Let me be frank: I’m fucking terrified of technology.
Whether it’s having to figure out how to switch inputs on the TV (which I watch as little as possible, mind you), not understanding how any Apple products work, being eons behind in updating my operating system (whatever that is) or going off on a typical temper tantrum about how “computers are stupid” and how “everyone would be so much happier if we didn’t unnecessarily accelerate our lives,” my life almost literally revolves around proving hypermodern technology to be bad.Be it directly through exposition or in the roundabout fashion of making cooler shit sans screens. Yeah, I know I’m writing this on a computer, but that fact is not ironic, so don’t even go there. I’m only doing it this way because it’s the only option. So there.
To put this all into perspective, my dad has to teach me how to use anything with a microchip. He has so far surpassed me in understanding gadgets and gizmos that someone could probably make a documentary about us and people would actually watch it out of pure interest—eventually giving it a damp-eyed, internally reflective four out of five stars on Netflix. It would bear the title “Generation ‘Why?’: How some silly little boys are too infantile to learn about stuff with buttons.” Even my mom, who falls very, very low on the scale of tech-adeptness, not only spends more time than me using expensive-looking phones and tablets, but even knows more (esoteric?) techie jargon. It’s madness.
Nothing’s holding me back. I could, if I wanted to, get a smartphone and all that other stuff. Oh yeah, I don’t have a smartphone. I still riff T-9 on an antiquated Samsung. Don’t get me wrong—I hate my piece-of-shit cellphone. But at least it’s not “smart.”
I used to watch reruns of “The Jetsons” when I was about 10. There was one episode where, for some reason, they visited the surface level of Earth. It was haunting to me. And now, at age 21, I realize the whole thing—the self-absorbed consumers living in the sky juxtaposed with those still grounded, all observed by my unassuming, porous mind—was more or less an allegory.
At this point, I’m once again unsure if I’m still being funny.
This stuff gets me thinking about that one Nicholas Carr essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” that many of us had to read in high school—the one we of course skimmed and then forgot about later that day while updating our top friends on MySpace. And it makes me wonder: What is the “smart” thing to do here?
I’m totally paranoid about people who I will never meet watching every move I make because they can, because everything I do now leaves a permanent trail of encrypted DNA across the web, which, when you think about it, is maybe more of a trap than an interconnection. I’m worried if I become engulfed in the banal obsessions that “smart” technology so adamantly shoves down its users’ throats, I’ll become nothing more than a reaction to the current state of technology instead of technology reacting to my current needs. I don’t want to become a zombie :(.
All this is not me acting as the technological version of an Armageddon fanatic. The world will certainly continue with or without tech dependence. So maybe I’m just being dumb.
Maybe it’s actually correct to assume something is better because everyone else is doing it. Maybe there’s no reason to distrust the opaque fate awaiting those willing to follow Generation Tech. Maybe I really am stupider without a smartphone. Maybe being eternally distracted by the picayune photos and .GIFs of the Internet is beneficial to my own self-preservation. Maybe I should try to change the world by browsing Reddit.
It’s all a joke anyway, right?
Are you a tech whiz? Perhaps you can help Andy with his computerized devices. Email him at andy@holsteens.com—errr, maybe just write him a letter.
