Stealing from Sunday Style

Like a child coming crying to their parent after they broke the cookie jar because they stood on a drawer to get it out of the top cabinet, I am coming back to this blog after almost two weeks off.

The momentum was good, but then it got lost and I'm still trying to find it. So I thought I'd at least try pick it back up by posting something that I was not smart enough to have written but am smart enough to share. 

*me right now.....

Sunday style is a glossy mag part in the Sunday newspaper that makes the weekend (or in my case, the week as I stole it from the cafe across the rd when it was a day old) all the more enjoyable. It features articles on health, fashion, technology and feel goods, and more. 

Scott Simon tweeted from his mother's deathbed and in this article shares memories about her last few days: 

*** Disclaimer : the text that is about to follow is not mine and I just copied it.

"Death makes life worthwhile. It gives each moment meaning....but death drives life. It frightens and inspires us. Do away with death and we'd have no reason to get out of bed (or into it), grow, work, love. Why would we do much of anything if we had the time for everything? It's the certainty of death that moves us to write poems, find friends and sail across oceans and skies. It's because we know we don't have all the time in the world that we try to use the uncertain and unknowable time we have to do something that endures. It's why we have children." 

Scott Simon's book- Unforgettable is out on April 1 and his Twitter is @nprscottsimon

This next bit, which was on the next page, is Jess Fink (@jessefink)'s take on the dangers of selfie sticks and not just the physical:

"Increasingly, no matter one's age or background, the precious moments of our lives-particularly our travels- are committed to SD cards and Instagram feeds, not our memories. Advances in technology have had an undeseriable effect; our imaginations are not really being nourished, just our narcissim."

I would like to point out that I do see that I am being somewhat ironic and hypocritical sharing this exert since it could be seen both as unimaginative and narcissistic but it's still food for thought and going to inspire me to work out my imagination a bit more this week.

Plus, what Scott Simon said about the fact that our time on earth is finite certainly is what I needed to get my A into G and at least attempt at an upload.

Speaking of uploads, check out the video my Mate made about Keeping Salad Safe:http://youtu.be/bFO6I1RDbdo

Jj

Use your Brain.

The other night, I was reading Broadsheet magazine and also sifting on my smart phone when my housemate came home. She showed me this book about the Chinese New Year and what my year had in store for me, so, interested,  I flipped it open and started having a read. Between each sentence about my future prosperity, health and romance, my eyes kept darting back to my phone, pressing refresh, looking back at Broadsheet and back to the book again. I couldn't stay focused on more than one paragraph of what was in front of me......

Sound familiar?

I'm not the first one to point out that more and more research and evidence has been found to illustrate that our generation's brains are changing thanks to the way technology is so snugly nestled in our lives. From 2001-2011, our attention spans dropped from 12 seconds to 5 seconds.

The Daily Mail reported the average person switches between devices as many as 21 times an hour. Advertising researchers tracked the online behaviour of 200 British people to discover how much time they spent on one device before picking up another and found our attention span is smaller than ever thanks to the growing presence of these multiple devices.

Have you done anything else since the start of this post?

I could go on and on with facts and figures, but I'm going to talk about a feeling.
Fear.

I'm afraid at how quickly we forget things.
I've been invited to several birthday dinners this weekend, but even though I've accepted the invitation, I can't tell you the name of the place we are going to. I know it's a new place in the city, but that's it.

Simple things like directions, phone numbers, place names and dates, we don't even have to try to remember anymore as we know we can find it in a few taps of our fingers.

How many times have you been out to dinner with friends and heard something like this-
"I watched this really good movie the other night"
"Oh yeah, who was in it?"
"Ahhh it was that guy from, you know, that musical movie with Anne Hathaway"
"Hugh Jackman"
"Na, not him, ahh that other one...(quickly does google search) ah yeah, Eddie Redmayne"
"Oh yeah, what was that movie called again"
"(looks at phone again, has also checked Facebook whilst still looking up Eddie Redmayne) The Theory of Everything"
"Oh yeah"

I'm afraid of how we don't try to figure things out, afraid of how we don't worry about actually knowing how to spell words correctly, or even remember simple pages to look up.
Even when I tell people about this blog, I post it on their wall rather than ask them to remember "thejoanasimmo.blogspot.com.au" 

Yes, I'm probably making generalisations based on myself and my peers, and maybe you have the attention span of a sparrow (which is long) 

The thing that sparked me to write about this, was not only the short length of my attention span the other day, but the questions some of my students (aged 10-20) have been asking me lately.
"Joana, my shoes are slipping- what do I do?"
"Take them off."

Google is the bomb. I use it for lots of stuff and I'm sure you are pretty aquatinted with it too. Google is smarter than me.
But that doesn't mean I have to just accept that I'm meant to be dumb and use the internet as a spoon to feed me things I can't be bothered spooning up or thinking up myself.

When I see someone get out their phone when they have forgotten the name of something, I push it out of their hands and ask them to use their brains. I used to write everything down so I didn't have to remember it, now I prefer to train my memory, thanks to the Mega Memory tapes my mother made me listen to in the 90s.

We know exercising our bodies keeps us healthy. We need to exercise out brains and our focus, as just as your biceps deteriorate with age if you don't flex 'em, so will your brain. Your hair will be grey, but your memories will hopefully be bright in decades to come!

Jj