CENTRAL OREGON COAST – Early morning beach goers say they like the stillness of walking the beach to escape the noisy TV and computer that awaits them at home where doctors say the endless tweets of Kim Kardashian on Twitter hurts one’s health.
Their voices was light, trivial, like a leaf falling into silence without a sound for central Oregon coast beachgoers Friday morning; while Jan. 27 also broke to “the noise” that Kim Kardashian urged her Twitter followers to check and see if Cher was dead. “Did I just hear Cher has passed away? Is this real? OMG,” Kim Kardashian tweeted; while, in return, “Cher fans tweeted in terror,” reported the 24/7 online media that follows Kardashian’s lead. Then, Kardashian corrected her rumor with “Can’t believe people would make up a sick joke like Cher died. These people need to get a life! Thanks twitter for clearing that up.” Meanwhile, a self-proclaimed Twitter junkie – 16-year-old Jen -- whose mother, sister and younger brother got her out of the house early Friday morning to “clear her head at the beach." In turn, Jen said she gets “all knotted inside” after gluttonously feeding on every word that Kardashian and other Twitters share online.
Insecurity is her constant companion
Teenager Jen’s mother, Barb, admits that both her daughters seem to be “addicted to tweeting almost all day long,” with Jen posting more than 4,000 Tweets last month alone.
In turn, Barb thinks regular beach walks are needed for both her and her family’s mental health. “I was on anti-depressants for years until I weaned myself off with regular walks in the park, down the beach, to the store. Just walking helped me clear my mind, and ease my worries,” explains the mom while pointing out to her kids that “the shadows (cast by driftwood on the beach today) looks like stalking cats.”
At the same time, a recent story in The New York Times titled “The Joy of Quiet,” explained that a group of advertising people are working on the subject of “Marketing to the Child of Tomorrow," that requires today's digital and cyberspace culture to both increase and keep pushing the marketing for "non-stop access to smartphone and Internet fun."
Also, the goal is to keep the younger addicted online users to stay online "as much as possible," to where they are "now living online, and that becomes their reality," explained a retired teacher who said "I left before the computer took over for me in the classroom."
Youth “addicted to the screen”
The New York Times story also explains how – thanks to the Internet and social networking on Twitter and Facebook – today’s teenagers “appear to have gone from knowing nothing about the world to knowing too much” and are now bathed in noise in both their environment and in their mind 24/7 with no breaks for the joys of quiet and even a few minutes of “stillness.”
For instance, The New York Times report also pointed to “Internet rescue camps” in South Korea and China today that “try to save kids addicted to the screen.”
At the same time, health experts in South Korea, China and now at the European Union are trying to fight “the screen,” but are in a losing battle because “saturation is occurring daily,” with most teens in the U.S. today reported “so addicted to the screen that they can’t do anything but look at the screen.”
“We’re see a wide range of physical and mental health problems with young people and adults who spend most of their waking hours looking at something on ‘a screen,’” while not getting a break like Barb’s children today at the seashore in Oregon, explained the retired teacher who was also walking the beach Friday morning.
The New York Times also revealed that the “Intel (all companies) experimented in 2007 with conferring four uninterrupted hours of quiet time every Tuesday morning on 300 engineers and managers; while the average office worker today, researchers have found, enjoys no more than three minutes at a time at his or her desk without interruption.”
Also during this test of “quiet” at Intel, the Times report stated that “the workers were not allowed to use the phone or send e-mail, but simply had the chance to clear their heads and to hear themselves think.”
It never caught on.
Image source of an early morning beach scene along the central Oregon coast Jan. 27 with “Barb” and her family enjoying a walk-about, while other locals also found the peace and quiet of the seashore both healing and uplifting after being shut in for the past week due to a fierce winter storm that slammed the Pacific Northwest. Photo by Dave Masko
Comment and add to the story without registration, but keep the comments meaningful please. Links are not accepted.
