So, I know it's not all about me but I'm sure I'm not alone. I now officially own more technology than I can:
1) appreciate
2) repair
3) master
4) justify owning
5) pay for
Really! Thanks to the wizards of Silicon Valley I can now download music into everything but my pencil sharpener (Memo to me: check for availability of isharpeners.) Except I don't want nor need to hear Lady Gaga belting out "Born This Way" from devices primarily intended to make toast or iron my shirts. I now have four different devices that can navigate me, turn by turn, to the nearest frozen yogurt store in forty-three different languages or four English dialects. I'm considering setting all of them at once. It will be like getting directions from the chorus of Cats.
These complaints no doubt qualify me for a one way trip to the cranky old geezers home. (Second memo to me: check to see if the GPS in my ipad will take me to an assisted living center.) Nevertheless it can't be crazy to expect my cell phone to be a cell phone and not a miniature Wall Street Journal or a portable repository for Angry Birds. Yes, it is occasionally helpful to be able to locate a Chinese restaurant in lower Manhattan from the back of a southbound cab in Midtown. However this delightful little app is of limited use to a farmer in Duluth. (Third memo to me: Find out if farmers use a GPS device to learn which field is wheat and which is corn.)
Once upon a time life was simple. I had a phone book at home, a Rolodex at work and a small pocket directory for travel. That simple system has been replaced by a "contacts" lists in nine different devices and, as usual, the information I need is never in the device I have with me. I may not be able to locate the phone number of my dermatologist but I'm quite sure that, given the launch codes, I could detonate a nuclear device over Pakistan while seated on a Metro North train bound for White Plains.
The other price being paid for all this high tech wizardry is the price being paid for all this high tech wizardry. I used to pay a phone bill for phone service. The arrangement with Ma Bell (God, I'm old) was simple: I pay a bill, she made sure I had a dial tone when I picked up my receiver (Oh for Christ's sake, look it up!) . My current phone bill, encompassing one land line, two mobile lines, text, and Internet access is now higher than the rent on my first apartment. The land line and the cell services are listed on the same bill but serviced by different companies...with the same name. The Internet service is a different carrier and the ipad bills through a credit card I foolishly gave to Apple itunes. I'm considering calling Congressman Paul Ryan for help in cutting wasteful spending.
The tragedy here is that, while I'm desperate to be tech savvy and oh so hip I know I'm falling behind every day. A friend asked me about Pandora and I was clueless. Fortunately a quick trip to Google and I was rescued. Nevertheless it's just a matter of time before I'm outed as an uncool Luddite. Actually it's already started. I took my laptop to the Geek Squad in Best Buy to determine why it wouldn't boot. The young man at the counter (whose cognitive memory extends back to maybe the first Iron Man movie) took one look at the computer and muttered "Wow, an IBM. I didn't know these things were still around." OK, hold on. I may not own the latest and greatest equipment but ten minutes ago IBM was the Tiffany's of computers. (Fourth memo to me: find out if Tiffany's is still the Tiffany's of anything.) Just because it didn't roll off Steve Job's assembly line this week doesn't mean the machine should be relegated to doorstop status. And anyway it's not like I asked him to repair a Victrola or a fountain pen.
Yes I know technology rocks. I guess it's cool to be able to settle any argument in a bar with a quick visit to Wikipedia from a Droid but the science has reduced the usefulness of a time-honored skill namely, making up the facts as you go along. Many a disagreement has been decided by one's ability to pull statistics directly out of one's ass. Call it bluffing, call it bullshit, manufactured facts have been the cornerstone of human interaction since history began. Michele Bachmann has built an entire political career this way. Seriously, how was Abdul the camel merchant supposed to make a decent living when a customer could Google CamelFax and discover that the camel for sale wasn't owned by a little old lady in Abbottabad. If Union Army General George McClellen possessed Google Earth in the first year of the Civil War there wouldn't have been a second year. Stalin could have learned all he needed to know about Hitler's honesty from his Facebook page and he never would have signed that non-aggression pact.
My point is that technology isn't always a good thing. How many times have you blundered into a great store while wandering lost in a new city? Conversely, how many times have you blundered into a lamppost because you were looking at a screen instead of where you were going? Chance meetings are far more likely when some chance is involved. Facts and data should never get in the way of a good story. So look up, America. You will notice that the world is in 3-D and looks amazingly like the grid in Mapquest. You'll discover that you can actually find the Grand Canyon or the St. Louis Arch without a Garmin. Florence and the Machine does not have to be the soundtrack of your every waking moment. George Lucas did not mean for Star Wars to be viewed on a screen half the size of a sheet of toilet paper. Put your mechanized world on airplane mode, vibrate and quiet. Then lock them in a railroad station locker. (Last memo: are there still lockers in railroad stations?) Rise up! You have nothing to lose but that squint, a cauliflower ear and potential brain cancer. Of course, if you get brain cancer, it would be nice to look it up on WebMD... and look up a specialist... and a hospital.... and get directions...and .................
No comments:
Post a Comment