Back-to-School Isn't Denim Anymore

"Back-to-school doesn't mean denims and tops any more. It means iPhones and laptops." This is a quote from Craig R. Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners, a retail consulting group, quoted in an article about how Macy’s earnings are below expectations this year. Coming off some time spent offline (in the mainly offline world of the Hocking Hills region of southern Ohio), I’m struck by how divided and passionate we seem to be in our opinions about new media. Stephanie and I stayed in a cabin in the woods that’s about 20 years old, and one of the advertised attractions of the place is that there is not a phone or a television in the cabin. Interestingly, we found in the cabin a stack of journals dating to the inception of the cabin in which the proprietors wanted people to write about their experiences. It was like a time capsule reading about people who had honeymooned in the cabin or had celebrated anniversaries or who were trying to overcome some loss. I became hooked on these mini-stories, and laughed at some of the romantic exploits that were bragged about and some of the poetry that was quoted (The Desiderata seemed to be a favorite.) I wondered what ever happened to the people and how their stories turned out. One of the common threads, often stated with great anger, was that the cabin residents were so happy that there was NO TV and NO INTERNET! These sentiments were often stated in all caps with multiple exclamation points. Even the “old” medium of the telephone was railed against and described as an enemy of inner peace. When Stephanie and I saw the innkeeper (a graduate of Kent State) at breakfast, we asked her about the journals, and she said she started providing journals early on, because some early visitors were on spiritual journeys and that journaling was a part of that.

Of course, I understand why people equate phones with their hectic daily lives, including work. But I’m wondering why television and the Internet were treated so harshly in the journals. Why do we have such a love-hate relationship with these media that we feel more peaceful without them during vacations, but that we are overwhelmingly drawn to back to them at back-to-school time and back-to-work time? I can hear some people saying that it’s mainly the young people who are drawn to this new media, that they wouldn’t find an unwired cabin in the woods to be that desirable. Still, I had another summertime experience that caused me to problematize that old binary of young/old. Stephanie and I were at Blossom about 10 days ago to see the Cleveland Orchestra perform. One of the numbers they were performing was Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F. We enjoyed a picnic on the lawn with some friends, and were enjoying the music when I noticed a few feet from us, a boy of about 15 with close cropped hair and the retro eyeglasses that some of the young kids wear. He was staring intently at what looked like a book in front of him. Then, I realized that it was a music score to the Gershwin piece, and he was lost in listening to what the orchestra was doing and comparing it to what was in the printed score. He was really into it, as he nodded and smiled at various points in the performance. In this case, the “old” media became new again, and really it became kind of pointless to even think of them in that way.