I don’t know which is worse, the TV, the telephone, or the computer. Whenever one of them malfunctions I suddenly feel my age. I was watching a TV show the other day when the screen went dark without warning. I had not stirred. I had not touched anything. All I could get out of the machine was the brief message: “No signal”.
Obviously, I thought, but what do I do now? I hate to call for help. The moment people find out that I am a senior citizen they ask me if the TV was plugged in. I find that demeaning. Yes, it was, for God’s sake. I am not that old. Reluctantly I called the satellite company. They suggested that I check “the box”. I had to confess that I had no idea how to do that. Besides it seems that I have three boxes, a small one, a bigger one, and another that is not even a box, I learned, but a DVD player. Then I got a lengthy lecture involving terms like Blu-Ray, SD cable, set top boxes, HDMI, and other mysteries. No wonder I feel remote. I don’t mean under the sofa where I dropped it last week. I mean I live in another world. In the end I just turned the power off and went to bed. The next morning the diabolical system acted as if nothing had happened. And by now I have even forgotten which program it was I missed.
And then there are smart phones. Until recently I would not touch them. My wife got one. It came without a manual. So we printed one out for her, a stack of paper an inch thick, 198 pages. How can anything that requires 198 pages of instructions be said to simplify your life? By the time she learns half of what she can do with the instrument it will be an antique no longer supported by the manufacturer. And it is so thin you can’t even use it as a door stop.
I do have a regular non-smart cell phone, however. It has not rung for months. I just found out why: the ringer has been “disabled”. Great. Maybe I can now park in the wheelchair zone, now that I am disabled. By my ringer. I never learned how to re-enable that ringer. I tried several menu options like “ring tone”, “sound settings”, “easy set up”, “phone settings”, and something described as “auto w/ handsf…” (sic! really!). That last one, if you understand the language, comes dangerously close to a nasty German expletive. The phone still does not ring. Oh well. Enjoy the quiet while it lasts.
I do not hear young people complain of such such troubles. It seems that they are immune. And I notice that when you ask them for help they do not explain anything. They just say: “Let me see this thing you have there, my Grandpa had one like it”. Then they press a button here and a bar there, with their thumbs, usually, and voila, you are up again. I conclude that the difference between young and being old in today’s world is that young people do everything with two thumbs. Old people, by contrast, have ten thumbs but cannot do anything with them.
Of course I also have a computer. I use it a lot. It is my typewriter and my slide projector. It is also my reference library. It is one of the few friends I have in the universe of electronics. And even here I am not quite at home. Catastrophic things still happen every so often. A carefully written letter may be on the screen one moment, and gone the next. Vanished into thin air. People tell me not to worry, that it is still there. Somewhere. Maybe so. Some body will find it one day. I know that I should have saved more often. My fault. But the really bad stuff happens when they update operating systems. No sooner have you finally mastered version 5 when the software people “improve” things and come out with version 6. What that means is that all the practical and productive features you have been using are gone. Instead of clear instructions in English you are now confronted by acronyms and little pictures that in themselves mean nothing. Unless, of course, you are clairvoyant or born recently into this brave new world.
When I google for something interesting various types of unwanted messages tend to pop upon my screen. I admire the skill of programmers who always manage to place these popups right on top of that which I bought the computer for to see. And I can’t erase them unless I reboot and start over.
It is not all black, however. I have a perfectly healthy and positive relationship with the Kindle “Paperwhite”. Many people I know are familiar with the Kindle but hate the idea of giving up “the book”, a solid piece of matter that you can heft and handle. A screen, even if it looks like print on paper, will not cut it. They like to smell the binding. I, on the other hand, dislike having to carry heavy volumes around. My Kindle holds at this moment forty-six different books. I have them with me where ever I go. I refer to them frequently and they enlighten me and expand my horizon. I don’t see how smelling forty-six leather bindings could do half as much for my mind.
PS. I have now acquired a smart phone. I used to be a button pusher. Now I am a finger slider and an ever so soft screen toucher. I cannot do much with it yet but one good thing came with it, a calendar. I have already mapped out all my activities, appointments, engagements, pills to take, supplies to replenish, people to call, and things to remember for the entire month, arranged by time periods beginning at 8 am. It was quite a shock when I realized that, had I not retired, I wouldn’t have time to go to work any more.
(c) 2016 by Herbert H. Hoffman