The Lastest Thing

I decided to make my own app for the Blackberry. Apps seem all the rage, so what not jump on the bandwagon already. I always need reminders for certain things and I made that the basis of my app. It was relatively simple but something that my Blackberry OS really needed (it also works on the iPhone). One of the things that I wanted to keep as a principle to this project was to make it open source and able for anyone to make themselves and alter as needed. So, dear readership, I give you the ReMynDr©

See, it helped me remember to talk about this topic idea I had while eating an hamburger. Genius!

The tools you need to create your own ReMynDr (isn’t that such an original name?) are simple. First you need an old fashioned pen or pencil. You remember those, right? You might even have one near you (if not, ask someone who looks older than you). Then, find some paper and adhesive (my little secret) and mark on the paper what you need to remember. I guarantee that every time you look at your phone you’ll be reminded of the one major thing you need to do. Always forgetting to bring home that burrito from lunch or need to remember to pick up underwear for a night of heavy alcohol abuse? ReMynDr it.

Alright, obviously this isn’t an app, it’s a Post-It note stuck to a phone. However, this little method is a low-fi way of helping me remember that’s been nearly fool-proof since I got my Blackberry back in October. And here we come to the point of my post: sometimes the low-fi solution is the best answer to the problems creatives (and everyone else) face daily.

Sure… RSS feeds, Flickr and Facebook updates, instant messenging and Hulu have become essential in many people’s lives and serve to fill holes and fix problems that people had before. But I think that sometimes we lose our perspective on why we’re using technology and just dive right in, without so much as a thought as to doing something in ‘meat-space.’

Every time I check out my usual roll of blogs or look through a site full of apps or widgets it just boggles the mind to see what kind of stuff is being made that people eat up even though it makes mundane tasks boring or even harder. One example of this is the Yahoo! widget for the bouncing red ball. Not only is it useless, it isn’t anywhere as fun as actually throwing a real ball around. But I often see it sitting there on someone’s desktop, taking on the role of a virtual stress ball.

Slowly younger artists are getting so used to doing everything on a screen that they rarely draw or think away from the glowing light of the screen. This isn’t helping them grow as critical thinking artists at all. As programs get simpler to use, young creatives get lazy. And as they are more immersed in art online the less they can develop styles influenced by their region and surroundings.

The symptoms of this over saturation of culture and easy of duplication are obvious. Instead of learning how to draw first you see artists dive right into Anime, high-contrast photos and scribbled bullshit, disregarding the fact you need to form a basis in art and design before you can begin to play. Instead of developing a digital style from trial and error, tutorials teach them that making things glossy with opacity and gradients are the way to go. Instead of taking action in a cause you believe in by writing their Senator, joining a cause or going out to write a message on a wall, they sign another useless online petition and forget about it. Many just take things at face value and don’t even have any inclination to go and learn why things are the way they are.

We’re even getting lazy at being lazy. How many times do you go past the third page of a Google search? When you are at a net forum, do you use their search function instead of just making a post asking a question for the hundredth time? Do you actually read articles or do you just skim for details and call yourself informed? Instead of learning to spell something correctly, do you spell it wrong intentionally and just grab the first entry that appears to fix it? I’m sure plenty of you do. I know I’m guilty of these things in that past, and probably plenty more.

I’m not saying to delete your widgets, uninstall your browser and throw out your cell phones, but keep in mind why you’re using the technology you are: to make your life better in quality, not quantity. If you dull your mind and body by not thinking or doing, what you are doing is a disservice to yourself instead… without even realizing it’s happening. Be aware of why you do the things you do and, more importantly, be aware when you’re doing something without thinking.