It's official... I am technologically inept. I watch the commercials of the new toys for toddlers that include the interaction with your IPhone and think back to when I had toddlers. I didn't have an IPhone. I didn't even have a cell phone back then and that was only twenty two years ago. I just don't understand this age of communicating via Tweet, Texting and I'Ming and often think what life would be like without it. Would we have the unemployment rate that we do now? Would there be confused kids, at thirty, unable to make a decision and stick to it because they were raised in the "Instant Gratification" age where we text when we drive to prevent missing a moment of life's happenings. The funny thing is that we have those looks from our children, you know the one where they roll their eyes and huff, about how "stupid" their parents are, yet they don't realize that we should be looked at as pioneers. We managed to have full lives without all the technology. We took time to sit in a coffee shop and visit with our friends. We wrote letters and received letters back. We got upset when we didn't make it home in time to watch our favorite shows. Anyone can sit and come up with a number of ways that life, as we knew it, has changed due to technology and it is not that different from the experience of the first television or microwave oven. The act of directing someone as they adjust the "rabbit ears" in order to get the picture clearer is something that is lost to this generation.
I still believe that my life would be fine without a lot of the items that most can't live without but I am thankful of one thing and find that I am learning to appreciate technology in a way I never imagined. I love Skype! Yes, I said it!! I love being able to see the face that I am talking to from far away and am so thankful that I can do it, but at what cost?
I remember the futuristic image of Cosmo G. Spacely, with steam coming out of his ears, as he yelled at George Jetson from the screen of a TV. I thought of how amazingly advanced that was and figured I would never see that in my lifetime. Now you can have a face to face conversation on your phone so where are the flying cars and robot servants? Why do some of these items become reality while others remain in cartoonland?
I know now that it has changed me and I will never be able to go back. In a time when we all need to connect to some part of life before lockdown, all sorts of new technology has erupted to provide the connections we desire so much. I have found that as these advancements have been thrust out to the consumer, I have retreated even more and more in order to reconnect with myself before emails, facetime and texting. I miss the act of writing a letter and sending it in the mail, only to receive a reply a few weeks later. The joy of seeing a handwritten card in the mail is something many don't experience anymore. People don't send thank you cards so you are left to wonder if they received your package. We don't write letters anymore because we can just text, email, skype, zoom or chat with them. It was designed to bring people together but at what cost? We have resorted to creating shortcuts to general conversation like laughing out loud and talk to you later. It is exhausting and leaves me with a hunger for the way we communicated before all this stuff. I did see that they are bringing back the Flip Phone so maybe there is still hope for us! We shall see......
