...(a Luddite-confessional continuation)

When I was in 3rd grade, a kid brought a Playboy magazine to school in his backpack. A couple of kids went and looked. I didn't want to for a few reasons.

1) The kid was creepy. And now, I imagined his dad as a horribly disgusting creature for actually owning a a magazine like this.
2) I had a strong fear of authority. I knew this kid could get in trouble for it (which he did), and didn't want to be involved.
3) Others would see me peek.

Looking back, this last reason was probably the most powerful out of all of them. I didn't want to be associated with this gross kid and his gross father. Yet, if as a 3rd grader, I had a smartphone at the time, I could have publicly kept an impression of moral fortitude, but later peeked under the guise of anonymity.

Was it inaccessibility that protected my mind? Today, children have no barriers to informational access. This is a wonderful thing. This is a dangerous thing?

Yesterday, I was taking a run through my neighborhood. Past a group of kids ages 8-10, walking home from school. Cute kids. All huddled around one girl's smartphone.

"Look! See, it's spelled A-S-S-H-O-L-E."

After escaping my immediate shell shock, I hearkened back to my own 1st-grade experience on the bus. Through the condensation on the window, my friend wrote "F U K"

As a shadow of the copywriter I would one day grow up to be, I quickly corrected him by inserting the "C" and finishing the curse, satisfying not the rebellion but, rather the grammar warrior inside me.

He didn't believe me. The bus driver did, though. And I ended up running home crying to confess to my mother. If only I had a smartphone at the time. What a brave new world we live in. More Luddite-talk tomorrow.