How much the world has changed since I first began to take notice! I remember a cine film my dad had of a computer – remember reel to reel projectors? (alas I show my age). It filled a sky scraper and maybe every country of the world would have one of their own by the year 2000! Now, at last count, we have at least two each in this household, (laptop and pc – not to mention PDAs, games consoles, smartphones and all the other silicone chips around the house!) It seems we can’t function without them. Even the cat has learned that she can make the mouse pointer move by sitting on the keyboard! She gives us endless fun when there’s nothing to watch on the hundreds of channels on our TV system. We used to use video and DVD, but they are just too much trouble now. When we get bored with the cat we can watch YouTube or Web TV or listen to napster.
And so it goes on. One way or another we seem to be in front of a screen for more and more hours a day. It’s as if we’re “in the home but not of it”. The Web is my window on the world. I can take it with me and browse in coffee shops, hotels and even on my mobile phone. It seems that the more I know about what is “out there” the less I seem to know about anything. Never mind. I find Google a good substitute for a poor memory. I can even find things I wrote years ago when I was on some soapbox or other. Less Selective than the brain, I suppose, and, embarrrassingly, more public.
Don’t get me wrong. I love it! My husband thinks of all this technology merely as tools, but me……… I have to know about all the latest gadgets and how they work, how many gigabytes here and mega Hz there. I can stand in a computer shop for hours wanting to talk to staff about the latest wi fi technology or some new gizmo whilst I see them approach younger male customers over and over again. I’m not quite a silver surfer yet, but definitely middle aged and female. Perhaps they don’t think I came in to buy? I have learned that the best course of action is to visit customer service as soon as I arrive and ask – as geekily as possible – for someone who knows about the latest computer chip technology or superfast internet or whatever. Then I get some real service!
Filed under: 21st Century Life, About Me, Uncategorized | Tagged: brain, cat, chip, coffee shop, computer, female, gadget, gizmo, google, hotspot, male, middle aged, public, silicone, silver surfer, smartphone, soapbox, surf, technology, Web, wi fi, world, www
