Anxious Machine

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September 2015
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Syndication

Parents of young children have an especially fraught relationship with their smartphones. On the one hand, these devices are indispensable tools for getting things done and staying connected to the adult world while in the midst of childcare. On the other hand, the culture is constantly telling parents, and particularly mothers, that they’re too distracted by these devices, that smartphones are stealing precious attention away from our kids.

But the idea that parents should be focusing so much attention on their kids is itself a modern invention. In fact, our current understanding of parenthood and childhood is, in a very real way, the product of technology.

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Subscribe (or write a review) in iTunes

Links:

Moms, Let Go of Your Smartphone Guilt

Siobhan Adcock’s website

Amy Shearn’s website

Music:

Opening Credits by johnny_ripper

Spring Solstice by Podington Bear

Cylinder Three by Chris Zabriskie

The Dark Glow of the Mountain by Chris Zabriskie

Walkin Flags by Sealadder

Button Mushrooms by Podington Bear

Stuck Dream by Podington Bear

88 by Podington Bear

What True Self? Feels Bogus, Lets Watch Jason X by Chris Zabriskie

Direct download: S3_E2_-_Pay_Attention_All_the_Time.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:16pm EDT

This past week, my kids went back to school. Summer vacation has come and gone. And that’s gotten me thinking about the very idea of summer vacation because every summer, for the past several years, my wife, her sisters and our families have had this tradition of going to a cabin for a few days to get out of the city. We don’t own a cabin. We have to rent one. And this year, the process of finding it, looking at pictures of all the possible cabins on all the possible lakes, made me wonder about this particular, middle-class American ritual of going into the wilderness for vacation, where that ritual came from, and what it says about our relationship to modern life.

Support Anxious Machine on Patreon

Subscribe (or write a review) in iTunes

Patrons:

Special thanks this week to new Patreon supporter Matt Holliday.

Links:

Where Was the Birthplace of the American Vacation?

Thoreau Leaves Walden Pond

Why Fire Makes Us Human

Working At Play: A History of Vacations in the United States

Music:

Gentle Chase by Podington Bear

Arrival by North Hive

Tam by LJ Kruzer

Electron by Podington Bear

Halflight by Podington Bear

Tamz by LJ Kruzer

88 by Podington Bear

Direct download: S3_E1_-_Do_You_Feel_More_Like_Gods.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

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