Remote Control

By Dorothy Nixon

It's a rather humble piece of technology, the television remote control; a slim rectangular box with a few buttons on top and a few batteries within. Like many technological devices, it was designed to save time - and, I guess, any undue stress on our atrophied modern age sacroiliacs.

I can clearly recall, as a lazy little girl of about 10, sitting (upside down) on the couch and contemplating how wonderful it would be if I had a remote control device (just like Judy Jetson). I wouldn't have to get up to change the channel on the television.

Fast forward to 1998. My athletic hunk of a ten year old, Mark, bounds down the basement stairs and asks "Where's the upstairs remote? Did you take it?" His voice is accusing.

My husband, Blair, and I, watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on our second of three sets, can't help but see the humour in the situation. "You know, you didn't have to come all the way downstairs to ask us, " we answer. "You can change the channel without the remote control." Our son, born two decades after Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon, hasn't quite grasped this old-fashioned concept.

I don't blame Mark. He's learned from the best. "Where's the remote?" has to be the most frequently posited question in our home. (The annoying contraption is usually down the side of the couch, although it takes an average of three searches to ferret it out. Sometimes it is under the TV Guide right in front of our faces. Occasionally it's in another room altogether. Once I found it in the refrigerator.)

The truth is playing "find the remote" is a common- and annoying- pastime in our house. We've missed whole segments of Seinfeld looking for it. And I will hardly mention the VCR remote control and how frustrating I feel as I fumble for that device in the middle of exercising to a Buns of Steel video. I need it to fast forward through the strenuous bits!

A great deal has been written about the inadvertent effects of certain technologies on society, culture, and every day life. We know how those time-saving home appliances --like the washing machine-- saved middle-class women from hard physical labour but also, to their sadness, isolated them in their homes. And we know how the television lured most people indoors in the evening, leaving the streets dark and mean and empty. And it's fairly common knowledge how the television remote control has somehow forced the content on the tube to become more sensational, more sexy and violent, just to get people's attention.

Yet, for all its downside elements, most people feel technology does indeed save time. It's hard to argue against the claim that the computer saves time. But have you ever been in one of those seriously downsized offices, where the 3 remaining employees spent most of the morning huddled around a computer wondering why it crashed? I have. And have you ever watched as a 12 year old boy struggles for hours with the layout of a term paper he has spent all of 17 minutes researching and writing? I have.

Excuse me for sounding like a Luddite, but I am beginning to think that the computer saves time in much the same way it saves on paper; you get my drift.

Now we have the Internet to ponder. It's a lot more complex than the remote. As a writer with a profound interest in the new technologies, and as a mother with two kids in school, I often contemplate how the Internet will influence my children's education. Is the Internet it's cracked up to be, I wonder? Should kids be researching on this embryonic and untamed communications medium before they have learned to use the library properly? Is all the highly controversial material on the Net, including pornography, given some measure of validation because it can be accessed in school?

Heavy questions indeed. I can think of dozens other philosophical questions pertaining to Internet and schooling that need asking; and one very practical question. Will the Internet end up saving valuable class time for our teachers and kids, or will it end up stealing time? Will the Internet be a well-behaved technological tool or will it take on a life of its own, like that lowly remote in my home, and start controlling us, at home and in the classroom. If I were taking bets......

1999© Dorothy Nixon, all rights reserved