Until recently I didn’t know what a Luddite was, and now I realize I sort of am one. It’s not that I’m actively opposed to advances in technology—I’m just opposed to them for me. I have my smart-enough flip phone that I’ve had for seven years. I use it to text and make an occasional call, and I have my laptop to write on and access email and the internet. I don’t need—or want—more.
I admit that sometimes I feel like a dinosaur, but on the other hand, I’m happy not to be part of the miserable group addressed by Hiawatha Bray in the Boston Globe a few days after Christmas: “If you’re already bored with your holiday gifts, hang tight: 2017 promises to be the year when some long-awaited technologies finally come into their own.” As I do with many other 2017 promises, I find this one truly horrifying. Being dependent on technology to find joy in your life? Now that is sad.
I can see that a smartphone would be helpful in getting me to a place I haven’t been. The other day, in an abrupt change in plans, Siri effortlessly got my daughter Kim and me from a mall in New Hampshire to the Haverhill train station. But I rarely venture to places I haven’t been, and when I do, I use MapQuest. When that fails, there’s always the novel idea of asking an actual live person for directions. There’s usually a gas station before I get too lost, and since attendants don’t pump your gas or check your oil anymore, they have time to give directions. They might even get a kick out of the quaintness of it.
Besides, Siri would never understand my driving idiosyncrasies. I prefer back roads to highways, and I will do anything to avoid turning left into busy traffic. Siri would be endlessly telling me she was “recalculating” and I would hear the mounting annoyance in her voice. And I’d have to be careful what I said. Once, Kim was getting directions, and, stressed and impatient, she included a swear word. Siri admonished, “Language, Kim, language.” I can do without some self-righteous device curtailing my free speech.
And I don’t need a phone that bings at me all day with incoming emails and alerts. I prefer to check my email at my convenience rather than being nagged to do so. I don’t need to know things the minute they happen, especially something political that will raise my blood pressure, and I certainly feel no need to keep up with the Kardashians (or are they passé anyway?). I spend time with BG every morning and with Lester Holt in the evening. I don’t need to know any more between those two; if anything really serious happens, I’m sure someone will let me know.
Smartphones have put an end to interesting—if aimless—conversations. It used to be fun to try to remember the name of that Patti Page song you and a friend used to sing constantly one long-ago summer. Now that friend can Google it, and that’s the end of the nostalgic digressions down memory lane. Rather than a group discussion of where Iowa is, someone just looks it up and stifles the refresher lesson in geography. It’s quick and helpful, but something is missing.
No surprise, I’m not on Facebook. I’m sure it would be fun to connect with people I have lost track of, but I can’t even keep up with the people I have kept track of. For my small dose of vicarious drama I prefer to read Dear Abby or Meredith’s “Love Letters.”
The only tablet I have is Advil; tweets come only from my bird feeder; Instagram would be one more reminder of life’s impermanence; and I sure as heck don’t need Amazon’s new device, Alexa, sitting in my living room smugly answering questions that I could find the answers to myself.
Bray’s article went on to say that some of those new technologies for a happy new year will be talking cars and self-driving cars. Spare me my worst nightmare: I’m in a self-driving car that is taking a left into busy traffic. When I try desperately to make the car stop, a voice admonishes me to “watch my language.”
