don’t stop me if you’ve heard this
before you spend too much time looking
at your phones smartphones are killing a
generation screen technology is
destroying civilization well I’m here to
tell you today much more of the same
actually but with a different premise
smartphones are killing curiosity is
what’s happening today
now I’m not someone who doesn’t like
technology in fact I love it I teach
with it you heard them say that I’m a
professor of video production in
television history and filmmaking in
fact just last week I was sitting
watching the world series on my
television set with football on
picture-in-picture I had my tablet going
where I was watching a TV show I was
typing emails on a computer and sending
text messages so yes I had five screens
going simultaneously
I love screens and I didn’t want to miss
a thing but here’s what I miss here’s
what we miss when this happens the
curiosity the inquisitiveness the
jumping down the rabbit hole that
curiosity allows us and that smartphones
and other new technologies have now
squashed I’ll give you guys an example
when I was in high school but in 1993 I
remember this was my brother had come
home for college break for a weekend and
he and I had a bunch of friends going to
see a new movie that had just hit the
theaters called Dazed and Confused so we
go to see this movie
and I heard a song that I’d never heard
before and it totally gripped me
all right all right all right
hey man you still driving into Houston
in the morning get those Aerosmith
Tickets you damn right
evening ladies oh nice
you need me pick you have a couple yeah
– cool
hey man you sure I’m okay in here oh
yeah man you’ll be okay look if anyone
starts messing with you just play cool
[Music]
I had never heard this song before and
in 1993 I had to do what you had to do
during those times when he wanted to
learn about that song which was sit in
the movie theater till after the credits
rolled while you got to see where that
song came from so while my brother and
his friends made fun of me for sitting
in my seat afterwards they went out into
the lobby i sat there waiting to see who
signed that song
I knew it sounded like Bob Dylan and the
credits read Bob Dylan hurricane so this
is pre-internet I go home that night I
asked my dad do you know this song
hurricane have you ever heard of this my
dad proceeded to tell me the story of
Rubin Carter a boxer from New Jersey
where we were from who had been arrested
and spent almost 20 years in prison for
a triple murder he did not commit I had
to get the song
this is pre-internet how do you get a
song you have to go to the record store
you go to the record store and hope they
have the CD desire on which hurricane is
found of course the first record store
didn’t have it so I had to go somewhere
else a second record store to find the
CD I found it paid the 17 dollars for
the CD got the song finally listened to
it over and over again then I learned
that Rubin Carter had written an
autobiography while he was in prison and
this is my summer reading before I went
to college reading Carter’s memoir none
of this would have been possible if I
just googled it if I just Shazam it or
wikipedia’d it and found out in five
seconds oh that’s a Bob Dylan song I
would have moved on to the next song the
next thing in my life but now I was
invested now I was on a journey from the
movie theater to my home to the record
store to the library to my basement
where I was reading that book all summer
I’ll give you guys another example of
this curiosity this happened around the
same time I was discovering classic rock
music for the first time and any of us
who’ve discovered music realized when
you hear a song like that
first time you think you almost wrote it
because it means so much to you and I
heard this one powerful chorus and it
put me down the rabbit hole once again
[Music]
a whiter shade of pale I Procol Harum
so I hear that chorus as the Miller told
his tale and my curiosity was piqued
again folks this is mid-1990s this is
pre Google this is pre Shazam he
couldn’t hold up your phone and find out
what that song was I wanted to know who
the Miller was and what was this tale of
which he was speaking so I talked to
people again I talked to my parents I
talked to my brother I eventually made
my way to my English teacher who told me
hey the Millers tale comes from
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales we’re reading
it right now in class so we weren’t
reading the Millers tale so I went on my
own journey to read it and I realized
why we didn’t read it in class if you’ve
read the Millers tale you know this is a
story replete with alcohol sex and
flatulence as a 16 year old boy I’m
thinking this is everything I love this
well come to think of it even now as a
40 year old any story that has drinking
farting and sex you’ve got my attention
none of this would have happened if I
had just gone to a quick google or
Wikipedia search but instead now I was
invested I was invested in learning more
about this particular song because I
read this story I talked to people about
it and I allowed myself to just fall
into this so what are the implications
when we don’t allow ourselves to be
socially curious what are the
consequences when we are those people
who sit around the dinner table and
someone has a question and says hey who
won the 2000 World Series in Major
League Baseball or who is the actor
who’s in that movie with
girl who did that other thing and then
there’s somebody who always whips out
their phone answers that question right
for us and then the conversation changes
let’s instead try and change that
paradigm let’s put those phones away
talk to the person next to you ask them
those kinds of questions the movie Daisy
confused ends with Matthew McConaughey’s
character and his three friends driving
to Houston to pick up tickets for an
Aerosmith concert notice the movie
doesn’t end with them at the concert
it’s the journey not the destination and
coincidentally that she’s lyric life’s a
journey not a destination comes from an
Aerosmith song which was released about
a month before the movie Dazed and
Confused came out and if you don’t know
the answer to the question I would be
more than happy to tell you it was New
York Yankees who won the World Series in
the year 2000 thank you
[Applause]
