The Digital Age Affects The Driver

I'm starting out this week's blog about the digital drive, but who knows where it will end up. About two months ago I was driving to work and swore I saw a billboard change. First off, I thought I was crazy, but the next day I paid attention to it, and sure enough it changed from one ad to the next, and I realized it was digital!

Now, to begin with, I think billboards should be illegal. They are a blight on the landscapes, no matter where they are placed, and a form of eye pollution. Disgusting.

Secondly, they are a distraction. Sure they take a moment to read, but isn't that how long it takes to get into an accident? I've been in my fair share of them and know the answer is yes, a moment is all it takes. The car in front of me could slow down or hit their brakes, traffic could turn up at just that moment, and BAM accident.

But now, there's a changing billboard, and while I've gotten good at ignoring the messages they send, I find that the sudden movement I catch out of the corner of my eye is even more distracting. And frankly, I could care less what Philly.com or 95.7 have to say to me. But the movement stops me from watching the road for a moment.

And then I think about the cars that now parallel park on their own, GPS, and the obvious next invention, cars that drive themselves. We just plug in the destination and sit back, having conversations with friends, playing on our iPod touch or iPhone, checking email on our laptops, maybe even watching a movie. The world is such a beautiful place.

Next thing we know, the world will be like the new Bruce Willis movie coming out soon, where we get hooked up to a machine and a robot version of us (only stronger, faster, with supernatural abilities) wanders around doing what we will it to do. Is this the world I want to live in?

The world IS a beautiful place. But the more we focus on billboards, electronics, the internet, the less we enjoy it. I once read a short story by Dave Eggers called Your Mother and I, a story in which a father tells his child all of the stories how how the couple changed the world, and it's probably my favorite and in my opinion the most beautiful story ever written. In it, he claims the first thing they did was omit the world of billboards, just to beautify it a bit. And I agree. This would be a great start.

Yes, this blog is a bit rambling, a mixture of coherant thoughts and jumbled feelings, but overall it speaks for how I am feeling today. Put down your laptop. Leave the phone on silent. Head out for a walk, go to the beach, the mountains, the closest stream.

And ignore the freakin billboards.