Technology

I've been thinking... which is a strange and disastrous state for me... but I've been thinking about machines, technology, and personal space. I've never been a "people person" - if I'm in a large group, I have a tendency to sit quietly and watch everyone else, or to find one person I know and stay attached to them (using them as a shield). Maybe I lack a gene, or maybe I have sloshed my brain one too many times with concussions, but I do not have the urge to, or feel the need to, be "connected" to the current world at all times. I don't really like the telephone - I use to to speak with friends far away, and to make appointments... but I don't have a cell phone and I don't want one. I dislike it when the phone rings and disturbs what I'm doing.... reading, researching, crafting, playing, whatever. I pay a company for the use/privilege of using the phone, so why do I have to listen to all the recorded messages that are so prevalent? - I don't. As soon as I hear a click and a canned voice comes on, I immediately erase any such message without listening to it. - I dislike being on the bus, or walking down the sidewalk, or being in a theatre and hearing cell phones ring and other people discussing their personal business at the tops of their lungs.

I remember back in the 1960s when some of the new (at that time) technologies were becoming available to the public. A computer? That was enormous, with memory banks taking up the basements of several buildings... A microwave oven? That was miraculous - but you couldn't place a "TV dinner" in one to heat up, because then the food trays were made of aluminum foil....
Every item was touted as a wonderful new invention that would give us "more time for the important things in life..." But it seems that the more Americans have, the more they want. - I grew up in the outer suburbs of a town that has a state university; we were on the very outskirts of the town, the next to last street of platted quarter-acre houses before a large area of wild oak and slash pine, streams, swamps, and wildlife. I grew up in what would probably have been considered a poor household - but my parents always had time for my interests... and I went to softball games and other things that I wasn't particularly interested in as a child, but to which we went as a family. We always seemed to have plenty of time to do what was needed, and what we wanted (and could afford) to do... I was a member of the Brownies and of 4-H (my sister, older by 6 1/2 years, was a Girl Scout), and we attended meetings, camps and jamborees.

Ten years ago, I found myself living in northern Virginia and commuting to work near the Navy Yards in Washington, DC. I got up at 3 a.m., showered, dressed, made my lunch and my husband's, and laid out his medications for him to take during the day. I also removed from the freezer whatever I was going to cook for supper. I caught a bus at 5 a.m., then switched to the Metro (subway) system, and arrived at work just before 7. I worked from 7 to 3:30, and then commuted back home, arriving, if I was lucky, by 5:15 in the afternoon. Then I cooked supper, washed dishes, talked with my husband, played with the cats, and went to bed to begin another cycle. We had a car, a condo, a microwave, dishwasher, clothes washer and dryer, TV, VCR and DVD players, stereo system, and computer. As my husband was ill, I had to work and be gone those long hours even though I didn't like it. And even then I thought about technology and how it was supposed to give us "more free time." My job in DC was working as a government contractor, and reading , answering, and returning e-mail questions sent to the Environmental Protection Agency. I soon found that the computers created more work than seemed necessary...

In using new technology, America has always promised "more time to do the important things in life" - but what is important in life? I think it is being able to rest and relax; to be able to visit a park or meadow and listen to the wild birds sing; to be able to hike or camp in the woods (or wilderness) without thinking about how one can get back "in touch" with other people; to be able to listen to the music you like, and watch he films that you like, in the privacy of your own home. Maybe I'm an old-fashioned throw back to an earlier time... maybe I should be classified as an "anti-social" type... maybe I should be classified as an "anti-technology" type... I do enjoy using my computer to communicate with people all the the world (but I also dislike Instant Messaging); I enjoy being able to speak with friends spread across the country at the touch of a few buttons, but I dislike recorded telephone messages; I like the fact that technology has, indeed, given me more leisure time.... But at the same time, I dislike what most people have let technology do to them.