Kathy Morris works as the Director of the Phinehas Newton Library in Royalston, MA, but when she comes home at the end of the day, she and husband Larry Siegel are happy to live without what they consider to be extraneous appliances…they have neither a refrigerator nor a TV, and their telephone has a dial. Siegel keeps in touch with dozens of friends by writing letters.
Experts have some interesting views about dependence on technology. Although some cases are more extreme than others, said Margaret Jaillet of Mount Wachusett Community College’s Complementary Health Care Program, some reasons people avoid technology have to do with the stress it brings into their lives. She said research by Michelle M. Weil and Larry D. Rosen, authors of TechnoStress: Coping with Technology, shows that as people are inundated with technology, the stress it causes may negate the improvements in our lives that computers and cell phones were supposed to bring.
More from The Worcester Telegram.
Solitary Confinement with Better Views
Yuck, sounds like solitary confinement with better views to me. I can understand cutting off TV — it’s nothing but rubbish anyway — but all other forms of modern communication?
Only for bad behavior!
simpler?
Why does the press insist that this type of lifestyle is “simpler?” Just seems like a lot of extra work to me. An icebox–seriously? Well, whatever tickles your fancy I guess.
Library Director Lacks Professionalism
The library director’s proud defiance of a life style embracing technologies deserves to be written up in her performace review.
Unibomber
My god isn’t that the Unibomber sitting in that chair. Come on no refrigerator? I understand living off the grid but heck generate your own energy and impress me. This sounds like crazy people who keep the gimp chained up in the basement. I’d like to hear some comments from her coworkers.
Re:Library Director Lacks Professionalism
YES! Throw the director out of a job for READING at HOME instead of bloggingsurfingtubewatching!
When did the media-saturated TECHNONERDS take over my profession, anyway? When did we cede civilization to a HERD of perfectionist moles and their ipods?
We HUMANITIES people used to keep y’all in the library BASEMENT, where you typed up your little anal-retentive catalog cards…and now, somehow, you rule.
Yeeeech!
A (possibly minor) point about animal group names.
A “herd” of moles, even “perfectionist moles” should actually be called a “labor” of moles. A labor of perfectionist moles. That is more accurate.