Commence with the blaming

"And with iPods and iPads, and Xboxes and PlayStations -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation. So all of this is not only putting pressure on you; it's putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy." Barack Obama addressing Hampton University's graduating class.


The proper term is Infotainment (amnewsment being too damn hard to say apparently), and I personally thank Rupert Murdoch for his hard work in the continued degradation of information and news into another form of attention deficit encouraging entertainment, not Xbox, iphone or other devices.

I consider a device created for enhanced communication different than a device created primarily for the purpose of playing games. Sure the iphone plays games, but that is an aside to its primary function. Grouping all such devices into one generally admonishing statement is a misleading and superficial arguing point.

Saying the iphone and ipad turn information into a diversion is pretty much the same sort of non logic as claiming forks cause obesity. Curse you fork! If only we might rid the world of your pronged scourge we'd have no fat kids, chicks or dudes, anywhere, ever.

I like ridiculous the point of pride that somehow, the President doesn't know how to use a device (ipad) that a cat and a toddler can operate. Have you tried to use one, Mister President?


Iggy can work one



So can Ean



See?! It is that easy!

Granted, Iggy is a cat and responding to the random movement much as he would your sock-clad toes or a bird feeder outside the window filled with finch fury but it still proves you don't even need an opposable thumb to work this thing.

Meanwhile little Ean is being indoctrinated into brand recognition, consumer loyalty in effect rendering him a Disney consumer whore before he can even pronounce the words consumer or whore, more than he's educating himself.

Forks can put an eye out as well as cause obesity, and that really isn't the fork's fault. The fork is just a tool. A technological innovation which improved upon the pointed sticks and emancipated those who cannot use chopsticks from noodley hunger.

Televisions make crappy babysitters

for precious little snowflakes and the ipad is another facilitator so long as parents use it as a poor replacement for their role in raising a child, not a tool to enhance their own instruction.

The iphone, ipad and other similar devices open up limitless opportunities in communication and education and equally limitless ways to waste time, but it's up to us as individuals what we do with such tools.