Growing Older in the Digital Age

Growing Older in the Digital Age

In "Growing Older in the Digital Age," Baughman discusses people's addiction to the machines that are suppose to be making our lives richer, instead of living those lives. With new technology developing, interactions with one another have become more distant and less formal. These new technological machines have gradually decreased the excitement in social conversations as well as defeating the purpose of being surprised for a special event.

Technology is becoming an important factor in people's lives, but this so called "Machine," should not become our number one priority. There are many things that we the people need to focus on to help develop a richer life and not to be caught up in the mist of our social lives. " We pay attention to people turning twenty-one. We wonder what they're doing, where they're going, how they'll celebrate." This statement by Baughman is great example showing people's thoughts about what others are doing, instead of focusing on themselves. This is a problem that has not been fully addressed, so it is now allowing people to fall into the category of Baughman's statement when argues that we are being caught up in living the lives of the machine instead of using the machine to our advantage and for better purposes.

Baughman also says that, "Modern birthday is a fantasy of attention." The reason why is that, because of the new "Machines" that we have fallen addicted to, it has captured us into this mindset of informal greetings and also the egotism that we are beginning to adopt as individuals. A situation of egotism that people gain to make themselves feel the "Celebrity status," is when they use the social network cite like Facebook, their birthday comes around with plenty of messages in their inbox of general greetings make it seem like they are important and that the world revolves around them. Even though the messages may seem like a lot, most of the time, they are impersonal and can sound redundant after so many short, vague greetings. Because this habit has been consistent over the years, it shows that we have been living "Those lives." I believe that it is perfectly fine to communicate with others over the internet, but to be too attached to these technologies where they are defeating the purpose of surprises and are not helping to make our lives richer needs to settle down for a bit. This is a prime example of Baughmen's argument. The rapid development of technology has allowed communicating with one another to become much easier. However, at the same time, technological enhancements have affected the way relationships used to be when physical appearances and surprises played a huge role in socialization.

Although Facebook in Baughman's perspective is a factor