Technology: Pro or Con?

I've been thinking about how technology affects every part of our lives. There's some new advancement almost every day it seems.  I feel like I can't keep up - or like tech can't keep up with me!

At the grocery store recently while I scanned a shelf of products, I had a weird moment. I found myself wishing that I could find the specific price and product I wanted by pressing CTRL-F.

Why isn't there a way to computerize the shopping experience in a really useful way? That's what I want to know.

Of course, we all think we've come a long way with technology we use in our everyday lives. I think that, If my grandmother could see the way she shop these days, she'd probably think we've come too far.

 I'm old enough to have one foot in the age of Atari and the other in the land of self-parking cars and I am still stumped by some of the features on my smartphone. I often wonder what this current world of our would look like through the eyes of Grandma.

My father's parents grew most of their own vegetables and got most of their meat from neighbors who had farms. Any food they purchased came from the little store down the street. During my childhood summer visits to the grandparents, Grandma would send me an my cousins to the store for things like bread or flour, which she got on credit. I didn't understand that she paid this bill off every month. It was like having a Capital One card with special privileges. Only local of at least two generations need apply! My own parents shopped at the Commissary or BX. I knew nothing of this local credit system.

I have a cousin who lives in San Francisco. A few years ago, he was telling me how he orders his groceries online for delivery to his doorstep. I felt like a hick the next time I had to drive to Walmart for vanilla soy and eggs.

On the other hand, I have an aunt in her eighties who almost performed an exorcism on my phone when she saw me using it to check my email. She never has gotten over losing her rotary dial desk phone to the push-button handset model. I find it both funny and interesting that she thinks technology effects on society is more negative than positive. Maybe it's not really funny.

According to my aunt, technology has ruined young people, eroded manners, and closed more doors than it's opened. I had the nerve to argue with her. I played PRO, she played CON:

• PRO: Cellphones and computers let parents keep in almost constant contact with their kids.
• CON: Contact by text and email can't replace face-to-face communication.
• PRO: We can work from anywhere (and in our PJs, if we want!).
• CON: We are never away from work.
• PRO: Computers have shrunk the world. We can meet and get to know people from across the globe.
• CON: A lot of shallow relationships can't replace a few solid relationships.
• PRO: We can take virtual tours of almost anywhere in this world.
• CON: And we forget to look at the beauty right outside our front door - or the mess right in our own homes.
• PRO: Technology has given more people more opportunities than ever before.
• CON: There are still a lot of people left out of those opportunities.
• PRO: We can keep up with news and information better than ever.
• CON: We get so much information that we care less about the details.
• PRO: Technology is improving medicine and business.
• CON: It's making us forget people and individual lives
• PRO: Cookies!
• CON: What?
• PRO: I just ordered cookies from Sri Lanka! I couldn't do that twenty years ago!
• CON: Uh huh. You know they say cellphones cause brain damage.

Okay, so my auntie might have a point.

Peace

--Free

Get Fit or Sprain Something Trying

There are pros and cons to every aspect of my life. I have a Love/Hate list that would wear out Gutenberg's press. For example:

LOVE all the modern medicine that likely saved my life/HATE that *&#%ing prednisone that made me look like I was pregnant with whole world.

• LOVE my cellphone/HATE the bill.
• LOVE television for the entertainment/HATE that it sucks time into a vacuum of nevermore-land.
• LOVE the internet for all the easily accessible information/HATE it for the same reasons I hate my cellphone and television.
• LOVE all the nifty apps I can download to my phone and tablet/HATE that they kill all my excuses for being lazy, late, unmotivated and responsible.

See what I mean?

Phone and tablet apps have been an addiction of mine for a couple years. I used the games when I was too fat and sick to roll over and find the television remote. When I got better and needed to exercise my brain muscles, I still used the games - I just had a better excuse for wasting all that time. Now that I am SO much better (thank God and my most excellent doctors), I am using apps to help me stay off cigarettes and get my body back into shape.

So... this fitness thing...

I found an amazing set of apps ** to use for my regular exercise routine. LOVE these, really I do. Of course, with LOVE, HATE follows.

• LOVE that I can adjust the time and intensity of the workouts.
• LOVE that I can carry the app around (via my tablet) anywhere.
• LOVE that I made it through most of the routines my first time out.
• LOVE that I might actually feel healthier and more fit in a month or so.

So, you are maybe thinking, what is there to hate? Well, go get yourself some popcorn, take a seat and get comfy:

• HATE that I had to use the shortest time and lowest intensity and still dang near died of a leg cramp halfway through the first routine.
• HATE that the chick leading the workouts has short legs and can lunge easy. (I have long legs and it's my story that the longer the legs, the more difficult the lunge.)
• HATE that I had to skip a couple of the exercises because my body started talking to me like a lover at the end of an argument. ("Really? You are going to push me like this? After all we've been through? I thought you loved me, cared for me.... Come, let us go have some cheesecake and talk things over.")
• HATE that I have to do at least two weeks of this before I stop aching for hours after every workout.
• HATE that I'm not 25 again, with a body that just snaps back from a setback.

~sigh~

Yeah, I grouse a lot, but I really do love that I live in a time when I got to see all this cool medicine and technology. It is, after all, saving my life. Nothing to hate there.

Peace
--Free

** Disclaimer: I am not compensated in any way by the producers of these apps. I would like to be, but...

Accidental Anger

I have a LOT of incidents of getting mad on accident. I call these my "accidental anger episodes." Okay. Maybe "accidental" isn't the word to use, so let me explain.

