Make CyberSense

Books, Video, and Family Health

COMPARING THE EFFECTS OF MUCH VIDEO VS READING ON ATTENTION & INTELLECT
(published originally in Yoga Living Magazine, July August, 2008)

Books Can Help, Too Much Video Can Hurt

I think it was Francis Bacon who said, “speech makes a ready man, but writing a careful one.”  Conversation, with it’s unpredictable ebb and flow, tends to promote quick wittedness--whereas writing a lot teaches you more about organizing thoughts carefully.  Similarly, today we might say, “too much video dulls the mind, while reading enriches it.” 

Good cybersense is knowledge you need to hold your family together in an increasingly wireless, media-dominated world.  How the different media affect your own and your loved ones minds is important.  Over time, these effects can be profound.

Not That There Aren’t Great Videos

OK now, video fans, don’t freak.  I totally agree that there are videos to die for...

CyberSense--Holistic Health in a Wireless World

HOW DO WE STAY HEALTHY SPENDING HALF OUR LIVES ON A COMPUTER?
(published originally in Yoga Living Magazine, May-June 2008)

Going Within--but Not the Old Sacred Way

We live, perhaps without quite noticing, in the midst of a great exodus.  Most of us, more or less, are on the trek, like it or not.   Left behind is the old Earth, where good bodies were just the thing, and face-to-face communication was key.  Back there, “reach out and touch someone” implied being at arms length, and “I’ll see you” meant just literally that. 

Where we are going now is “within.”  Not however the deep sacred “within” of the saints and the sages, but rather a hastily constructed, profit-driven, furiously evolving, virtual “within” the marketing people like to call “i-life.”  The “i” here stands for “Internet.”  But as so many different devices embrace chips, we might also say “e-life”—“e” now for all things “electronic.” Because this new promised land comes to us increasingly via all sorts of electronic screens, speakers, and controllers—in everything from cars to coffee-makers.

Still, Market-Speak is Right

The advantages, we are told, are huge--unprecedented in all recorded history.  Well, for once, market-speak is right.  Miniaturized, wireless computation is a nerd alchemist’s wet dream....