A longing for simpler times?

[Harmonica]

This is a bit of a rambling thought that I have been mulling for a while. Am I longing for simpler times?

A couple of things brought this up. First was a display in Cotswold of a lovely old canvas rucksack with camera, sandwich box and tin flask. None of it was for sale, just there to look vintage.

Anyway it got me thinking, my modern super light pack is twice that size (thinking about it so is my camera) am I over complicating things? Wouldn't it be simple to carry so little?

I started thinking back to one of Wainwrights books, A Pennine Journey where he walked around 200 miles as a young man with little more than his camera, the clothes on his back and the money in his pocket.

So did people just used to put up with being cold and wet/hot and sweaty/thirsty/ whatever better than I do now?

Fast forward to an episode of Elemntary a couple of weeks ago (if you haven't seen it it is Sherlock Holmes in modern New York and he is recovering drug addict). Holmes suggests that he would perhaps not have been an addict had he lived in a 'quieter' time before technology and ceaseless communication invaded every aspect of our lives.

Was Holmes right?is modern life less enjoyable because its so busy, or have we never had it so good? Gadgets give us leisure time and the ability to organise our lives and interact with people to an extent never before possible? But do they also invade our time so my evening at home can be interrupted by calls, texts and emails from the world whether I want them or not.

By the way I am well are of the irony of posting this on a web forum, using an iPad etc.


So why do I want to take sepia photographs, carry a heavier canvas pack and throw away my Blackberry?

Discuss

 

[Robmc]

I often wish I had been born 50 years earlier, maybe without World War 2 though!! Remember when it wasn't necessary (or possible!) to have a mobile phone. Wild camping was available all over the countryside, areas were still remote. Fish were abundant in the rivers and sea. No central heating (character building!). None of the more ridiculous health and safety rules. Free speech.

And it was ok to eat bread and dripping!

 

[mountainm]

Jumpers for goalposts.....

 

[Robmc]

Jumpers for goalposts.....

And you could play football for 4 or 5 hours after school. Professionals on 100k per week look like they've had too much pudding after 90 minutes!

 

[British Red]

Holmes suggests that he would perhaps not have been an addict had he lived in a 'quieter' time before technology and ceaseless communication invaded every aspect of our lives.

Was Holmes right?is modern life less enjoyable because its so busy, or have we never had it so good?

Discuss

I don't think gadgets are necessarily a good thing - I still don't "get" e-readers for example - I would if the books were significantly cheaper (or the books I want to buy I should say) - but they aren't. So I have to pay for a device - and then much the same for books - no point to it.

Its rather like the TV argument - people spend three grand on a TV in order to watch repeats and drivel - why? It makes more sense to me to get better content on a basic TV

Smartphone are fragile with very, very short battery life. Fine if you live close to powerpoints and want to facebook your friends and Twitter your bowel movements. Less good if you just want to make and receive phone calls and charge your phone on Sundays.

Now does that mean that a SatNav is a bad thing in a strange town? Of course not. Just people need to be discriminating in their use of the stuff. Someone rang me the other day and was amazed that I don't carry a mobile phone on me when working in the garden ??? How weird that would be - its just fine to be uncontactable

Other people seem to put the TV when they get up and turn it off when they go to bed - I wonder when they last sat quietly and read, or talked or played chess with a real person on a nice board.

Technology has its place - but if you find yourself going out to a beautiful spot with friends and then watching a movie or checking facebook, you really have lost the plot!

 

[Coldfeet]

I'm all for technology, and indeed work with it every day, both professionally and, well, everywhere else. But I also like to "turn off" and enjoy the simpler things in life; indeed this is where my interest in nature comes from - it enables me to escape.

People these days can be a bit soft, unwilling to put up with even some of the minor perceived negatives. I assume it comes of an inherent human trait, which is laziness. It's easier to turn the central heating up rather than dress correctly for the environment. We are a culture of instant gratification, which is where I see a negative aspect to technology; it indulges humanities' laziness.

I'm not against modern culture, I just don't enjoy the consumerism and pointless tat that surrounds us. We have lost touch with much of our heritage and reasoning for why we do things.

I don't mean to moan, but it can get depressing; possibly another reason for the desire to "escape".

 

[John Fenna]

I don't think gadgets are necessarily a good thing - I still don't "get" e-readers for example - I would if the books were significantly cheaper (or the books I want to buy I should say) - but they aren't. So I have to pay for a device - and then much the same for books - no point to it.

Its rather like the TV argument - people spend three grand on a TV in order to watch repeats and drivel - why? It makes more sense to me to get better content on a basic TV

Smartphone are fragile with very, very short battery life. Fine if you live close to powerpoints and want to facebook your friends and Twitter your bowel movements. Less good if you just want to make and receive phone calls and charge your phone on Sundays.

Now does that mean that a SatNav is a bad thing in a strange town? Of course not. Just people need to be discriminating in their use of the stuff. Someone rang me the other day and was amazed that I don't carry a mobile phone on me when working in the garden ??? How weird that would be - its just fine to be uncontactable

Other people seem to put the TV when they get up and turn it off when they go to bed - I wonder when they last sat quietly and read, or talked or played chess with a real person on a nice board.

