BACK TO THE FUTURE

Did any members of the Grateful Dead look into their crystal balls and predict that in 50 years after they formed, John Mayer would be receiving positive reviews from Deadheads for holding down Jerry Garcia’s role in the band?  Can members of Phish’s fandom hear Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter sing "in the year two thousand-thirty-three" and then proceed to explain that Ed Sheeran is stepping in for the retired Trey Anastasio?  Most of the time when people think about music in the future it is not band line-ups that cross their minds, but technology.

Recently there have been a  series of NPR reports that explore what it is like to raise children immersed in digital media and technology.  Gone are the road-trip games of ‘Geography’ and the ‘20 Questions’.  Welcome the days in which a vast majority of kids are playing on their devices as they travel across the interstate.   Should I feel lucky that  my younger son is belting out his favorite Gavin DeGraw song while listening to his “playlist” and my older son watches movie after movie on his personal movie player as we journey in our family roadster?   I am not complaining that these are their preferred activities instead of mindless video games, but I am wondering if I will always be trying to guess when will they get to a point with modern technology where there is no turning back.

In 1996, the band Jamiroquai were already singing of the perils of modern technology and Jay Kay nailed it when he wrote and sang, “And now that things are changing for the worse / See, it’s a crazy world we're living in / And I just can't see that half of us immersed in sin / Is all we have to give these / Futures made of virtual insanity now / Always seem to, be governed by this love we have / For useless, twisting, our new technology / Oh, now there is no sound for we all live underground / And I'm thinking what a mess we're in / Hard to know where to begin”.

By no means are my sons the biggest culprits, but sometimes I wish they would stop and look around more often.  St. Vincent sings in her 2014 song, ‘Digital Witness’: “Digital witnesses, what's the point of even sleeping? / If I can't show it, if you can't see me / What's the point of doing anything? / This is no time for confessing”.    No need for any of the folks addicted to technology to apologize, but at an extended family dinner when I look around at the table, I would never have expected to see so many people glued to their screens.

I know that it has been a particularly cold winter in the Mid-Atlantic, but maybe it is time to put the devices down and go outside.

Thanks for reading.