Traveling with Media Technologies
Throughout my life, transportation and travel to places near and far occurred very often leaving many hours of driving, flying, or train travel that needed to be filled with some form of entertainment. I was born and raised in the suburbs of Los Angeles and from a very young age my family would travel to see relatives in Northern California or on the East Coast as well as have family summer vacations that varied each year around the country. Media technologies became very important during our travel time and we used a number of different entertainment mediums to remain amused throughout our trips.
The era of my adolescence was the emergence of this new technological age where the constant presence of some form of digital media filled the void or waiting period during trips. No longer were long and intellectual conversations being held or even games like “I Spy” being played on long car rides. These were replaced with portable DVD players, Gameboys, and mp3 players.
The endless need to be entertained instead of being in the moment with family or friends and enjoying each other’s company on a road trip, became the norm. Although traveling can become very tedious and tiring at times, these entertainment forums can be very mindless with little to no educational value involved. Most are purely for entertainment purposes and disconnect families from the moments that they should be sharing and remembering for the rest of their lives. Throughout the many trips that my family has taken there is one that stands out from the rest with our constant connection to digital media while traveling.
I grew up playing many different sports, but the main sport that brought my family together was baseball. When I was in 5th grade, my family decided that we would do summer trips to try and go to every major league baseball stadium. These trips had many moving parts to get to each city on our agenda every summer. We worked in clusters going to the Chicago(s), St. Louis, and Minneapolis ballparks on one-trip, Baltimore, New York(s), and Pennsylvania(s) parks on another, with many other trips encompassing the summers of my adolescence. The Chicago trip in particular had multiple forms of transportation as well as entertainment mediums involved along each step of the trip.
Flights are not generally very fun experiences, being stuck in a small space with a bunch of strangers that you most likely do not know for hours at a time. Although we were traveling as a family, seated next to each other for this long flight, this part of the trip was very secluded and individualized to whatever type of entertainment we each wanted to engulf ourselves in on the four-hour flight. Not much talking happened throughout the flight unless my brother and I were annoying each other due to tremendous boredom, and then my parents would have to break us up.
Otherwise, back before we had laptops and iPads, my brother and I each had our own portable DVD players. We had filled our carry on bags full of our favorite DVDs like the Back to the Future trilogy, Indiana Jones trilogy and many, many others for the long flight ahead knowing that we would each watch a few movies both going to and from our destination. As a backup plan if our DVD players were to lose battery power, we had our iPods on standby to keep us entertained. My parents did not have DVD players like us, but they would watch the in-flight movie or listen to music to keep them amused.
Once we reached Chicago, over the next few days we went and explored the Windy City and went to both a White Sox and Cubs game. This was before smart phones so when we were with family, all of our attention was on whatever outing we had on the itinerary that day and we remained in the moment. After our excursions in Chicago we began traveling to the other cities that were on our agenda to continue our baseball trip. Our DVD players and iPods were newly charged and ready for the four and a half hour drive to St. Louis, but we also began to incorporate a new form of media that the whole family could enjoy.
At this time, Harry Potter was very big and the latest book had just been released. As a family we had decided that we all wanted to listen to the latest book on tape during the long drive between Chicago, St. Louis and Minneapolis. This form of entertainment was different and less mindless than watching a movie might be ultimately because we had to use our imaginations to picture what the voice actor was describing. The other difference was it was something that we could do together. We were all listening to the same story and laughing at the funny moments and talking about suspenseful parts because it was something that was new to all of us. By listening to this on our long car rides, it brought us together while also giving us some form of entertainment. This cycle continued after our escapades through St. Louis on our way to Minneapolis. We listened to the book on tape for most of the time, but the DVD players and iPods were also used sparatically. Engagement through these mediums was constant throughout our travel time because we needed something to keep us occupied throughout the long hours.
Ultimately technological advancements of portable media devices have only made this need for constant entertainment more relentless. With the addition of smart phones and tablets with limitless apps and games there becomes less and less real world engagement amongst friends and family and more virtual stimulation and entertainment. Cell phones seem as though they are almost permanently attached to teenagers’ hands with the constant interaction with others through texting, instant messaging, snapchatting as well as engagement through the social media and entertainment sides of these mediums. It would seem that these technological advancements have made traveling and transportation much more bearable at times, but it also has taken away the many great things that traveling with loved ones used to and still could bring to a trip. Looking back on these baseball trips the one thing that made it fun was being in the moment and engaging with my family and the new city we were there to explore. We haven’t been on a long trip like the one that was described above since I started college, but I know that it would be very different because of all of the capabilities that could be used on our cell phones and tablets throughout the course of the trip. We see these forms of digital media today as a way of killing time to help the hours go faster between destinations, but looking back, using DVD players and iPods disconnected us from the shared excitement a trip should bring and the engagement with each other during and after to discuss what fun was had.
