We have three televisions in our house, all fairly new, all flat-screen. Yessir, we're on technology's cutting edge. The only problem is, two of them don't work, or at least they don't work for us.
The TV on our top floor, a 32 inch Sanyo, shows me one of three things when I turn it on: 1) a "no signal" message jumping around the screen like a rabbit, or 2) a Direct TV logo that performs a hypnotic dance around the screen, or 3) my favorite...snow. Loud, annoying snow.
I have three remote controls for this TV--a Sanyo, a Direct TV and a Sony--and among them, they have exactly 127 buttons to push. I have pushed all of those buttons many times, and many in combination with each other....and still I get either 1) the no signal message 2) the dancing Direct TV icon, or 3) snow.
Now our second floor TV, a Sharp, is a little simpler. Only two remotes there and roughly 90 buttons to push. When I turn that TV on, I get only snow, even when I push all the buttons. After two minutes of snow and frantic button-pushing, I generally lose interest and turn it off.
That's when I go downstairs and turn on our third TV, a Samsung. It works. It actually shows TV programs with understandable sound. But there is a caveat. You have to use both remotes--one to turn on the TV and regulate the sound, and the other to switch the channels, and God forbid that you ever push the wrong button on either because you could end up with 1) the jumping "no signal" message 2) the dancing "Direct TV" icon, or 3) snow.
A simple question: Why do I need three remotes and 127 buttons to watch "Morning Joe" or "The Voice" or NFL football?
My problems don't end there. I spent 45 minutes on the phone the other night speaking to a very polite young man with a thick Indian accent who eventually enabled me to restore the Internet to my computer. It probably should have taken only five minutes, but given my utter technical incompetence and my inability to understand him sometimes, we shared a good, long, sometimes challenging conversation. The thing is, his English was perfect, better than mine. I wonder if he had as much trouble understanding me as I had understanding him.
My other outstanding problem these days is my computer's printer. It doesn't print and no, there's no paper jam. It just sits there on a shelf, flashing a green light and mocking me. It currently has several tasks queued up for it, all of which I'd like to cancel, but I don't know how. I've pushed every key and button I can find, but nothing works. My solution? I've disconnected the power cord for the printer. The green light is no longer mocking me.
So here I sit, in the midst of an historic technological revolution, but I'm being held captive by it. I'm bound and gagged and being mocked by machines.
And yet, you know what? What I'd really like to get is an iPad. From what I've heard, it doesn't have anything close to 127 buttons.
Showing posts with label digital revolution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label digital revolution. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Friday, December 30, 2011
The digital devolution
I've been reading the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. Fascinating book, fascinating character. He truly helped change the course of technology, even the world over the last 25 years--or as he put it, he helped "bend the universe."
But I, for one, have never fully embraced the changes. Part of the reason is I'm old. Part of it is that I'm a techno-idiot.
However, I like to think that my anxiety and doubts about the dizzying pace of technological advancement are based on something more valid than just my own personal inabilities to cope.
All this came into focus over the last week when my 28-year-old daughter visited the U.P. for the first time in six years. She'd rarely seen snow, she wasn't much familiar with small towns and rural areas, she didn't know much about the area that I've called home for the last eight years.
More than a few times while we were driving in town or out in the woods, I'd glance over at her, and she'd be furiously texting on her iPhone, her nose no more than a foot from the tiny keyboard. The snowflakes fluttering down from the sky, settling on the quaint little buildings and pine trees, the bundled-up pedestrians hustling here and there, and the roads building up a cushion of white? She was missing all of that because she was pounding out a message to someone a thousand miles away.
Then there was the vivid image of her and my 4-year-old grandson together on a couch in a gorgeous log cabin on a frozen lake, again with snow lightly falling, and quiet all around...and what were they doing? Soaking it all in? No, she was on her phone again, pounding out letters while he was on his brand-new Kindle Fire, slicing digital fruit with a digital sword to score thousands of points in some mindless (but cute) digital game.
Were they missing something? Were they failing to appreciate the real and tangible and beautiful world all around us?
I challenged her on this. She responded by saying, "Well, Dad, when we took a walk in the woods with the dogs, I stopped a couple of times to take pictures. Remember? I really thought it was beautiful."
Well, that, I think, is part of the problem. It seems that so many young people these days are captive to the technology. They need it with them at all times. They need it to validate their existence--whether it's on Facebook or You Tube or with texting. They can't seem to simply leave their little gadgets behind and encounter the world, directly and unencumbered.
If they're not texting, they're talking on the phone, or they're on the Internet, or they're listening to their iPod. Go to a gym sometime, and see how many weightlifters and treadmillers have cords coming out of their ears.
Yeah, yeah, I know music's great and it's important to stay connected with your friends blah blah blah, but wouldn't it be better if we sometimes tuned out the technology and tuned in the world and the people directly in front of us?
Okay, so I'm old and out-of-touch and out-of-step.
Not so out-of-touch, though, that, out of curiosity on that wonderful winter afternoon, I did pick up that little digital game of swords and fruit, and tried my hand at it a couple of times. Actually, four times. Maybe it was five or six. In any case, I never could beat my 4-year-old grandson at it.
Stupid game.
But I, for one, have never fully embraced the changes. Part of the reason is I'm old. Part of it is that I'm a techno-idiot.
However, I like to think that my anxiety and doubts about the dizzying pace of technological advancement are based on something more valid than just my own personal inabilities to cope.
All this came into focus over the last week when my 28-year-old daughter visited the U.P. for the first time in six years. She'd rarely seen snow, she wasn't much familiar with small towns and rural areas, she didn't know much about the area that I've called home for the last eight years.
More than a few times while we were driving in town or out in the woods, I'd glance over at her, and she'd be furiously texting on her iPhone, her nose no more than a foot from the tiny keyboard. The snowflakes fluttering down from the sky, settling on the quaint little buildings and pine trees, the bundled-up pedestrians hustling here and there, and the roads building up a cushion of white? She was missing all of that because she was pounding out a message to someone a thousand miles away.
Then there was the vivid image of her and my 4-year-old grandson together on a couch in a gorgeous log cabin on a frozen lake, again with snow lightly falling, and quiet all around...and what were they doing? Soaking it all in? No, she was on her phone again, pounding out letters while he was on his brand-new Kindle Fire, slicing digital fruit with a digital sword to score thousands of points in some mindless (but cute) digital game.
Were they missing something? Were they failing to appreciate the real and tangible and beautiful world all around us?
I challenged her on this. She responded by saying, "Well, Dad, when we took a walk in the woods with the dogs, I stopped a couple of times to take pictures. Remember? I really thought it was beautiful."
Well, that, I think, is part of the problem. It seems that so many young people these days are captive to the technology. They need it with them at all times. They need it to validate their existence--whether it's on Facebook or You Tube or with texting. They can't seem to simply leave their little gadgets behind and encounter the world, directly and unencumbered.
If they're not texting, they're talking on the phone, or they're on the Internet, or they're listening to their iPod. Go to a gym sometime, and see how many weightlifters and treadmillers have cords coming out of their ears.
Yeah, yeah, I know music's great and it's important to stay connected with your friends blah blah blah, but wouldn't it be better if we sometimes tuned out the technology and tuned in the world and the people directly in front of us?
Okay, so I'm old and out-of-touch and out-of-step.
Not so out-of-touch, though, that, out of curiosity on that wonderful winter afternoon, I did pick up that little digital game of swords and fruit, and tried my hand at it a couple of times. Actually, four times. Maybe it was five or six. In any case, I never could beat my 4-year-old grandson at it.
Stupid game.
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