screen time

“Daddy, can I use the iPad?” What a question. ‘Well,’ I think to myself, ‘on the one hand it will give me thirty minutes to get some work done, on the other hand, it’s another half hour lost to Good Luck Charlie or whatever pre-teen show my six year old seems to adore.’ “OK, thirty minutes,” I say. Cue little brother: “Daddy can I use the iPad?” ‘Well,’ I think to myself, ‘can I get a two for one here? Both children occupied with screens? Now I’m ruining two minds – but what a break.’ My guilt has apparently abated. “Let me get my phone for you,” I say, “just thirty minutes.” How many times does this happen across the…
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Memes

I have become interested in memes, I think mostly because I like the name. Defined as “An element of a culture or behavior that may be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, esp. imitation” they seem increasingly important. Seems like we live on this stuff – packets of information on Facebook, bytes of data in songs, and glitzy images that flash across our screens as we gaze into our phones. What laws govern these memes? Are they subject to the physical principles of entropy, gravity, and vectors? Or perhaps they conform to the quixotic principles of molecular genetics — memes, for example, in red states cannot transmit easily to blue states not because of competing hegemonies but…
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