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Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review January 25, 2008 / 17 Shevat 5768

High-tech world dumbs us down

By Lori Borgman

Lori Borgman
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The more computers do for me, the less I do for myself.


Our son and his wife purchased one of those cool GPS systems for their car. They gave us a demo by slapping it on our dashboard and plugging it into the cigarette lighter. A voice prompt, along with a little yellow arrow on a small computer screen, showed exactly where to go.


I want one. I could use one.


Yet, if we get one, there goes another portion of my brain into the deep, dark abyss never to be seen again.


As it is now, I don't have to do math because I have a calculator. I don't have to balance the checkbook because I have on-line banking. I don't have to remember there is a "double c" and "double m" in accommodate because I have spell check.


I don't have to memorize the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address or the words to the national anthem because I have Google.


And now I don't have to watch where I'm going because there is GPS on the dashboard. Smart technology, dumb me.


I am marveling at this little contraption, thinking how I would never again have to worry about clouds obscuring the sun so I can tell if I am headed east or west, when all of a sudden the husband says, "Yeah, GPS is nice all right, but when you have one of those, you lose all the fun of getting lost."


It is like an out-of-body experience. "Excuse me, when have we had fun getting lost?" I ask.


"Oh, you know, here and there, back roads."


"You don't mean last week when we went to the Sheltons'?"


"Yeah, that was fun, taking that little scenic route."


"We were one cul-de-sac off," I say. "I have no recollection of us ever having fun getting lost."


"Really?" he says. He sounds sincere as though we are those people in commercials who veer off highways, drive through canyons, honk at mountain goats, splash two tires in the surf and leave tire tracks in the sand.


Maybe he has us mixed up with that couple in the luxury sedan aimlessly cruising down a two-lane highway lined with towering firs. The man is enjoying the ride and the woman with beautiful hair and perfect makeup is asleep in the passenger seat. Her mouth is not hanging open and drool is not pooling in the corner of it.


We are not those people.


"You are confused," I say. "We have never had fun being lost. The only thing we have had being lost is tension, frustration and me crumpling a 16-fold map into a paper wad. Trust me, I'd remember."


He suddenly recalls a time I got turned around in a McDonald's parking lot due to construction. Caught in a maze of one-ways, I called him from two states away to Mapquest where I was.


"That was not fun," I snap.


"I rather enjoyed it," he says. He concedes that my sense of direction, or lack thereof, may warrant checking into one of these contraptions.


By the way, the voice on the GPS device giving directions to the driver is distinctly female. Now that's a woman who sounds like she's having fun.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Lori Borgman is the author of , most recently, "Pass the Faith, Please" (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.) and I Was a Better Mother Before I Had Kids To comment, please click here. To visit her website click here.

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© 2008, Lori Borgman

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