Going nutty with technology!

It’s a dirty little secret that even the millennials, for the most part, haven’t a clue about the technology they use every day. It’s true that their thumbs fly over the keys and can come up with where to eat in Topeka or how old an alligator gets to be on average. They are familiar and friendly with their smart phones and they are constantly checking and checking.

But ask one of them to sit down with you at a regular computer to help you figure out how to get rid of some annoying thing that keeps popping up, or how to manage the ever increasing passwords, or give me tips on managing a huge amount of photos, or, or.. They can’t do it.

I know that for sure, eventually, I will find out the answers because the technology we use is instinctual, algorithmic, and somehow, we finally get how to do it. As soon as we get used to some way to achieve the end, there is a BRAND NEW FREE UPGRADE! - for all of our devices. So, we hunker down and learn a new routine.

Lots of people my age (old) dutifully go to the computer workshops in stores and libraries to learn more. But, I know, that as soon as they learn this and that it will be all changed! Upgraded!

I am glad to have lived long enough to have been able to experience the birth of the internet, and I believe it has been the most important thing to happen in my lifetime. The incredible speed of the development of technology stuns and delights me. It comes with a cost to we slowly evolving humans.

This evening as we were leaving the airport and we were in a line of cars to pay for parking, I was surprised that so many cars opted for the cashier line where there was an actual human being to take the cash. Even so, several cars ahead of us fumbled with the touch screen machine (“what do I do? what do I do?”)  Do we humans have to catch the technology, or will technology have to wait for us?

A few people I know do not have cell phones! I think of it as a funny and dear idiosyncrasy. I also think that they are missing out on the incredible fun of being in the slick and shiny and wondrous world of instant information. Probably it isn’t safe not to have a smart phone. But we oldsters have gotten to this age without them. Remember phone booths?