Trials of Technology

Today’s topic is the source of much humor. Youth will wonder what the humor is about. Elders know intrinsically what the hullabaloo is. Technology requires skills and adaptations. Not all of us have skills equal to others; and adaptability is a characteristic very personal to each of us.

One day several years ago, my son was home from college for a week or so. He walked into my home office where I was deeply involved writing a consulting report. He stood behind me and watched silently. Then, he reached over my shoulder and said, “why don’t you just hit this key and let the program take care of it?” With that he hit ‘the key’ and wow! In a flash things happened on screen (and in the report) that I had intended but was painstakingly doing slowly and manually.

How did he know? He knew what my problem was by simply watching me. And, of course, he was visiting home after months of campus life at which computer use was constant and everywhere. He had picked up complex understandings of software and hardware that I was totally unfamiliar with. Period.

This is what I mean about adaptability. The mental network of logic in my mind was acquired over decades of education, practice and exposure to new things. Youth, on the other hand, do not have that baggage; instead, they are exposed to the new thing as a total living experience and it makes sense. It becomes intuitive. That word – intuitive – is how my mind works on many levels, just not with technology!

And that’s the crux, isn’t it? Some of us learn technology the hard way using our old syntax and logic streams. The young have the advantage of starting out with the new from the beginning and have short cuts past the old in a zip.

I watch my grandkids manipulate computers and cell phones (more powerful probably than the lap tops they use). They fly through complicated manipulations while I thumbsy through the same thing getting entirely different results!

Now, I have the ability – the experience edge, really – of developing the questions that need to be asked. Applying those questions to the computer technology and data bases they connect with then pulls the answers needed to think through a problem or challenge. We called it research in our day; I don’t know what they call it today among younger people. But I will say my experience tells me they don’t know yet what it is they are looking for because they are not asking the right questions.

That’s where we older people may have a value for the younger. We ask the questions that bridge the gap between experience levels of living life.

We can act as translators for them. Beware, however; this is not an appreciated intrusion. One must take care in suggesting a translation is needed!

I know I am not alone in my addled-ness over technology. While at the auto dealer the other day for an oil change, a young woman sat opposite me at a computer table in the waiting room. I was catching up with reading on my phone, while she set up a workstation an envy to behold. We struck up a conversation and she informed me she was there for 4 or 5 hours while the needed repairs to her new car were being done. Seems she ran into a quality problem and the dealer was slow to realize it was that sort of problem. Now the engineers and parts were ordered and ready for installation.

She demonstrated a keen sense of understanding the car’s problem and was way ahead of the dealer’s personnel. On another note she observed me working on my phone and complimented me on my skill (obviously an oddity with someone as old as I!). She admitted that she had I-phones for as long as they had been on the market. In fact she had seven of them! Each had failed to work properly in short order and she surmised she had a negative effect on technology. Apple has been unable to determine what her problem is with their product line but she is adamant that theirs is the best on the market, so she remains a loyal buyer/user of their I-phones.

Meanwhile her computer skills have her in business operating from home. So sitting in a dealer’s waiting room for the better part of a day didn’t phase her in the least. She merely set up her office via computer at the dealership. Now, if she would stop talking with me, she could resume her business, and I could complete my reading assignments.

Clearly she is intuitively enmeshed in today’s tech culture. I am not. I use the techy-world as a tool only. It is not an intuitive thingy for me. Probably never will be.

And so the juxtaposition of all this provides much meat for humor.

Well, our world of today needs a good laugh. Hope you’ve had fun reading this piece!

July 6, 2017