Friday, January 15, 2010
Rarely is it possible to relate an event from 490 B.C. to presence of technology in media and society, but such is the case regarding my training for an upcoming marathon.
A popular tale from ancient Greece describes the origin of the race: Carrying news of a Persian defeat, the Greek messenger Pheidippides ran 26.2 miles from the town of Marathon to Athens. While Pheidippides ran the distance for the simple reason of delivering news, his trek has spawned a running culture that has embraced innovations in technology.
If not for products such as an interactive program calendar, Garmin’s Forerunner 405 watch, or Google’s G-map pedometer Web application, I know my training would not be anywhere near as productive as it has been.
For starters, the program I have been following is an eighteen-week gem that can be found online. Structured differently for each day, simply clicking on each day’s link gives me suggestions for the day’s activities, including tempo, diet, and mentality.
Another example of ubiquitous running technology is the Forerunner 405 watch, which allows the runner to monitor elements such as distance, speed, elevation, calories and heart rate, among others. The data is instantly uploaded to the user’s computer when the watch is within the computer’s range. After wearing his watch during a recent ten-mile run, my training partner and I were able to view all of our run’s advanced statistics within ten minutes of stopping. What’s more, before we even started running, we plotted our route using Google’s application to get an accurate scope of mileage and terrain.
My reliance on these features got me thinking about a saying: “Old media don’t die— they adapt.” In that phrase, one could easily replace “media” with “technology.” Today’s obvious example is Google, which began as an Internet search engine. Years later, the company has expanded into everything from satellite imagery to e-mail. Whether we choose to accept or reject it, the preponderance of media and technology in everyday life is only going to increase from this point forward.
Outside of the running world, a recent Sports Illustrated (SI) article provided a peek into the future. A piece by Joe Posnanski on Penn State football coach Joe Paterno was a traditional story in both aesthetics and content when it appeared in the SI pages. But, when the same story appeared on the innovative webzine www.flypmedia.com, the piece came alive; readers could hear Penn State’s fight song playing in the background, watch clips of Paterno on the sidelines and click on photos and information at their own pace— all of which appeared next to the same words that appeared in Posnanski’s article for SI.
This demonstrates just how extensively the use of multimedia and technology has permeated not just the running world, but society in general. Granted, whenever I’m running the marathon, the future of media and technology will be the furthest thing from my mind. But the reflective nature of the training program has, at the very least, introduced me to exciting technological innovations, one mile at a time.
— Boultinghouse is a Girard sophomore in journalism and history.
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