When I googled "mobility," this was the first image that popped up. I thought it would be interesting to use the greatest mobilizer of information to see what the google gods envisioned as the most pertinent image of mobility. I was a little surprised and tickled to see a "mobility scooter" in the number ones spot. It was not the image that I had in mind when I hit search button, but I suppose is fits just fine.
The fact that the first image has to do with a part of the population that we as college students seldom think about was very interesting to me. It also seemed strange that a product associated with the elderly was the first to pop up. Does gramma really surf the web for a new scooter in her free time? It seems strange to me, but maybe the grandparents of today are more computer savvy that any of us realize.
The scooter itself is a sleek and sophisticated machine. With its hip candy-apple-red paint job and convenient front basket, it is the epitome of the perfect synergy of form and function. Its all terrain tires allow for some daring off-sidewalk escapades. The pilot's chair is stylish and luxurious with its black leather upholstery and memory foam padding. The chrome wheels and trim add some bling to the ride. The freedom of movement it provides, however, is its best quality.
This mature-chic means of transportation offers the immobile a renewed sense of mobility and freedom. Now Grandma and Grandpa can scoot to the store, the country club, or the community bingo game without worry. Perhaps this physical sense of mobility is just as, or even more powerful than the perceived mobility that technologies such as cell phones and the Internet offer. Unlike technological mobility, the scooter offers its rider the opportunity to actually be somewhere in the flesh, an often overlooked luxury in our Internet obsessed times. It also draws attention to the "mature" population's desire to keep up with the fast moving youth, both physically and technologically. I would be very proud (if not extremely surprised) of my grandmother if she ordered something online, but I guess today's "mature citizens" have misled us in thinking that they are technological neophytes.
3 comments:
Your writing is elegant and stylistically sharp, and there are some real gems of sentences in here, like this one: "I thought it would be interesting to use the greatest mobilizer of information to see what the google gods envisioned as the most pertenant image of mobility." That is a clever turn of phrase! (Check the spelling of “pertinent.”)
I do, however, find myself wanting a bit more critique in relation to the object itself. First off, how have we come to define "in the flesh" in terms of wheels, gears, and motors? Are these technological/mechanical devices really that much closer to the human being than computers? I get your point, here, that being ale to mobilize one's body seems to take priority over sitting in front of a computer and visualizing a sort of imaginary mobility...but at what point can we really draw the line between the flesh body and the brain body? Does a body have to move for a mind to be mobile? As a literature student, I expect that you have certainly experienced flights of imagination through words on a page; so is such mobility really altogether different when it happens on a computer screen? Furthermore, what guarantees that a mobile body is even in touch with their flesh? (This makes me think of Wall-E's interpretation of ultra mobile humans.) Sorry, I'm going off on a tangent here, but your post really got me thinking! It also made me think of a political skirmish on Mackinac Island, which is a small island in Lake Huron in Michigan, near where I'm from, and there are no cars or motorcycles allowed on the island: you have to take a boat out to the island, and then once you are on it you can bicycle, walk, or take a horse carriage—that's it. Well, when these "mobility scooters" became popular a few years ago among the elderly (and disabled), they spurred heated debates about whether they should be allowed on the island, or not—some people felt that these scooters represented a slippery slope down which the island would allow other mechanical forms of mobility, which the island has not had (except for an ambulance and fire engine, which become deconstructive ambiguities) for most of its history. Long story, short point: these little scooters are more complex subjects that we might think!
It strikes me as interesting that you found your image by using the first image that pops up on google searches. While I do find your interpretation of the scooter interesting what caught my attention the most was "google gods." I feel that this statement shows the generation gap on the idea of mobility. Google has now become a verb, you often hear people say "I googled that last night." However, the chances that you would hear grandparents or even parents use google are low. In fact is would sound strange to hear the older generation use google as a verb. I think you bring up some great points in your post that make people think.
I also find the "google gods" statement interesting, but when I read this post I was more focused on your description of elderly being technology-knowledgeable more than about mobility. Perhaps instead of going on a tangent on the elders' abilities you could've used a story of a elder nagging at her son/daughter to get her a motor scooter she saw on the TV and how the son/daughter went across all the design specifications before buying it off of Google Checkout or something similar.
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