this small black rectangle was more important than her. My number one priority has been – for 3 years now – to give her my undivided attention.

It’s fascinating to see how we model behaviors to our little ones and how much they learn by observing us.

Ever since my child’s toddlerhood, she has often yearned to imitate what mommy does. At home, we have had an unplugged, inactive cordless phone lying around in the living room. I explained to my child that that black object is a phone. Next time I caught her playing with it, she was trying to shove it in her back pocket – even if her pants that day didn’t have one. So she simply took the phone and sat on it. And then looked up at me and said “phone pocket.” It was hilarious. And incredibly endearing and powerful. When it happened my girl wasn’t even 2 yet… maybe she was 18 months old. And yet, she knew what I kept in my back pocket was a phone. And that it belonged there when we were together.

Takeaways from a tech-free, TV-free life

What happens when a 3 year old doesn’t have access to television, smartphones or tablets for “entertainment”? The entire world around them is an object of wonder, to be observed with the utmost curiosity and vigilance. A 360° interactive playground.

For example, on the way to daycare in the morning, she often screams “Mom! The moon!” The first time it happened I thought to myself: “what is she talking about it’s daytime” But then I looked up to the sky and saw a banana-shaped tiny sliver of light. Sure enough, there was a crescent moon barely visible behind some fluffy clouds.

It takes my girl less than 5 seconds to spot the moon on a clear morning, whenever we leave our apartment building. The moon… planes… cats perched on a windowsill… my offline, screen-free toddler spots interesting things all the time – an inspires me to be present, in the real world, and to notice interesting things too, so I can point them out to her.

Conversely, on the way to daycare, we often come across people walking while staring down at their phones, completely oblivious to the world around them. How many crashes have I averted! When I’m in a rush, pushing her stroller, I often feel like I’m playing a real life video game. Think: Frogger, but the obstacles and dangers are not cars and trucks… they are fast-walking humans whose eyes are hypnotized by cell phones and who do not notice incoming pedestrians.

It’s a bit awkward to be with my toddler and observe her observe these people who are completely engrossed in their screens. Whenever I get on public transportation with her, we are often the only people not staring down at a screen during the journey. She often tries to smile and establish eye contact with people – especially if someone is dressed in her favorite color – but it’s rare to have people look up and smile back. Fellow moms and dads, or people over the age of 70… but that’s about it. Luckily I always pack books, so we can read stories… and I can pull her attention away from this new normal of disconnection. My explanation to her “they’re probably writing to or reading a message from their mom.” Ha!

The Pursuit of Human Happiness

Seeing what makes my child tick, what she needs to be happy (attention! love! safety! her favorite stories!) is the biggest drive for me to make a documentary on technology and how it is changing us as humans.

Kids a decade older than my child are witnessing an epidemic of depression and anxiety – that has coincided with the introduction of smartphones and gamified social media platforms.

The idea that my child’s happiness will one day depend on social media metrics and online popularity – subject to an opaque algorithm – just about breaks my heart and infuriates me at the same time. I intend to fiercely protect her from this ugly digital world for as long as I can… and when she’s old enough, educate her about the mechanisms driving it and teach her to question everything and to follow the money.

My child may one day see me as an out of touch dinosaur, but I will be in the position to remind her that there used to be another way. And that there still is another way – if she chooses it. The Realists’ way. Informed, aware, and keen on using tech in a mindful way, instead of being used by it.

Thanks for being here.

Elena

#digitalLiteracy #GenX #GenZ #geriatricMillennial #millennials #NeilPostman #parenting #personalHistory #screenFree #socialMedia

The Italian Dispatch: Church Bells, Clocks and Social Callouts

Hello dear Realists,

I’m on week 3 of looking after my daughter all day, while her beloved nanny recovers from emergency surgery.

I’m in my childhood home in Italy, in a small village of 5000 people nestled in a hilly area between Milan and Como. I’m aided by my mother (una santa, grazie mamma!) and I’m only able to type this because from 2pm to 4pm every day, my little one naps.

Our day to day life, in this small Italian village, is peak Realist dream life. It’s about exploring places outside, socializing at the park twice a day, reading books at the library, playing with DUPLOs and eating fresh focaccia – with no screen time whatsoever. (The only screen time allowed before was for Facetime video calls with her Italian grandparents, but since we are with them, that has been reduced to zero minutes a day).

My little one is my Zen master, making me notice things that I normally would not pay attention to and gently pushing me to go all in with a Realist lifestyle – fully present in the real world, away from screens.

I thought I would write about this experience because:

(a) it fits in with the overarching mission of the Realists: investigating how new technology is changing us as humans… I’m now on the far end of the spectrum of low- to no-tech for a month, so it’s interesting to notice how this makes me feel.

(b) I am incapable of writing more in-depth posts – the kind I used to research and write before – because for the past 3 weeks I have been unable to be in a space alone with my thoughts for more than 2 hours per day. And it’s impossible to get into a state of flow or deep reflection when there is so little time to be productive and fit in important tasks.

There are three things that have been standing out during this Realist month: church bells, clocks and (social) callouts.

