Obama Calls Today's Ubiquitous Gadgets and Information "a Distraction"

zaphod was one of several readers unhappy with the sentiment expressed in President Obama's graduation address to the students of Virginia's Hampton University, writing: "According to Obama, 'information becomes a distraction' when it comes to iPads, the Xbox, etc. (All items he admits not knowing how to use.) He's basically saying we are getting too much information too quickly, and from 'unreliable sources.' Of course, he's referring to talk radio, blogs and other mediums that tend to disagree with his political views." CNET has a slightly different, less critical reaction, focusing on the differences among the actual devices named; they note that the Xbox is not an iPad.

Comments

it wasn't a distraction last year

[Anonymous Coward]

you know, when St. Obama gave vague feel-good speeches and didn't have to make any decisions.

Re:it wasn't a distraction last year

[MrHanky]

Since your comment only pretends to be about information but really is about brown people, I think it exemplifies perfectly how information becomes distraction.

Re:it wasn't a distraction last year

[Moryath]

"Brown people"?

Your racism is showing...

Re:it wasn't a distraction last year

[MrHanky]

And you know this because ... ??? No, you don't know at all, but make things up to suit your evident anti-Muslim agenda.

At least one photo of the bomber was released before he was caught. It was vague and grainy, and there's no chance that it was the best picture of him from a place so full of surveillance cameras as Times Square. So why did the police release only useless photos to the press? In the hope that he wasn't caught, so that the Obama administration could blame whitey, or perhaps rather because the police wanted to catch a possibly dangerous terrorist without public interference, and without suspicion heaped on every somewhat Semitic-looking American?

Re:it wasn't a distraction last year

[billcopc]

Because one person's "frittering" is another person's life-long gratifying, technology advancing, society improving, human race evolving career.

The man's a goddamned smoke screen, a smiling face to charm the masses into trusting their government. If blogging and video games are bullshit, then what does that make him ? Meta-bullshit ?

These "ubiquitous gadgets and information" are the driving force behind humankind's emancipation. We are smarter today than we were thirty years ago (MTV excluded). As much as one group is marathoning toward idiocracy, another is on the path to enlightenment, all thanks to the wealth of information and rapid communication. It's like our minds are turning into a beowulf cluster. Yes, there's a bit of pain in the interconnects, and there's a lot of garbage-in/garbage-out, but to dismiss technology as a "distraction" is akin to declaring "I like being stupid". This is precisely the sort of thing USA-haters thrive on, because we (yes, *I*) see this as the fundamental problem with the world's loudest nation.

Re:it wasn't a distraction last year

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows Persians are just Mexicans with hair gel.

Re:it wasn't a distraction last year

[Mike Buddha]

Oh, give me a fucking break.

He's talking about people mistaking using gadgets for productivity and using only single sources of news rather than actually being productive, thinking for themselves and trying to actually be informed.

Yeah, be informed, but only from the sources that he feels are legitimate. Anybody seeking news from other sources is a whack job, filling their head with paranoid bullshit, that isn't verified by people he agrees with/trusts. Perhaps we should ask him to make a list of approved news sources so that we can avoid dissent^?^?^?^?^?
distraction.

TROLLKORe

[Anonymous Coward]

Niggers every&where hapless *BSD By the politickers

For the hearing impared

[roman_mir]

US President Barack Obama lamented Sunday that in the iPad and Xbox era, information had become a diversion that was imposing new strains on democracy, in his latest critique of modern media.

- translation: it used to be that you got your 'news' from the government approved controlled sources such as news papers, TV, radio and such. What is happening now is that the Government cannot realistically control all of the ways people communicate anymore and it is a problem, since the diversion of the fake news is no longer the only source of 'information' that is overpowering all other sources.

"You're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank all that high on the truth meter," Obama said at Hampton University, Virginia.

- translation: there are too many difference dissenting voices that those in Power do not like you to hear and do not want you to listen to.

"With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation," Obama said.

- translation: with all this technology, which I as a lawyer see as obstacles standing on the way of having total control of information and think needs to be regulated into oblivion but I still didn't figure a way to do so, it is hard to keep your attention on the only sources of 'information' that I approve of. Obviously it is not right that some believe that in today's America, the only reliable news-sources are satire channels where the actual truth is reported in such condescending yet pleasurable way that it attracts both, the serious people hungry for information and the more numerous general public just looking for some entertainment.

"some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction,"

- translation: I am going to equate everyone who I do not approve of, so the crazy people who say I am an African born Muslim are seen in the same light, as those who say I am a corporate whore.

"All of this is not only putting new pressures on you, it is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy."

- translation: Goddamnit! I can't take it anymore that people actually are aware of what the Government and specifically the White House is doing on actual issues, I can't have it, it's preposterously difficult to do one thing and pretend to do the other because you just know it, the audience can get the actual story behind the 'news'.

"We can't stop these changes... but we can adapt to them," Obama said, adding that US workers were in a battle with well-educated foreign workers.

- translation: but don't you worry, we'll get right on this problem, we'll come up with something to stop the alternative news from coming out, from information being spread in non-approved manner.

Re:For the hearing impared

[roman_mir]

continued:

"A black woman, in 1929, refusing to be denied her dream of a college education," Obama said, reprising Height's life story.

"Refusing to be denied her rights, refusing to be denied her dignity, refusing to be denied... her piece of America's promise."

- translation: blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

"What Jefferson recognized... that in the long run, their improbable experiment -- called America -- wouldn't work if its citizens were uninformed, if its citizens were apathetic, if its citizens checked out, and left democracy to those who didn't have the best interests of all the people at heart.

"It could only work if each of us stayed informed and engaged, if we held our government accountable, if we fulfilled the obligations of citizenship."

- blah blah blah, I do great speeches, blah blah blah, need to throw some FUD in, will set the expectation that the current situation is not sustainable for our Government's status-quo, blah blah blah.

Re:"he's referring to talk radio, blogs

[danbeck]

Your rant is the most venomous, hate filled tl;dr post I've seen in a long time. It seems that you are the one filled with hate, not talk radio and blogs.

Re:Transparency

[Anonymous Coward]

shut up, corky

Ignorance is bliss

[BillCable]

Clearly Obama wants a disconnected, uninformed, ignorant populace. All the better to force through socialism...