Are you Watching The Throne?

iLive

Go to YouTube and search for any recent concert and you’ll notice two things: the awful sound quality and how the crowd looks like a heard of lighting bugs.  Cell phones light up the arena not in your typical fashion (think Woodstock), but to record everything on stage.  Last Summer I tried to do this at a 4^th of July concert in Philly.  The Roots were playing one of my favorite songs from the Things Fall Apart album and I wanted to get a video of it.  I grabbed the phone, held it up and pressed record.  After only 10 seconds, things fell apart.

I quickly questioned why I was watching one of my favorite groups through a 3” screen on my phone when I was actually at the concert?  It’s like looking at a photo of the Eiffel Tower while you’re driving by it.  How could you possibly get the same experience? I understand the power of social networking and the appeal to capture every moment so that it can achieve immortality on the internet but what about the immortality of great memories?  You didn’t actually see the concert; you watched a recording of it – just like I did when I clicked on YouTube a few days later.

There’s an incredibly fine line between social networking and networking socially and that line seems to blur by the day.  Are you really enjoying yourself at that party if you spent the last 30 minutes checking in on Foursquare, uploading pictures onto Facebook and sending several Tweets about how the DJ is doing his thing and the club is packed?  The more important question is, are we enjoying our lives enough if we are around to read that particular Tweet about said DJ?

Too many people are more concerned with updating their profile than actually living their lives.  After seeing dozens of news feeds, it appears that more time is spent spewing out random thoughts on the net than actually having thoughtful conversations. (The irony of that last line isn’t lost on me.  In my defense, I use more than 140 characters to get my point across. Lol.)

This is not to say that technology is a bad thing.  Facebook is solely responsible for maintaining the amount of relationships that I currently have.  (And who doesn’t smile when they see a bunch notifications on their birthday?)  There just has to be balance.  It’s difficult to relive an experience that took place on your phone.  Life wasn’t meant to be lived through the lens of a 3” screen…

On second thought, I kind of enjoyed watching that Jay-Z and Kanye performance.  Ignore everything I just said, I need something to do while I’m checking my emails.