Mental landscapes
Aug. 1st, 2010 01:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdPandagon had an interesting entry about how cellphones and other tech are rendering some plots obsolete. http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/the_cellular_telephone_assault_on_fiction/
Go read it. I'll wait.
We don't all use tech well.
Some do. And I wonder if it's a function of age and mental landscape.
Everyone has a mental landscape that's a little different from everyone else's.
In my mental world, telephones hang on walls or sit on desks. They have cords (I never owned a cordless until 2001). They ring. Some of them still have rotary dials. Long distance calls are a rarity.
I'm not saying cellphones don't exist. I've been using one since 2005. But in my head, cellphones aren't what I think of when I see the word "phone."
The news comes on at 5, 5:30, 6 and 10. Round the clock news channels are not actually part of my mental landscape, despite having had one as long as I've had a computer.
Stores are small, often mom & pop places, but they always have exactly what the characters need (unless they don't, for plot reasons). Big box stores are a rarity in my fiction.
When people go on vacation, they drive. Most people in my mental reality don't fly. That's a big luxury, used by movie-star and rich people.
Sometimes I even forget air conditioning.
Examples:
In Chain-male, Chad gets a late night call. He picks up the receiver, wondering who is calling after the news on a Saturday.
With that, I have just revealed I am 40+.
I rewrote it for the final. He checks the screen, sees it's his boyfriend and all is cool.
In Shell-Shocked, the boys have 2 land lines. One for the house, one for Gabe's work. Neither of them has a cellphone, although Sean should, and David probably would have gotten one for Gabe.
I wonder how much of it is age, how much is upbringing, and how much changes with the times.
Go read it. I'll wait.
We don't all use tech well.
Some do. And I wonder if it's a function of age and mental landscape.
Everyone has a mental landscape that's a little different from everyone else's.
In my mental world, telephones hang on walls or sit on desks. They have cords (I never owned a cordless until 2001). They ring. Some of them still have rotary dials. Long distance calls are a rarity.
I'm not saying cellphones don't exist. I've been using one since 2005. But in my head, cellphones aren't what I think of when I see the word "phone."
The news comes on at 5, 5:30, 6 and 10. Round the clock news channels are not actually part of my mental landscape, despite having had one as long as I've had a computer.
Stores are small, often mom & pop places, but they always have exactly what the characters need (unless they don't, for plot reasons). Big box stores are a rarity in my fiction.
When people go on vacation, they drive. Most people in my mental reality don't fly. That's a big luxury, used by movie-star and rich people.
Sometimes I even forget air conditioning.
Examples:
In Chain-male, Chad gets a late night call. He picks up the receiver, wondering who is calling after the news on a Saturday.
With that, I have just revealed I am 40+.
I rewrote it for the final. He checks the screen, sees it's his boyfriend and all is cool.
In Shell-Shocked, the boys have 2 land lines. One for the house, one for Gabe's work. Neither of them has a cellphone, although Sean should, and David probably would have gotten one for Gabe.
I wonder how much of it is age, how much is upbringing, and how much changes with the times.
no subject
Phone is a hand-held cordless. Don't like cell phones & never did. Don't have a cell phone & can't say right now that I ever do. When I'm out of the house, I am on "Me Time" and do not care to be found or interrupted by callers.
TV & computer screens I am still getting used to as flat & being no thicker than a picture frame. I understand we will have 3D televisions in under 10 years from now. "Bring of that Star Wars 3D Chess game we all saw Chewy & R2D2 playing in Episode 4!!!"
Stores are always big box places with national representation in nearly every state of the union, and maybe with an outlet every 5-10 miles apart in the city where I live, if not the world. Mom & pop joints are for antiques and rare specialty items that are not mainstream enough for the big box places to bother with.
Vacations are mostly within driving distance. No seating problems, no delays, no baggage concerns, no carry-on fees, no missed flights, no unruly passengers (whom I can't just pull over & kick out whenever I choose), no bathroom stink bomb surprises that I can't just roll down a window to ventilate free from, no ticketing problems, no security checkpoints, no more delays on top of the last ones, no bomb-scares, and no cramped leg spaces... and no crash & burn upon landing due to pilot error.
It is part of the time & world we grew up in though, which formed our mental landscape... and how well we might adapt. Personally I like my microwave oven, and can't recall the last time I used a convection oven (but then again I am also a guy).
Sewing machine?!
Phonograph?!
Cassette tape player?!
Transistor AM Radio?!
Metal trash cans?!
Playgrounds with metal slides or jungle gyms standing more than 15' tall?!
"Surely you jest."