Church Bells

For my 2-year-old, the village’s church bells are an object of fascination that command attention and deep respect.

There’s a big church at the top of a hill in our village and every hour and every half hour, bells ring to signal the time. When there is mass, the ringing can go on for over 20 minutes. And wherever we are, whatever we are doing, my daughter stops in her tracks at the first ring and says “I want to look at the bells.” And that’s what we do, finding the best vantage point to look at them.

Capturing a “I want to watch the bells” moment

Looking at how the bells swing back and forth can be hypnotizing. It’s something I never stopped to look at before, but it has been a powerful reminder about the importance to slow down, be present, take in sights and sounds, and appreciate the regularity and companionship of those bells.

On one or two occasions, I tried to rush going home, but my daughter would point her feet on the ground and say “I want to keep looking at the bells.”

Often the ringing would last less than a minute – what am I in a rush for, I wondered? So now I stop to admire them with my daughter. And marvel about how something so simple and insignificant to most of the villagers can bring us a sense of awe.

Clocks

These days I look at my house clocks and my wristwatch a lot – to figure out when to start cooking meals for my daughter, when we should leave for the park, when the bells will ring next…

Time. Time has been on my mind a lot lately, for other reasons as well.

How time is the great democratizer, as we all have the same amount of time available any given day, whether we are rich or poor. Bernard Arnault, the richest man in the world, may be worth $215 billion, but he has as many minutes available in his day as you and I. Ditto for Oprah, Jeff Bezos, and everyone you know.

Time. I think about how, since the introduction of smartphones 16 years ago, days seem to have shrunk, with so much of our attention being sucked into mobile devices and social platforms. You unlock your phone, open an app, start clicking here and there and poof! 20 minutes may magically go by without you noticing.

Now that I’m spending most of my days offline, time seems to have slowed down significantly.

With a bit of sadness, I wonder about all the time that Big Tech has been “stealing” from us, especially kids. I see it every day at the park, in my little Italian village.

Every day, I notice tweens and teenagers sitting together in small groups hunching over their smartphones while commenting on whatever is on their screens. There is such a stark contrast between them and small children like my daughter, who are running around, climbing structures and gleefully going down slides.

The juxtaposition between the energy and activity of the little ones and the passivity of older kids, hypnotized by screens, is really jarring.

It’s hard to put my discomfort into words without sounding condescending. But it strikes me as poignant how, for little children, the large playground is full of potential for fun activities… whereas for teens who are physically in the same space, the world has shrunk down to a small rectangle that they hold in their hands.

Dr. Susan Linn, author of Who’s Raising the Kids? Big Tech, Big Business and the Lives of Children eloquently discussed this in a memorable passage of her book:

For babies mesmerized by phones or tablets the “world” they’re concentrating on is confined to a flat rectangle smaller than a square foot. It’s a world without taste, smell, textures, and — most important — other people. It’s also a world mediated by decisions made by someone else about what they should look at.

Dr. Linn is talking about babies here, but this passage perfectly applies to older kids as well. And adults, too.

(Social) Callouts

I’ve been joking with other parents at the park that it’s a good thing our feisty toddlers are still illiterate. Because there are vulgar, blasphemous scribblings on every single piece of playground equipment.

Slides, swing structures, tunnels and tubes are covered with writings by older kids (I presume). There’s the occasional “[insert name] I love you” but 90% of the writings are lewd, offensive invectives and vulgar drawings.

And – to my surprise – amongst them I have been seeing social media call-outs. “Follow [username] on Instagram”.

This morning, on a climbing structure, I even saw someone had drawn the Instagram logo, followed by a username.

I’m anonymizing the username… and blurring out a vulgar drawing too:

I’ve seen several of these in the small park we go to every day. I find it… fascinating. How tweens and teens would consider important to promote to strangers at the park their social media handles – amongst a sea of mostly terrible scribblings.

It reminded me of how, in this brave new world, online popularity is the ultimate status symbol.

I’m glad my little one is only 2 years old and for now I can protect her from these (hollow) pressures.

It’s 4pm now. Time to wake her up, grab a snack, and head to the library.

Till next week,

E

Cover photo by Sergio Rota on Unsplash

#DrSusanLinn #life #personalHistory #slowLife #time #WhoSRaisingTheKids_

https://therealists.org/?p=8020

Well… I’m cleaning out some old boxes and it feels like I’m doing an archaeological dig. I just came across this buried artifact from 1993 – my first master’s thesis. This spring it will be 30 years since I defended it before the committee. And yes, Kinko’s!

Title:
Speaking Directly: Some American Notes, Last Chants for a Slow Dance (Dead End), Chameleon: A Study of Three Films by Jon Jost

#thesis #gradschool #filmstudies #universityoforegon #independentCinema #personalhistory #nostalgia

Patrick (H) Willems on life, movies, comedy, and Zack Snyder - Produced by Adam Lance Garcia and edited by Parker Dixon. Click here for transcript. (video l... - https://arstechnica.com/?p=1751239 #patrickhwillems #personalhistory #gaming&culture #patrickwillems #1000comments #features