before you spend too much time looking
at your phones smartphones are killing a
generation screen technology is
destroying civilization well I’m here to
tell you today much more of the same
actually but with a different premise
smartphones are killing curiosity is
what’s happening today
now I’m not someone who doesn’t like
technology in fact I love it I teach
with it you heard them say that I’m a
professor of video production in
television history and filmmaking in
fact just last week I was sitting
watching the world series on my
television set with football on
picture-in-picture I had my tablet going
where I was watching a TV show I was
typing emails on a computer and sending
text messages so yes I had five screens
going simultaneously
I love screens and I didn’t want to miss
a thing but here’s what I miss here’s
what we miss when this happens the
curiosity the inquisitiveness the
jumping down the rabbit hole that
curiosity allows us and that smartphones
and other new technologies have now
squashed I’ll give you guys an example
when I was in high school but in 1993 I
remember this was my brother had come
home for college break for a weekend and
he and I had a bunch of friends going to
see a new movie that had just hit the
theaters called Dazed and Confused so we
go to see this movie
and I heard a song that I’d never heard
before and it totally gripped me
all right all right all right
hey man you still driving into Houston
in the morning get those Aerosmith
Tickets you damn right
evening ladies oh nice
you need me pick you have a couple yeah
– cool
hey man you sure I’m okay in here oh
yeah man you’ll be okay look if anyone
starts messing with you just play cool
[Music]
I had never heard this song before and
in 1993 I had to do what you had to do
during those times when he wanted to
learn about that song which was sit in
the movie theater till after the credits
rolled while you got to see where that
song came from so while my brother and
his friends made fun of me for sitting
in my seat afterwards they went out into
the lobby i sat there waiting to see who
signed that song
I knew it sounded like Bob Dylan and the
credits read Bob Dylan hurricane so this
is pre-internet I go home that night I
asked my dad do you know this song
hurricane have you ever heard of this my
dad proceeded to tell me the story of
Rubin Carter a boxer from New Jersey
where we were from who had been arrested
and spent almost 20 years in prison for
a triple murder he did not commit I had
to get the song
this is pre-internet how do you get a
song you have to go to the record store
you go to the record store and hope they
have the CD desire on which hurricane is
found of course the first record store
didn’t have it so I had to go somewhere
else a second record store to find the
CD I found it paid the 17 dollars for
the CD got the song finally listened to
it over and over again then I learned
that Rubin Carter had written an
autobiography while he was in prison and
this is my summer reading before I went
to college reading Carter’s memoir none
of this would have been possible if I
just googled it if I just Shazam it or
wikipedia’d it and found out in five
seconds oh that’s a Bob Dylan song I
would have moved on to the next song the
next thing in my life but now I was
invested now I was on a journey from the
movie theater to my home to the record
store to the library to my basement
where I was reading that book all summer
I’ll give you guys another example of
this curiosity this happened around the
same time I was discovering classic rock
music for the first time and any of us
who’ve discovered music realized when
you hear a song like that
first time you think you almost wrote it
because it means so much to you and I
heard this one powerful chorus and it
put me down the rabbit hole once again
[Music]
a whiter shade of pale I Procol Harum
so I hear that chorus as the Miller told
his tale and my curiosity was piqued
again folks this is mid-1990s this is
pre Google this is pre Shazam he
couldn’t hold up your phone and find out
what that song was I wanted to know who
the Miller was and what was this tale of
which he was speaking so I talked to
people again I talked to my parents I
talked to my brother I eventually made
my way to my English teacher who told me
hey the Millers tale comes from
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales we’re reading
it right now in class so we weren’t
reading the Millers tale so I went on my
own journey to read it and I realized
why we didn’t read it in class if you’ve
read the Millers tale you know this is a
story replete with alcohol sex and
flatulence as a 16 year old boy I’m
thinking this is everything I love this
well come to think of it even now as a
40 year old any story that has drinking
farting and sex you’ve got my attention
none of this would have happened if I
had just gone to a quick google or
Wikipedia search but instead now I was
invested I was invested in learning more
about this particular song because I
read this story I talked to people about
it and I allowed myself to just fall
into this so what are the implications
when we don’t allow ourselves to be
socially curious what are the
consequences when we are those people
who sit around the dinner table and
someone has a question and says hey who
won the 2000 World Series in Major
League Baseball or who is the actor
who’s in that movie with
girl who did that other thing and then
there’s somebody who always whips out
their phone answers that question right
for us and then the conversation changes
let’s instead try and change that
paradigm let’s put those phones away
talk to the person next to you ask them
those kinds of questions the movie Daisy
confused ends with Matthew McConaughey’s
character and his three friends driving
to Houston to pick up tickets for an
Aerosmith concert notice the movie
doesn’t end with them at the concert
it’s the journey not the destination and
coincidentally that she’s lyric life’s a
journey not a destination comes from an
Aerosmith song which was released about
a month before the movie Dazed and
Confused came out and if you don’t know
the answer to the question I would be
more than happy to tell you it was New
York Yankees who won the World Series in
the year 2000 thank you
[Applause]
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