Matt's Journal

Sitting outside in my backyard, a mess needing much work, but pretty and shady nonetheless. My son, fresh ME degree in hand but with no work yet, is coming home tonight from Flagstaff where he’s tired of working in fast food.

This covid-19 business. My media consumption’s gone up. I do a lot of it, sometimes to kill (or fill) time, or under an internal compulsion to see what is the newest thing. Smartphones add to the availability and temptation. This consumption has not brought me a lot of joy, but I like being able to do it.

We have watched a couple of good movies and documentaries, and I’ve heard good lectures and concerts online. We’ve had numerous family meetings including a funeral online.I’ve conducted some interviews and took a class online.

These aren’t so bad but the aimlessness of much browsing is bad. The books I’ve read have been mixed – online book sources at the library specialize in bestsellers, a lot of popular crap, but only a little of the good stuff. Maybe there are other sources.

News sites, for all their value, play tricks to keep you looking – teaser headlines and, worst of all, teaser links. They leave me tired and washed out without having learned anything, really, of value.

One exception is Nature. They send a daily mail and I can scan it and hit what interests me. They aren’t as blatant at trying to keep you there as are the mainstream papers like the NYT or The Guardian. I do like the papers, don’t misunderstand me, but I don’t like being led like a dog into the maelstrom of links they offer. That’s my problem as well as theirs.

What’s good:

• Email from people. Real humans.

• Things I can share with others in real time. Such as the SFSymphony series on modern composers that Laura found.

What I find bad:

• Facebook. It’s a timewaster. It’s useful for setting up meetings and as a place for groups to stay in touch.
• Major news sites. All have an agenda including keeping you reading. I do like some of the sites; the same applies whether I agree with their philosophy or now.
• Our family text string. Much as I love being in the loop it’s very noisy. Some siblings are noisier than others. I hope I’m not considered a noisy one myself. I miss the long format of email where you actually say (or learn if you are reading) something substantial. Text is too short to get much across. Trouble is no one writes emails (not to mention paper letters) anymore.