Technology has its place - but if you find yourself going out to a beautiful spot with friends and then watching a movie or checking facebook, you really have lost the plot!

Ah - I see we are agreeing again
The wonderful thing about modern technology is - you can ignore it if you want to!
I like chatting with folk on this and other sites (hard to imagine with my miniscule post count I know) but as with todays trip ... my phone (the simplest I could find) is switched firmly off when I go out... come an emergency I can switch it back on!
Twitter? Smart phones? Big screen tellies? High tech, low weight, zero soul gear? nah - not for me thanks! You can if you want - but not for me

 

[Macaroon]

The off switch is my best friend; as is the answering service and the email that waits until I'm ready to acknowledge it, then respond or not as I deem necessary............As for TV? Naaaaaaaahhhhhhh!

 

[crosslandkelly]

Gadgets just make you lazy. Go back to the days when the height of sophistication was a Filofax. Before that was a diary. It's truly scary how many people these days , are screwed without their mobile what'not. There is a place for mobile phones and such. but to be so reliant on them,as we seem to be nowadays, is to me ludicrous. IMHO

 

[Shambling Shaman]

I find television very educational. Every time someone switches it on I go into another room and read a good book.
Groucho Marx

I like tech stuff, but I like to control it not let it control me.

 

[British Red]

There is a place for mobile phones and such. but to be so reliant on them,as we seem to be nowadays, is to me ludicrous. IMHO

Its the sign of a completely lazy person - and a selfish one often. It demonstrates an attitude of

"Someone else must entertain me"

and even, scarily

"Someone else must save me when I make stupid choices"

Consider the person that never learns to change a wheel but considers calling someone on their phone an acceptable alternative. That's not to say that one should not have the phone - but when you start to think "and therefore I no longer have any responsibility for my own safety or welfare" it becomes a curse.

Answering the OP - when a lack of personal capability and discipline is seen as a virtue, when forethought is replaced by technology, and when a convenience becomes a necessity, then a luxury has become a vice.

 

[peaks]

Came across this the other day...
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/dec/01/life-in-digital-fast-lane-mindfulness?CMP=twt_gu

 

[British Red]

Good article peaks - I read this in it

We all recognise that kind of twitch; the instinctive check of the mobile phone (each of us does that every six minutes throughout the day, on average)

People who check their mobile phone 10 times an hour are really beyond hope. How very sad

 

[peaks]

It is sad. We are generating a whole range of anxiety states through the over-use of technology. Technology is good, but the off switch needs more use so that folks can get some head space.

 

[British Red]

I tell you, anyone who needs to check their phone that often needs to come down here, grab a shovel, and help with the muck spreading. I guarantee after a couple of hours they won't care about the phone, will be marveling at how well the veg beds look and gagging for a brew

I really do feel sad for people who have to fill their lives with technology like that - do they not have a friend to share a cup of tea with - you know - a real friend?

 

[crosslandkelly]

Its the sign of a completely lazy person - and a selfish one often. It demonstrates an attitude of

"Someone else must entertain me"

and even, scarily

"Someone else must save me when I make stupid choices"

Consider the person that never learns to change a wheel but considers calling someone on their phone an acceptable alternative. That's not to say that one should not have the phone - but when you start to think "and therefore I no longer have any responsibility for my own safety or welfare" it becomes a curse.

Answering the OP - when a lack of personal capability and discipline is seen as a virtue, when forethought is replaced by technology, and when a convenience becomes a necessity, then a luxury has become a vice.

Couldn't have put it better Hugh.

 

[shutupthepunx]

the industrial revolution messed up everything [that's me being polite]. or was it the iron age? either way, everythings wrecked.

 

[SCOMAN]

None of the more ridiculous health and safety rules.

If you want to see where we'd be without H&S check out the industrial third world, the illnesses, the maiming and the injuries. Whilst we're at it check out their level of free health care. Look back to our happier days in this country with canvas rucksacks when life was free and easy with polio, TB, extensive use of asbestos and lower life expectancy. Many of the improvements were brought about by effective use of technology.
Is the smartphone essential? No. Is it a pain? Can be. I remember routing the passage of a warship inshore so we could get tv and a phone signal. It's not technology it's people. There is a need to properly educate people about right wrong, good and bad. I do not look to the teaching profession for this but families.
Let's lose our rose tinted spectacles about the past it's not always all it's cracked up to be. Live how we like in the time that we're in (within the confines of the law made by the people who were successful during a selection process by the populace, we have a choice, if we don't like the law try not to let them back in power, democracy 1.1). If that means seeking out retro kit great, if it means having the new iPhone app to navigate, great. But let's not write off the ideas or methods of the others as stupid and fanciful. If I'm in the boonies and injure myself or one of my team are hurt I'll use every means available to me to get help. Simpler times were not always better.

 

[shutupthepunx]

post deleted, i went on a rant.

 

[British Red]

Whilst we're at it check out their level of free health care.

There is no such thing as free health care - in any country.