Someone sent me this photo, allegedly taken by the Associated Press, showing state legislators (from Connecticut, I think) goofing off on the job. I can't vouch for the credibility of the photo. It's the sort of thing — two legislators playing solitaire, one on Facebook, another checking baseball scores — that's just about too fantastic to be true, the sort of thing that could be Photoshopped into a scandal.
Legitimate or not, it speaks to a pervasive problem with modern technology. Those laptops that were supposed to make everyone — from state legislators to eighth graders — more productive, better informed, even smarter are, instead, making us suckers for the enticing bait of useless distractions. Some colleges have banned laptops because professors were infuriated that instead of taking notes and looking up references during lectures, the students were emailing, instant messaging, updating Facebook and so forth. Remember when laptops were the latest salvation of education? I doubt that anyone thinks that now, but laptops are pervasive in college classrooms and in many high schools as well. Younger children, reared from the crib on electronic gadgets, think it perfectly acceptable to stare transfixed at a mobile phone's screen as they peck out text messages during meals or when adults are attempting to talk to them. Adults are no different. When I received a "smart phone," I was told if I was the type who liked to play video games while sitting in boring meetings I could download this game and that game. Sorry, I'm not the type.
The goofing-off legislators might be real, or they might be victims of a clever graphic artist. Either way, they're symbolic of the lack of discipline and labor in so many parts of life — work, study, relationships. The sirens of cyberspace are luring us onto the shoals of declining seriousness and productivity, and we're too busy playing games to notice.
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