Obama speaks against online time-wasting

line

Strong words from Barack Obama this week:

With iPods and iPads; 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.

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

We’ve blogged before about the fine line we all tread between using the Internet for the good of our businesses and ourselves, and we’d be the first to agree that it’s easy to lose an hour or two online when one only intended to sit down for five minutes.

Obama was speaking to graduates at Hampton University – the first generation who will enter the workplace completely habituated to breaking off from daily tasks every five minutes in order to check email or surf the net.

We understand where he’s coming from, but we’d suggest it would befit the President of the USA to get up to speed quick sharp – if not on the XBox, then the iPad at least. He may not have time to play Tetris, but surely he’d find it invaluable to check the news, send quick emails to his staff, or merge an online calendar with those of his aides.

And if the White House website should ever need a quick update, of course, he might even visit the Notting Hill Web Design site. Well, we can dream.

  • Posted in:
    •