Trounced by technology

Carolyn J. Rose    

Don’t get me wrong. I think technology is a good thing. I don’t miss rotary dial phones, cars without power-assist steering, manual typewriters, or black-and-white TV screens the size of cake pans that offered only fuzzy pictures.

But I worry that we’ve become too dependent on slick, fast, and easy. I worry when I come across kids who can’t tell time on a clock and have to check their phones for a digital readout. I worry these same kids aren’t developing skills that could come in handy during a power outage or in the wake of a fire or hurricane. And I worry that all of us are being put in a position where there are no back-up options, where we can be held hostage by technology that should work, but doesn’t.

To explain what I’m talking about, let’s visit a restroom in a modern movie theater or restaurant or airport, a restroom where technology has been harnessed in the interests of sanitation and public health.

We find toilets that sense when you’ve completed your mission and flush themselves automatically.

Except when they don’t.

Then you face the choice of scurrying away—in a nonchalant manner, of course—or hunting for that tiny button on the wall or somewhere at the rear of the toilet. Pushing that button defeats the purpose of the auto-flush feature by exposing you to germs the feature was designed to protect you from.

And then there’s the sink and all that goes with it—the soap, water, paper towels, or hot-air hand-drying apparatus.

Now, I don’t miss those continuous rolls of linen towel that always seemed to be at the end. I don’t miss struggling to pump soap from a nearly empty well, or grappling with a faucet someone put too much force into turning off. And I don’t miss using my fingernails to try to loosen a paper towel jam, or slamming a blower knob with my hand to get it to work.

But sometimes I wish I had those options.

Recently, in an attempt to wash up, I was trounced by technology. Lulled into a false sense of security by my ability to extract soap from a wall-mounted fixture, I attempted to bring water forth by tripping the beam at the base of the faucet. I had no luck. But in the process of moving my hands and arms about, I managed to trigger the paper towel machine on the left and was gifted with two inches of brown towel.

I moved to the second sink and tried again to coax out a stream of water. No luck. But I accidentally got an inch of paper towel from the machine on my right. Back at the left-hand sink, the faucet finally coughed out an anemic stream of water. But neither towel machine would deliver even half an inch more than I’d been presented with by accident.

In disgust, I dried my hands on my shirt. As the door closed behind me, I swear I heard the paper towel dispenser and faucet laughing. Not only that, they were taunting the soap for giving in to my demands so easily.

THE OBLIGATORY TECHNOLOGY RANT

By Mike Nettleton

Don’t get me wrong. I love technology, despite the fact I tend to ignore a huge percentage of it. My wife and I may be two of the only human beings left on the planet who have never texted or tweeted. I have no desire to know what my phone is dreaming when I put it to sleep. We have no apps, other than the one that allows you to enter a number and push a button to call it. Our ring tone sounds like a (gasp) telephone. 

Have all the amazing developments in technology really enriched our lives? Is communicating in 140 characters tweets connecting us or allowing us to avoid  real human contact? And what’s with cyber-bullying? Can’t we go back to the day when the local  knuckle-dragger would simply punch you in the face and take your lunch money? 

Does this sound like a rant? Sure is. Here are my top five technology gripes: 

#5.  People posting their every movement, stray thought or facial blemish on Facebook, Twitter, You Tube or any other social networking site. Okay, you’ve become a grandparent, I’d love to hear about it. Graduated Magna Cum Laude from Yale—terrific, let’s have the details. Your dog is licking himself in an embarrassing place—probably an overshare.

#4.  GPS golf yardage devices. Many of the old guys I play with haul these out before every shot they play.  A hundred-fifty three yards to the front of the green, one-sixty four to the back, and one-fifty seven to the pin. I’ll eyeball the tall, white 150 yard stake and gauge one-fifty five to the hole. Here’s the question I always ask the GPS wielder. Will you use a different club based on the two yards difference between your GPS and my guestimate? I don’t know about you, but most of the people I play with are lucky to even strike the ball with the front of the club. 

#3. Self-checkout devices at retail stores. Okay, okay, I agree, they’re handy sometimes and can save you time when you’re in a hurry. But every time I scan my own merchandise, I think “A human being used to do this.” Technology is wiping out jobs faster than we can graduate people from high school and college to start collecting unemployment. It’s a serious problem with serious consequences for the American (and worlds) way of life.

#2.  The simpering voice that drones: Press one for English, press two if you know your parties extension, press three if you have an annoying rash on your rear end, press four if you can only count to three, press five if you’re considering setting fire to your telephone. I crave the sensation of calling a business and having an actual human being answer  and ask how they might help me. Chances are, they’ve gained a customer for life. Part of this equation is the same concern as #3, but a huge part of it is feeling we’re losing our connection with each other. 

#1. “Hello, I’m Farley Harquar, candidate for U.S. Senate and I just called to tell you how concerned I am about whatever it is you’re concerned about. I’m not sure what that is, but, you can be assured I’ll propose legislation to either outlaw it or make it mandatory if I’m elected.” I know, I know, you can hang up on robo-calls as soon as you realize what they are, but they still annoy me no end. If you’re going to intrude on my privacy, at least have the decency to hire a human being to read from an intelligence-insulting script. What puzzles me is the idea that automated sales calls work. On any level. Has anyone you know ever bought anything from somebody who robo-called them? Why do they keep doing it? 

Okay, okay, I’ve vented. And, ironically (all of life is ironic, isn’t it?), this is going to be posted on our blog, to be read by people on the internet, or even on their hand held devices. Crap! I’ve just contributed to the problem.