Matt Ritchel’s piece regarding the camping trip undertaken to explain media connectedness reminded me of the evolution of an area that I spend a majority of my time, and how it has changed based on cell phone connectivity.
Aquinnah, Martha’s Vineyard, is home to some of the most desolate beaches and clearest night skies I have ever known. A fisherman, I would go out to the beach with my father in hopes of catching striped bass and bluefish under the cover of darkness, when the fish feed and the light is low. The scene is hard to describe to this day; the calm crashes of the waves, the moon and the stars providing all of the illumination that is needed, the occasional splash indicating someone had hooked into a fish. The most beautiful thing was that there was no cell service, allowing for more focus on the fishing, the stars, and the place itself. Fishermen would pass the slack tides by stargazing, talking with one another, and walking the beach. Comparing intelligence on where the fish were around the island is a pastime of the Vineyard fisherman, and people shared in their success with others. But, times change.
Today, cell phone service has been extended to Aquinnah, as more and more houses have come up and wanted cell towers around their residences. This has completely changed the environment, and even the activities of the people who are there. The most beautiful pictures nature can offer human, the clear night sky, is ignored in favor of checking email, social networks, and calling friends to pass the time between fish strikes. As Ritchel explains in his piece, phones can even be used as a means to be purposefully antisocial, and this is certainly the case amongst the new guard of fishermen, as conversations regarding any life topic have been exchanged for the self-imposed solitude that people are placing on themselves when they engage their phones.
I am fortunate enough to spend large amounts of the year on Martha’s Vineyard, but I can never understand when I meet people who are there for the first time or are only there for a few days out fishing who are staring at their phones. It seems to me that the regulars, the locals, the experienced are those who leave their phones behind, rather than those who are experiencing this beautiful terrain for the first time. Perhaps it takes a connection with nature and beauty to have one later on.
I have had a similar experience in my life. In Sea Girt, NJ where I have spent a large portion of my summer pretty much every year, the once romantic and quiet vibe is slowly deteriorating and being replaced with higher congestion and noise. Sea Girt was unlike any place on the Jersey Shore, quaint and unassuming, nothing like the places made famous from the many media outlets.
The loss that makes me the most upset is the fact that I can no longer see the night sky like I once did, there are just too many artificial lights now. 5-6 years ago when I used to go fishing you could see everything because the stars dimly lit the ocean to point where everything could be seen in clear view; that is not the case anymore. The additional artificial lights and infrastructure added since the aftermath of hurricane sandy and years of increased development have blocked out the beautiful natural light provided by the stars and so have altered the areas that were once true places of wilderness and solitude at night to go fishing. In my opinion no longer feel secluded and as peaceful.
Overall really agree with your blog post, many Coastal Areas are definitely changing and in my opinion for the worse.