Technology

10/1/2013

Ever think about the good old days?  Remember princess phones and every girl had to have one.  Never mind that they were a booger to use - too lightweight which made it difficult for dialing. But oh the colors - pink, turquoise and of course the old lady colors - white, beige and black (blah).  I had a princess phone but pretty sure my folks didn't let me get away with anything other than white (because it goes with everything).  The 60's we were all about matchy-matchy.  We were not rebels, we didn't wear white after Labor Day and our shoes ALWAYS matched our clothes.  But I digress.  Back to technology.

Growing up with had dial phones and I'm sure you did too and even party lines when I lived in Illinois during my high school years.  If you were polite, when you picked up the phone and heard a conversation, you were SUPPOSED to hang up and try again in a few minutes.  But we're human and the urge to listen in is strong and who knows you might pick up a juicy piece of gossip!

Fast forward to today and some, not all, of the modern technology has left me feeling a lot like a dinosaur and unable to adapt to the new cellphones, as only one example.  I have a cellphone but  my ability to make or receive calls has been turned off.  Why?  Simply because I can't ever seem to get the right sequence of buttons for answering and I don't care how many times you show me, it just doesn't stick.  As for outgoing calls I learned my lesson while at Hopkins and did have the ability to make calls, I called my sister in California during the middle of the night.  To be fair I was confused about the time but gave her a scare.  After that the phone was locked up and my phone was reduced to receiving emails.  Can't screw that up too much.  I don't like talking on a "real" phone and really don't like using these tiny phones that don't have a real receiver.  My fear is that someday real phones will become extinct and everyone will be forced to use these itty phones whether you like it or not.  Keeping my fingers crossed that it never comes down to that.

Another technology challenge is passwords.  I assume that you, like myself, have at least a zillion passwords to just as many sites.  Remember you're not supposed to write this stuff down but then how in the heck are you going to keep track?  And then there is the tried to log on too many times with the wrong password and you get to go to customer support to try and untangle that nest of worms.  I speak from experience about this.  Ever since the first of the year when my brain became scrambled, passwords are just annoyances to me and end up making me feel deficient. 

For my Tivo I know there are three buttons to turn it on and off and I have spent many days practicing so that I don't have to keep hollering up the stairs for Jeff to come and straighten me out AGAIN.  He swears he doesn't mind and I'm sure that's true.  But I mind and I mind a great deal.

It's lunch time and my allotted hour of daytime television.  I may be behind the times with music and telephones, but I do love and have mostly mastered how to use the television which after 39 years of marriage is a whole lot bigger than the television we started with!

“Technology is anything invented after you were born.” ― Alan Kay