Filed under: When Tech is OK
When I was “little”, I collected:
– Stickers
– Stamps
– Shoelaces
– Shrinky Dinks
– Free Condoms (what else was I going to do with them?)
– Cool pencils
– Rocks
– Shells
– Coins
– Foreign Bills
Today, the hipsters I know collect “checkpoints” on foursquare. This is some “Twitter-like” application that lets you broadcast to the world where you are at any point of your life. You “check in” to locations and collect “badges”. Weird.
But a lot cheaper. Hooray to the end of collecting useless stuff.
This is sacreligious, but here I am, online, to spread the word that we are now in the midst of “National Day of Unplugging”.
ReBoot, a Jewish organization that encourages tech breaks for all in the spirit of Shabbat, has led this movement, and also developed an App that tells you when it’s time to unplug. Read more about it here.
Ironic, for both of us. But somehow it works.
I went to temple today, so I’m absolved.
Filed under: When Tech is OK | Tags: Channukah, children, digital, holidays, kids, technology
A small ode to the wired generation brightening my holiday.
My 5 year old is old enough, for the first time, to tirelessly ask why most people celebrate Xmas and we celebrate Channukah. That’s her gripe for the time-being, which I find at least easier to deal with than defending the fact that we have no festive tree, Santa, sprinkly cookies, or good cheer.
My spiritual answer is that a lot of people celebrate Channukah, like x and y – change topics.
So I get off easy this year, but next year I expect to have to manage the tough ones, and people ask “Why don’t you tell her that she gets 8 days of gifts instead of 1?” or “Is she excited about the dreidel?” Seriously, I’m not competing when I can’t win. It’s just called lying. And I don’t lie to my kids. The dreidel, really? Has anyone had fun playing dreidel (well, other than strip dreidel or 7 minutes in dreidel heaven, or drunk dreidel, which doesn’t really count)? The 8 days of little gifts – not as cool as 23 large presents under a honking large, twinkling, pine-scented, Santa cookie-serving tree. And the token Channukah songs…well, they’re just not that…catchy.
This year, thanks to the wired generation, we have a few bright spots of creative Channukah cheer, like this video, which I just can’t stop playing over and over and over.
Maybe next year, when the tough questions start to come, I’ll have more ammo and choose to compete, thanks to the wired generation.
Living Outside the Screen 