Some days ago, I got irritated that I it seemed there was no way to use my G+ to chat on my phone. (I don't know why it bothered me since I am always showing as "invisible" on the chat. That was an accident too. I just didn't realize I was always "hiding." Anyway...) I mentioned something about this online - after I'd thrown two hissy fits and thought about kick-dropping my phone. One of the really nice people on G+ (hi, +Randy Kelly) calmly and casually mentioned the app I needed. That he didn't put our typed conversation on one of those sites, like maybe, "Stupid Things Android Owners Do," is something that may yet happen...

That's what I mean though. I got so mad that I seriously wanted to do damage to my phone - knowing that this device is my one lifeline to doctors, family and friends in case of some emergency.

Now that I am aware that I have this "anger" problem, I'm really trying to work on it, but I still have moments.

Yesterday morning, I got super pissed off that my Yahoo Messenger wasn't working. I knew it wasn't working because I had just talked to one of my nieces who'd said she was sending me something good and gossipy within 10 minutes.

Well.

I sat glued to my computer, afraid to move more than ten feet away. FOR 25 MINUTES. I was steaming when I never did get a message notification sound. I mean, my niece knows how I love juicy family gossip. My whole family knows how I love juicy family gossip, which is why some of them avoid me every now and then!

I couldn't call my niece right then because she was at work -working from home is a bigger hassle than you might realize - and I didn't want to look that eager for gossip. Anyway, I gave up on waiting for Messenger to fix itself. I tried to figure out who the hell I needed to contact at Yahoo to tell them about their crappy messaging program. I got myself all worked up over this until I wanted to chew some shoe leather (because I gave up smoking, remember?), and even hearing from one of my best friends didn't totally calm me down. (Now, if a hour-long phone call re-hashing those crazy ass Atlanta Housewives doesn't cheer me up, not much else will.)

I tuckered myself out being mad and fell asleep. The next day, I got a call from my niece. She was surprised that she hadn't heard from me after the info she'd messaged me.

"Huh?"

"Didn't you think that was hilarious?"

"Huh?"

"Um, Auntie? Have you signed into your Messenger?"

Well, hell.

I didn't know that I had to sign into Messenger to get the messages anyone sent me.  I thought that as long as I was signed into my computer, it would just...

"What did you think?"

"I thought that when you got a message something that Messenger would just beep. Or buzz. Or something."

When my niece got through laughing until she had the hiccups, she let me know that I have to at least sign in to be alerted to any waiting messages.

"I should have told you," she said. "You don't use your Yahoo mail anymore and you hardly ever have used Messenger."

Even though she was trying to be nice, I was still kind of ticked off. (And don't you just hate when that happens?)

Peace
--Free

Parents and Technology

I just saw something posted online poking fun at parents and the internet. Made me think of Mama. She passed away in 2001 when I was still rocking jackets that had been broken down by a phone like this:

except the battery in mine was the size of a Yugo

Mom was just plain fascinated with that phone. She was also a little pissy about it. She thought that the only person so important and needing to be reached at any given time should be addressed as "President" or "Your Highness." Matter of fact, she felt like even a queen needed peaceful bathroom breaks.

Cell phones were extravagant, in Mom's opinion. There was no real purpose for them other than to be showy. Computers, on the other hand, were wonderful. 

I remember when we got our kids their first computer - a Gateway desktop - and my mother would sit with them while they did homework. Homework was pretty much all they were allowed to do on the computer. Mama would watch while they pulled up articles on Encarta. The way she looked on in awe at the rotating maps and scrolling timelines damn near brought tears to my eyes. I had never seen my mother in such a state of wonder. (I got a little bit worried about her when she started checking out the back of the PC as if she thought there were little green men back there operating the machine.)

Well, if Mom was weird-ed out by the phones and computers back then, I'm pretty sure she'd be throwing holy water on the stuff we all have in our homes now. 

Understand that I come from parents who came straight out of the sticks of places like Big Spring, Texas and Hope, Arkansas. I have an aunt, now in her late seventies, who used to believe that if she turned off a radio mid-song, the same song would continue when she turned on the radio three hours later. (True story. I learned this when I stayed with her for a couple of weeks back when I was around thirteen.)

This is not just about my Mama. A lot of you are going to be laughing with me when I tell you that Mama worried that Gameboys might be the work of Satan. If she'd lived to see it, I guess she'd have keeled right over watching us Skype. I don't even want to think of how she'd have felt about people walking around Walmart, chatting to their unseen Bluetooth devices. We probably would have had to have her committed for treatment.

Not to sound like Grandma Kettle myself, but... The other week, I was marveling over the cool gifts my nephew got for his first birthday. The talking broom really cracked me up (D.J. has a thing for sweeping), but the vacuum cleaner his parents got for him was so cool, I wasn't sure it was really a toy.

It's a Dyson. Seriously.

While I was raving over the "realistic" features, I noticed that the damn thing actually works. It has suction and everything. Think I'm lying? Here's the Sam's Club page - though I think D.J.'s came from Costco. I would be mad, but D.J. actually understands how it works. Hey - anything teaching a male to do housework is cool with me.

I try not to, but can't help but be fascinated by some of the stuff I'm seeing when I go into Best Buy. It's getting embarrassing. The first time I played around with a touchscreen computer at Best Buy, I swear I heard a kid whisper, "Get over it, Grandma."

In the old days, I'd be allowed to smack him upside the head for being rude.

Peace
--Free