Rant #778: What Happened While I Was Away

When one is on vacation, the tendency is to forget about the little things that concern us during our daily lives.

Things like the news, sports scores and other things don't figure into our vacations.

We aren't supposed to care about our email, the latest happenings in the entertainment world, and things like that.

But I find that with the increase in the availability of technology, we can't fully turn our backs to what is going on when we are away.

Case in point was the during my family's vacation, when we had some down time--which admittedly wasn't much--I had the TV in our room tuned to ESPN.

I just had to know the baseball scores, and what was doing with the Jeremy Lin and Dwight Howard sagas. I also wanted to know the sanctions leveled against Penn State.

In the past, the TV was only in our room as something to watch as we wound down the day. However, I find that that isn't the case anymore; I am just as interested in finding out this stuff as I would be during a normal day.

And just looking around me, people are constantly playing with their cell phones, texting, reading email, keeping up on Facebook.

Vacations were once times to totally get away from it all, but those days appear to be over for good.

Technology has allowed us to keep up with everything, and do so quite easily.

Sure, when I was swimming, I wasn't totally thinking about the sports scores from the night before, but I did think about how the Yankees were doing, that's for sure.

Heck, I found out about the prior night's game that morning before going swimming.

I guess that's the way it is now, and that's the way that it is going to be for now on.

We are on information overload 24/7/365, and there is very little one can do about it.

I guess the only thing one can do about it is to just leave your devices at home when you are away, and don't turn on the TV or read any newspapers.

And that won't happen. Sure, you might not watch TV or read newspapers while you are on vacation, but leave your cell phone home?

Not a chance.

So while we are relaxing on vacation, we really aren't, to a certain extent. We are still tuned in, still on top of what is going on in the world.

I kind of pine for the days when we weren't so tuned in, but I know those days are really a thing of the past.

"Tuned in, turned on, dropped out," is pretty much what Timothy Leary said about the 1960s generation, turned on by drugs and a different type of lifestyle than their predecessors.

But think about it; he really could have been talking about the current way we do things.

And to an extent, his vision of the 1960s is as sad as using that phrase today.

But it seems to apply today just as much as it did all those years ago.

Too bad.