Power and Attention Hogs in Social Spaces in Manly

Most food & drink places and many shops in Manly have one LCD (liquid-crystal display) TV or clad most of their walls with these high-definition television (HDTV) displays. They are switched on for the length of the trading day/night. Not only are they ugly and put the customer in a passive position, of having to gobble up the unsolicited content (spam), but they also interfere with social communication.

Additionally, the glaring walls gobble up enormous amounts of energy, adding to Australia's emissions. According to the EPA/US ," the more than 275 million TVs in this country consume over 50 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. That’s equivalent to the output of more than 10 coal-fired power plants"
"The gas, widely used in the manufacture of flat screen TVs, is estimated to be 17,000 times as powerful as carbon dioxide."

Make choices:
Choose spam and emission - free spaces
Ask to have it turned off.
Turn it off yourself.

Image: Stencil art in public spaces of a person who did not outsource their creativity to TV.

Including Pram Inhabitants in Communication

A bumper crop of babies, toddlers and advanced children are being pushed around Manly in prams. Mostly, turned away from the face2face position, leaving the young one deprived of interaction.

Parents/carers can be seen engaged in electronic interaction (mobile) for prolonged periods, as their most common posture. Awareness becomes entirely focused on the one physically absent.

Lack of (verbal) interaction can interfere with the language development of the young child. Shari Harpaz, a speech pathologist, specializing in children with PDD-NOS, social and play deficits, developmental verbal dyspraxia, and oral motor deficits "is seeing an increase in speech-delayed babies and toddlers" which is related to mobile phone usage. The social preconditions for language acquisition are withheld. Preverbal vocalizations are not responded to. "The social use of language, that's the piece that's getting lost,'' said Harpaz.
Speechless presence needs some inclusive quality face-time to become a member of the language-using human community.

'PDD-NOS': Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified
'Hey, cellphone mom: Your children are calling', Seattle Times, 070908
'Caregivers should turn off the phone and watch the kids' , mlive, 090908
How best to walk your baby, The Independent, 211108
Dr Suzanne Zeedyk, Dundee's School of Psychology