One of my personal demons is in full glory and I’m doing all I can to quell the inner tensions and bring things back down to the reasonable rational state they should be in. I’ve spent my evening wrestling with technology, and technology’s kicked my ass. I couldn’t do things I wanted to do, watch things I wanted to watch, or accomplish tasks I wanted to accomplish. Because technology would not cooperate.
This stuff is so completely insignificant yet it hits a nerve that can easily send me spiraling into a lather of frustration. I find it so hard to believe that if I, being reasonably tech-savvy, can’t make something work, how would my mom or any casual user of a device fair? Is it reasonable to think that when something doesn’t work as it should we have to be patient and experienced enough to fix, or do we just stop using it out of futility? Because that’s where this is headed for me. I’m at the point of hating…. really hating technology. For all the time it might save me, it costs me more when I push the limits too far or just depend on something to work every time. I have too many devices to juggle, passwords to remember, too much software to update, too many sequences to follow, etc etc etc. And when it fails to function, the small savings gained are all lost in the hours spent triaging, rebooting, trying various workarounds and ultimately, as I have had to tonight, just give up and walk away.
As I went through this with about 2 or 3 parallel issues accompanied by alerts about such things as data limits being high and reminders popping up to enter credentials i’m in the process of trying to fix issues around, my kids asking for help w/their devices…. it all just makes me want to scream, smash them all, and go back to 13 channels, rotary phones with curly cords, and physical paper books.
I love so much about how the world has evolved through technology, there’s so many really great and positive aspects of our ability to instantly communicate in real time from anywhere, to carry a devices in our pocket that makes calls, takes amazing photos, shoots movies, feeds us news, augments reality, and OMFG calculates tips and splits dinner bills. It’s amazing. As Jess says, “Technology is great…. when it works.”
When technology doesn’t work, in parallel... like dominos falling…. it makes me want to cut back even more than I already have. So I can spend what’s left of my life being happy, instead of trying to make something work that ultimately will be nothing I give a second thought to as I breath my final breathes. Except, perhaps, for the regret I’ll feel for the time wasted on it.