Technology is advancing at a slightly unnerving rate. I know this sounds ridiculous in a Terminator original series kind of way, but I wonder sometimes if it's all moving forward too fast, if we are taking inevitable steps closer to our own destruction. In fact, just this very second I realized I have been spelling the word "forward" incorrectly my entire life. Instead of learning that I spelled it wrong the first time, SpellCheck from my Windows 1 1993 computer corrected it. Now I feel like an idiot. Thanks technology, epic fail.
The worst part of this (in a slightly less dramatic but no less irritating way) is the Smart Phone. I'd like to first point out that I do not have a smart phone- but every 12 year old I know has a Blackberry. Seriously? Does your grammar school child have a Skype Meeting in China tonight? I'm the only designer for Playboy's White Label Lingerie line and I have an Envy2. A 2! Not even the latest version! I don't check my Facebook on my phone or write TPS reports on it. Hell, most times I don't even answer the damn thing! What exactly do pre-teens do with phones capable of internet connection, touch screens, 6 mega-pixel cameras and an MP3 Players all-in-one? Business meetings in Indonesia your parents don't know about? Seriously important math quiz you need to Twitter about, like, IMMEDIATELY? Does your phone even call people? I should look it up. There's probably an app for that... hmm no smart phone. Guess I've got to do it the old-fashioned way with the laptop...
I got a phone when I was 16 ( I skipped over the whole beeper phase. Thanks for the page Dad...let me go find a payphone in Greenlawn.) It was the Zach Morris phone. It was huge and fluorescent pink and came with a prepaid plan, so my Dad didn't get an astronomical bill every month. At the time, I thought it was lame and archaic while my friends had shiny silver flip phones with pull-out antennas. (Ironically, now also archaic). But as an adult I see the glimmer of intellectualism my Father had that parents today lack. He was smart. I wanted a phone and he got me a phone. A limited capability, pre-paid, enormous and sort-of-embarrassing, probably didn't have a text feature phone. He had constant contact to me at all times, which is the point of a 16 year-old having a phone and didn't have to pay billions so I could chat up my friends. And he taught me that if I wanted something shiny, and expensive and full of features I better go get a fucking job. Thanks for the life lesson Dad.... but I still have a shitty phone.
More than anything else I hold onto the stupid little phone I've got out of two things- being way too cheap to pay $150 a month for an Iphone and the fact that I just don't want everything I own to be that much smarter than me. My car is smarter than me. It has BlueTooth. It calls people, possibly other cars when I'm not around. So really I don't even need a phone, because of the car. My camera is smarter than me. It automatically adjusts for light when I take pictures so they come out good, even though I'm a shitty photographer. But my phone takes pictures, too. So really I don't need the camera. My Ipod is fucking smarter than me... it knows the time of day and date when I don't! Do you see where I'm going with this? Pretty soon my toaster and my blender will be scheming to burn my apartment down, collect the insurance money and move to Miami before I even get home from work!
Also, I know I sound like an old lady, but I just can't figure out how to do simple tasks on those things. Why do touch screens even exist? You can never hit the key you want to hit, so you inevitably get frustrated and slide out the keyboard anyways. Whats the point? Honestly, do you need 327,242,234 aps? There's aps for aps you didn't even know you had aps for. I don't even like having a regular phone. I hate people knowing where I am at all times and even more, I hate being on the phone (yes, even with you). If you're that close to me you'll see me before the week is over, so save all that crap you were just about to tell me for then, so we're not staring at each other over dinner, wishing we could ignore each other and mindlessly text other people like the table next to us.
Don't get me wrong, I like computers. I spend most of my work day on one. I come home, and spend even more time on my laptop. Technology today has made advancements so huge we've created cars that run on corn, found cures for many fatal diseases and of course, been introduced to the Wii. I know, relatively speaking, these advancements are for our benefit...to make our lives easier....or something like that. But is it so much to ask to see just one freaking movie NOT in 3D, or answer a phone with a button I can push instead of turning on it's music play list, taking a picture and making a BLT? When was the last time you read a magazine? Or took your real camera out in the city to take some nice pictures? I like my 46" plasma hi-def TV (I think it also folds laundry, but I can't figure out the feature) but sometimes, honestly I'd just rather read a book.
Can the kids you know imagine a world where there are no computers? Imagine not having a cell phone? Will they ever know the once-glorious joy of going into a music store and listening to new albums for hours with friends, instead of sitting alone, staring mindlessly at a glowing screen with ITunes open? Our grandparents remember a time before internet, before TV, hell some remember a time when cars were new. It makes me wonder what we'll be nostalgic about when we are grandparents, and our children can't remember what we used casettes and CD's for, or why we were excited to go rent the newest movies at Blockbuster because movies now play inside your glasses when you think about them. No one needs a laptop, because their cell phones do everything. Book stores close, because all books are now made for the cell phones. And music stores don't exist. And renting movies is a thing of the past. And sleepovers are done via Skype.
It's sad, but it's not that far of a stretch anymore. And we are truly moving closer to those days. Call me old fashioned, but I'll always choose a beautiful new book over a Kindle. I felt a pang of loss when the Virgin Megastore closed in New York City, but I will covet my CDs and even the records my parents saved for me, because believe it or not, the sound is incomparable. I will keep my Envy2 until there are no more options left for me but a smart phone, but when I finally am forced to break down and buy one, I will go unwillingly. And I will save the relic of my old phone for my kids to laugh at some day, if people still talk to each other in person then. And I'll talk about buying new CD's, and seeing movies on a regular screen, and owning a Polaroid Instant Camera and they'll call me old and I'll smile.
Technology is good in it's own way...even if it's moving too fast. I'll let it bypass me for now. Maybe someday I'll catch up, praise Bill Gates and Dell for their unbelievable technological advancements. But tonight, I'm just going to go read a book... and lock my toaster in the bathroom.
