If it Ain't Broke....

by Cathy and Patti

Ahhh, the good old days. There was no Facebook. No Twitter. No Internet, period.

Dinosaur Technology

Little, by little, technology began improving the way we do things, mainly, the way we communicate. At first it was scary but intriguing; intimidating, but challenging. We began buying big honking computers and brick-sized cell phones. We learned about software, hardware, operating systems, THE INTERNET! We went from floppy drives, to CDs to USB jumpdrives. Technical jargon eventually became ubiquitous in everyday conversation, so much so, that you wouldn't be able to understand half of the television commercials out there today if you're not up on
the lingo: Wi-fi, routers, iCloud (i Everything), apps, HDMI, hotspots, VOIP, USB, social media, interfacing, SEO, etc.

She's a brick.... phone!

And it keeps changing! Improving! Faster! Bigger! Most of these techy doodads are overloaded with stuff we don't think we need now, but then find we can't live without. Truth is, there's SO much stuff being flung at us at lightning speeds, it has to be that these devices come equipped with bells that will never be rung and whistles that will never be blown.

At times, it feels overwhelming, this need to keep up or fall off the face of the earth. If you can't communicate via a computer, smartphone, or tablet, you might as well crawl under a prehistoric rock. Imagine if it seems hard for us forty-somethings now to keep up with tutorials on building our own websites and creating our own blogs (widgets! badges! gadgets! linkies!) how much more difficult it is to cope with living life in a technologically-driven society for our parents. Once their generation dies off, there will be no humble recollection of the slow-paced simplicity that once was. And that is one sad realization.

Technological advancement is running so far in advance, that it is circling back around and onto itself, actually back-pedaling from its intended purpose. People have become so reliant on it that they forget the basics. And it's time for the technology advancers to leave well enough alone.

Cathy
I've seen the repercussions of technology takeover firsthand on several occasions. (People, you CAN use your key to open your car door if your remote doesn't work!)

Upon entering our house the other day after school, barely having taken off their coats, my kids scissored out in each direction to stake their claim on our tech devices. Ari claimed the house computer and Bella grabbed my iPhone and begged me for the passcode so she can text her friends.

"I told you, I am not giving you my passcode," I said frustratingly. "Just email your friend!"

"I can't if Ari is on the computer!" she retorted.

"Or CALL her," said my husband matter-of-factly. Honestly, this made me stop dead in my tracks.

'Oh yeah!' I thought. 'She CAN just call her. Duh!' It just proved how we've been programmed to default to technology.

My parents are immigrants who have never gone to school here. They can speak well enough to communicate but when it comes to dealing with their phone bill or calling Blue Cross Blue Shield about their policy, I take on those tasks for them.

At their house the other day, I clicked the phone on speaker mode and they listened in at how things are now done.

"Policy," I stated clearly into the phone.

"Representative," I stated a few seconds later.

I was having a conversation with an automated machine. I wondered how much money it took for them to build and create a voice recognition system that could converse with a human, instead of giving a job to someone and doing it the old fashioned way. Was this really a necessary technological advancement?

"You have to talk to a machine now," my mom commented aloud. "Instead of a person." Her comment pretty much clinched the absurdity of it all. She lamented to me about how she feels that technology will eventually replace the need for people to leave their houses to go anywhere - the bank, the grocery store, the post office  - since these places will be rendered useless. You can do it all from your computer! So in essence, the monster we've created to better communicate with one another will end up becoming the ultimate isolator.

Convenient? Or confusing?

I even got worried for my parents when the old coin-fed car meters were replaced by paybox meters. Would they know how to use them? (It's simpler to slide a quarter into a slot.) They don't own a debit card. (It's simpler to keep cash on hand.) They don't have a computer. (It's simpler to cut a check and mail it,  shop for things at stores and communicate with people face to face.) They don't own a Kindle. (It's simpler to open up a book.) They don't have cable. (It's simpler to choose from a few channels than from hundreds of non-relevant ones). Technology touts the streamlining of our time, but in fact, the upkeep for it has monopolized our time.

If you have a Gmail account, you know that your email account has recently become NEW! and IMPROVED! And if you don't switch over willingly, it will eventually be done for you. Same goes for Facebook and their new tell-all timeline structure. Like it or not, if you want to use Facebook, you must abide by the new rules created by bored, bazillionaire moguls to come up with ways to invade your privacy further, annoy you to no end and ultimately, make it all user-unfriendly.

Patti

That Google! Changing its homepage because it was bored!

I was on Gmail, to which, I admit, I fled from my years-old email account that somehow lost its glisten, when I thought to myself, "This looks...different." And that is when I realized that it was different. I already knew Google had gotten bored and changed its homepage, but now it was also working its way into forcing me to change the previously just fine interface of Gmail to its New and Improved Interface!... or else. More curious than anything, I caved and did it. The "facelift" took a few minutes, and while I waited, full of anticipation and fully expecting for glitter-winged unicorns to come flying out of my screen, I was then disappointed to find that, eh, what's the big deal? WHY DID THEY EVEN BOTHER? The change was certainly not magical enough, or even notable enough to have made that whole five minutes of my life worth using up. I remember I was Gmail chatting with Cathy at that moment, and she got a little worried because her changeover was taking far too long. It turns out her changeover had not taken that long; it had actually already happened. That's how unspectacular it was.

I had to wonder: Why did they take the time to change what was truly already absolutely just fine? In fact, all they did was create stress. If it confused me, a pretty technologically adept person, and almost panicked Cathy, who, while not a technology genius, is certainly smart, experienced, and resourceful enough to figure it out if need be, imagine what it did to people like my mom, who still doesn't get that she can check her email from a computer other than her own - because, you know, the email lives in her computer.

But I am to blame. After all, my old email account, the one that had served me loyally and well for 15 years, was also just fine. And I abandoned it. For something better. So it serves me right that my "something better" also abandoned me for something better.

As much as we resist it, we also find ourselves being unwittingly carried along with the tides of change. Even my daughter, whose grainy picture was being emailed across the country before she was even born, and was then born into the digital age, suffers from severe technology ADD.  She has become disillusioned with her iPod (it's the first generation, Mom!), her Wii (it's kind of yesterday, Mom. It's all about the xBox Kinect now!), and her cell phone, (slide out keyboards are out, Mom!), and while I'm initially inclined to believe that it's because she just has too much, I also find myself itching for the latest smartphone - mine is over a year old now, and has lost its luster. I sigh over shiny new cell phones, then slap myself across the face and remind myself that I am an example, so stop it, already, your phone works just fine. And only then can I inform S that she is lucky she has any of these things at all.

Meanwhile, as I try to maintain that stance of resistance, I receive another notice in my email that I need to "download this upgrade!", then a notification on my cell phone that there are "updates available!", then a flash across my TV screen that I can "press this button for instant information!" on a program I'm watching, and I feel my resolve melting while my head spins into stupidity. All of this information! Information! Information! is actually making us DUMBER. The more we know, the less we know!

Explain that.

Just make sure you send that explanation via email. IM is probably better. Or you can Tweet it. Better yet: Post it on my Facebook page. Oh, wait - they are changing their interface again and it might be confusing for me to find. You know what? Call me.