Me with my iPhone
In the last few months, I have been yanked into the 21st century. My daughter got me a little iPod in September, and my husband gave me an iPhone for Christmas.
In order to appreciate the earth-shatteringness of this information, you have to understand just how Neanderthal I have been. In 1999, for example, my husband and kids bought me a microwave, and I took it back to the store. Peeved, no less. Peeved that they hadn’t listened to my declarations of lack of interest in a microwave oven.
It’s true, we didn’t remain microwave-less. My daughter’s high-school friends felt so sorry for her that they pooled their funds and bought one for us/her a couple of years later, and I no longer had the heart to be so ruthless. As it turns out, of course, as the chief cook and bottle washer at this address, I have used the microwave more than anyone else. I keep explaining to people that I knew it would be convenient. It’s just that I didn’t need, want, or crave one. (Coincidentally, that faithful machine seems to have given up the ghost as of yesterday. It didn’t live to see 2012.)
I was pretty much the last of my friends and acquaintances to get a cell phone. My husband and I shared a rudimentary old flip phone for the last few years. He kept it with him most of the time. I never even considered getting an iPod.
Now I’ve moved at warp speed, skipping over many normal technological steps, my hair streaming behind me. I’ve been spending a lot of time recently playing with both my technological devices, squinting at screens, painstakingly punching in information. Correcting punctuation and spelling, as I feel compelled to do.
I changed my thinking about this stuff. I realized that it’s certainly okay not to want these things and not to purchase them, but, if that’s your choice, you do get left behind. (If it’s not your choice and you just can’t afford them, that’s a whole different issue.) A lot of what people are doing and talking about, especially young people like your children, will be lost on you.
What are your thoughts on technology? Are you a Luddite, or with-it like me?
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Christmas added an iPhone 4S to the Mac arsenal (iPod, iPad, MacBook, AppleTV). Loving’ it. But not ready to consign all my documents to the iCloud just yet. Something’ has to remain down to earth.
Ever since my car stalled in the middle of Mayfield Road with two kids in the backseat, I’ve had a cell phone. The angel who pushed us to safety called AAA on her cell and I was converted. I now have an iPhone, an iPad and a MacBook Pro. When Steve Jobs died, my son texted me from college to make sure I was okay.
Maybe I should have said that I was starting to feel left behind, not that others are. My iPhone will prove to very practical, I think. This morning I downloaded a free app that finds where you parked the car!
Left behind–that’s me! My brain remains my only portable electronic device. It’s my own choice but I’m unsure it’s a good one.
I love learning more about the technology that is available but, if there is no need in this house, we do without.
I have a flip phone only because my staff, no less, felt sorry for me at work and bought me one for Christmas in 2008. They worried about me driving to Akron on the highway in bad weather. I love them for it! It keeps me connected to the 21st century until I catch up! I’m a little better with computers but still not used to using a laptop. So far, I will take a monitor and a keyboard any day!
At least you have children that enlist you to their world. It is much worse trying to find someone with the patience to answer a question. Have you ever felt like you don’t even know enough to ask an intelligent question? It happens to me a lot.
So I can relate, my fellow sexagenarian, and we should not feel alone. There are others out there much more technologically-challenged than we are. The difference is that we know it and are trying to take that giant leap into the 21st century.
Happy New Year and good luck to you in 2012!
Chris gave me a smartphone for Christmas and it doesn’t make me feel very smart but I will get used to it. I feel I have joined the 21st century now.
Chris is more tech-savy than I am. On Christmas day, I looked over at him sitting in his Lazy-boy listening to his ipod while reading his Nook. I figure if he can do it, than so can I.
I adore my Iphone. I find more and more uses for it all the time — I almost expect it to make dinner.