What are we doing to ourselves? Lots of people are starting to ask this question about the wave of dependability Americans have shifted on to the electronic devices that are starting to define our culture. We all knew this day would come, or at least it’s started to come. It seems like just yesterday I was sitting on my couch in the ’90s watching futuristic movies starring characters who could communicate and interact with a simple screen that they held in their hands. (I’m not going to get into holographs and teleportation because we still haven’t crossed that threshold yet, but you get the point) Well that day is here and are we really better off?

In Morville’s book, Ambient Findability, on page 67, he states, “.. our mobile devices also enable us to become smarter (or at least more informed) individuals.” Morville does go into how the technology is almost at a standstill right now because of limitations on hardware, but it still leaves the notion dangling that we are still yearning for more — still infatuated with the stuff that makes our lives easier to handle.

Morville’s statement regarding the technology making us smarter and more informed is somewhat misleading, because it’s not addressing the steps backward we have taken. This has been a hot subject in our classroom discussions — the fact that we no longer have to memorize phone numbers, birthdays, passwords, names, addresses, etc. We have something there to do it for us! My question is, what information have we used to fill that void in our brains? Are the memory cells once filled with information about our best friends birthdays, our emergency contact information, and our meeting times now piled up with even more song lyrics and other society-deemed useless information? Maybe. Maybe not.

In the midst of our changing culture, it’s really hard not to conform to society’s new guidelines. There are those who can manage, but there’s going to be a breaking point when it’s just not plausible to function outside of the box anymore. Consciousness is going to be key here. Consciousness to remain in touch with the information that we really need to remember. Consciousness to put down the phone or the kindle for a few minutes and re-acquaint yourself with what is literally around you at that moment. Consciousness to remember that, while knowledge is a wonderful thing and access to that knowledge is essential, life is not lived through that machine.

Richard A. Lanham looks into this faction of American Culture in his book The Economics of Attention: Style and Substance in the Age of Information. In chapter 1 of his book, he states, “Tourism seems an oddly self-destructive business” (Lanham 2). Lanham gives several examples of how we, as consumers, are ruining (and in some cases may have already ruined) our world. “Tourism,” Lanham laments, “invented to restore our naive wonder at strange places, destroys them instead” (Lanham 2).

One region in the United States that has taken one of the bigger blows from American consumerism is the American South. Once a mysterious and quiet part of America, hoarding strange and abnormal characters and places who were deeply connected to their land, is now a week long destination of shopping, “authentic” country lifestyles, and a playground to American nostalgia. Not quite.

The South is a changing landscape. How the South wants to be perceived does not always correspond for how Americans choose to perceive it. (I wrote a paper on it last year if you’re interested) In a struggle to remain valuable in the eyes of Americans, the South has dropped below its former standards of remaining dignity and honor to develop a franchising mecca. Graceland has transformed from a home to a pilgrimage. Savannah’s Old South heritage is now a movie back-lot. Gatlinburg, (I just spent 4 days there over Christmas Break) a former National Park resort town is now on par with the Vegas strip. New Orleans is a whole ‘nother story.

The South has changed because of the stuff that we so desperately want to obtain. The South has changed in the eyes of Americans and Southerners. Plantations are no longer preserved and passed down from family to family. They’re advertised and marketed. Americans no longer visit the South to understand a big part of American history and culture, they visit to go to the outlet malls and catch a comedy dinner show in a Gone with the Wind theme. Where do we begin to change this? Who knows if we ever can.

Citation:
Lanham, Richard A. The Economics of Attention: Style and Substance in the Age of Information. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006. 1-22. Print.