Well, if I never saw another laptop, iPad, cell phone, computer, or TV again, I would be just fine with that. And don’t get me started on passwords! OK, I’m seventy-eight years old and I remember the days when none of these things existed in the home, yet, life rolled on quite smoothly.
My parents didn’t get their first television until I was seven or eight years old. It was a circular screen that showed only black-and-white pictures. It was tiny by today’s standards. If I remember correctly, it was twelve inches round in a wooden cabinet that stood maybe four feet high. In fact, my folks never had a color television and didn’t get one until long after I had left home. Also to change the channel, you had to get up and physically turn a knob. Nope, no remote controls back then.
Anyway, life was simpler back then, and today’s modern technology drives me absolutely crazy. Yes, I know, I know, I’m just some old person who ‘doesn’t get it’, and that’s true. I don’t get it. Technology isn’t everything it claims to be. Is it supposed to make our lives simpler? I don’t think so. Um, wait, maybe.
There are certain dislikes that drive me crazy: Why is it some things can only be done online? Like filling out a form and you get to a point where you have a question but you can’t talk to another human being because everything is virtual now, AI. Give me a break. “How may I help you?” Well, you can help me by putting me through to a human to speak with. This virtual-AI stuff I haven’t had much luck with. I just find it silly and frustrating. Another thing that drives me up the wall is when you fill out a form which takes you half-an-hour and then presto, everything disappears because I happened to hit the wrong key on my laptop. Love it! How many times has that happened to me? Lots. No one is going to mail you a form to fill out on paper, oh no, that’s too old fashioned. Heaven forbid I fill it out and mail it back. That would take forevvvvvvver! So, let’s fill out the form and then have the website tell you: “Sorry, there’s been an error in processing this document. Please try again later.” Just shoot me, OK? Same thing only different when I’m writing a long email to somebody and you press ‘send’ and everything you’ve just written disappears and it goes nowhere. So I’ve spent forty-five minutes writing an email telling my life story and catching up with an old friend and poof, gone. Where the heck did it go? The cloud. What is the cloud?
A couple of weeks ago, Vicky and I needed new cell phones. Ours were pretty old, and it was time. So, off we went to the mall to the cell phone store. We also needed a new plan because the provider we were with pissed us off. Reason being is that our contract expired and they didn’t bother to inform us. Instead, in all their wisdom, they decided to double our payment. I don’t think so. Bye-bye. Then they get really upset and can’t understand why we left them after so many years of being loyal customers and always paying our bill on time. Anyway, in all my naivety I thought it was going to be a quick in and out process to get new phones and a new plan. Wrong again. Took me two minutes to decide on a new phone and then three hours, THREE HOURS!! to get it all set up. Excuse me? It got to the point where Vicky and I went away to have some lunch, came back after a little while, and they were still fiddling with it. Why? Why does everything take so long in this modern technological age? Geesh! This is the phone I want, this is the plan I want, what’s the big deal and why is it taking so long? Do I get a phone book with this plan? Plus, before it was all said and done, I, or we, Vicky and I, had to sign four hundred and sixty-eight documents regarding something or other. Why do we have to sign so many papers? We would still be there, two weeks later, if we stuck around to read the fine print. Double geesh! I’m still trying to figure out what this new phone is all about and I probably never will.
I also love it when I’m in the middle of doing something on my laptop and it freezes. Oh, joy. So I turn it off and when it comes back on, whatever I was working on, is gone. Probably went into that ‘cloud’ thing people keep talking about. We sure are blessed to have two daughters in their thirties who are tech savvy and are constantly helping us with our technology issues. I try, I really try to figure things out when I have a problem. I’m very patient and follow all the prompts and links that are supposed to assist me, but when things aren’t getting corrected, I just have to walk away and call one of our daughters. “Say, can you help me with this?” Anyway, it seems like it’s always something with my laptop, the TV, our cell phones. Why?
Now, of course, there’s always the flip side. The other day, a beautiful October fall day, I was sitting out in the yard with Oliver, our four-year old grandson. I had Vicky’s phone and on it she has this app that listens for birds in the area; identifies them, then tells you all about that particular bird along with a picture of it on the phone. Both Oliver and I were intrigued and impressed with this app as it kept identifying birds which were close by. We heard eight different birds in a matter of only a few minutes. Birds I didn’t even know lived in this area. It was an educational moment and quality time spent with my grandson. We were probably doing that for about an hour. One doesn’t necessarily see the birds, but you can hear them and know that they’re around. Oliver couldn’t get enough of it and neither could I. Thank goodness for modern technology – lol.
And, as a writer, I have to admit typing and making corrections on my laptop is pretty darn easy. No more whiteout. Years ago, early seventies, I had a manual typewriter, a real old fashioned one, and I survived that. It was painfully slow, but at the time that’s just the way things were. Describe slow. It worked. Then I remember getting my first electric typewriter in the mid-seventies. Whoa! Now, you’re talking fast. Now, you’re talking modern technology. Still using whiteout, but hey, man, it was so much faster than that old manual typewriter I had. But, it doesn’t compare to typing on a laptop these days where if you make a mistake it takes only a second or two to correct it. No complaints there.
At any rate,there are pros and cons of this modern technology. It can certainly be frustrating, and at the same be so rewarding. I guess, with this blog, I just had to vent and can’t remember now what got me started. Maybe I’ll ask AI and see if it remembers. Thanks for listening and have a very spooky, safe, enjoyable, healthy Halloween.
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