Sign of the Times

I was talking to Mom tonight, trying to convince her to take a new plunge in her online experience. The plunge in question regarded writing comments on blogs. Specifically, my blog.

To which, my mom had a very well-reasoned dismissal. She gave me the following analogies:

“If I wanted to contact you, I wouldn’t plaster my message on a billboard so that hopefully you would see it passing by on the freeway. You might as well put a message in a bottle and throw it in the ocean!”

As you can see, my mother has some misgivings about making her thoughts and private messages available for public consumption. And I found myself amusingly at a loss for words, because the logic was sound. Why do we get a kick out of publishing our thoughts for the masses, anyway? I wrote some similar thoughts about it here.

At the risk of implicating my mother as outdated in the digital frontier, let me just offer the disclaimer that she’s an avid eBayer and emailer.

Mom, if I’ve misrepresented you here, feel free to let me know in the comments section below. (Or just send me an email.)


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11 responses to “Sign of the Times”

  1. Rob Avatar

    😉

    You’re on to me, Carl. I was halucinating terribly due to sleep deprivation and made them all up!

    Ang, I’ll email you the links. They’re all really cool utilities for which the Windoze users are jealous.

  2. Ryan Scott Avatar

    Blogs let me spew my opinion on so much that goes through my head everyday. I don’t have to bore my wife with so many of the details of politics she may not like.

  3. Angela Avatar

    dude. what are you doing up at 2:30am?!

  4. Carl V. Avatar

    He’s thinking about his mommie…what else!

  5. Carl V. Avatar

    I’m as green as your background with envy….

  6. Rob Avatar

    No, he’s foolishly blogging and getting sick as a result (right, Mary?)!

    Oh, and Angela, he’s also finding super nifty new Mac programs! This is hijacking the topic, but have you tried these:
    QuickSilver
    Pod2Go
    Flickr iPhoto plugin
    Skype

  7. Angela Avatar

    no, i haven’t.. what are they?

    and can’t you look those up at decent hours during the day? lol

  8. Carl V. Avatar

    The blog phenomenon is indeed an interesting one. It gives us glimpses into people’s lives that we might not otherwise have and that is both a good and bad thing.

    I enjoy being able to read daily excerpts from my favorite author and from artists whose work I admire. Seeing their daily creative process is inspiring and gives me a connection with their work that I might not have otherwise had.

    I also like reading the thoughts of my friends and people I don’t know well but can get to know through the internet.

    Blogging should not replace intimate conversations but it does give us the ability to discuss things that we really want to talk about that may not come up in normal conversations.

    Blogging can also be very self-serving. I don’t post things because I think that I’m so great that others MUST care about what I have to say. I post because there are so many things that I enjoy and I figure that SOMEONE probably shares these interests and sharing my favorite books, movies, music, etc. may prompt others to share theirs with me and open up an even bigger world of discovery for me.

    Plus it is just fun. It exercises the creative muscle to some degree without demanding a huge time commitment.

    Sorry your mom won’t post..but it is cool that she isn’t afraid of the computer!

  9. Carl V. Avatar

    You Mac-Addicts! Those are secret underground programs that are only available at night, right Rob?

  10. Julie Avatar

    Mrs. Lund, I would love to read your thoughts. I would hang on to every word!!!

    The blogs make me feel like I’ve been able to hang out with adults for a few minutes in my day!!!

  11. […] Mom asked me the other night what a blogging person like her is called. If you remember, Mom has a fierce stance on non-public commenting. She refuses to comment on mine or other blogs because of the public nature of the dialog. So, being only a blog reader and not a blog writer or commenter, she wondered if such a person might be a “bleader”. I thought it sounded a little too grim. […]

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