Who Needs Tech

We go to bed, our laptops propped up on our separate laps, and we play backgammon via the Internet. This is the most expensive backgammon set man has even conceived. We have an actual backgammon board somewhere but somehow it just doesn’t seem like as much fun. After all, we spent a lot of money on these laptops! Shouldn’t we use them whenever we can?

Just because a technology exists, does it really mean everybody has to use it? Does a soccer Mom really need to drive a tank? Does every idiot need a smartphone?

I go to Starbucks and these oversized vehicles, these off-road vehicles that have never gone off-road, clutter the parking lot, spilling over into adjacent spaces like the scribbling of a child incapable of coloring between the lines. They can’t drive them, they can’t park them, but they have to have them! They’re safe! Sure they’re safe… for the people inside them. But in the hands of inept drivers, these tanks are lethal weapons for everybody else on the road. I drive a Prius. It looks like a pimple between mountains, wedged in between Hummers and Navigators. On the highway in a snowstorm, there is nothing more frightening than looking in the rearview mirror and seeing one of these morons bearing down on you like there is no need for a speed limit and “Visibility?” What’s that?

Computers! My husband has a MacBook. I have a MacBook Pro, a recent acquisition after yet another PC started dying on me. People swear this will last longer. I am skeptical but willing to try. I use my laptop to write, do all the family and business checking, pay the bills, prepare the taxes, administer two websites, sell tickets to my theatre company, keep in contact with all the patrons, design fliers and programs and play the occasional game. Okay, maybe more that the occasional game. If you’ve read my previous blog entries, you might know that I am addicted to Pogo. Word Whomp and Trivial Pursuit.; I hit them daily to exercise my brain and take my mind off details. I am on multiple social networks but rarely check them. Who has the time? Who?

Who? My husband does, that’s who. He uses his MacBook to access Facebook, play backgammon and exchange emails with people he rarely sees… and some, he sees all the time, which I really don’t get but there you have it. Oh, and music! He listens to music. He downloads music. He is an iTunes Genius. Does anybody need this? Give me a radio permanently tuned to the traffic report and I’m okay.

The Internet started as a means for members of the medical profession to share information more efficiently. But Word Whomp? Really? Could I live without this? Of course! I’d miss it. I’d have to go back to buying the Times and doing the daily crossword, but I’d get over it.

In essence, I guess I’m saying we all have more than we need, use less than we have, and have convinced ourselves we can’t function without our technological toys. I’ll never own an SUV. How stupid do you have to be to willfully purchase a vehicle that costs a house payment to gas up and is useless if you live anywhere but the Grand Canyon or the frozen tundra? I allowed myself to be talked into getting a smartphone and I do like it. I can play cards on it while waiting for my husband at the train station. I get all my emails downloaded to me several times a day, which means I never miss an unwanted ad. And my laptop allows me to work and play anywhere… the kitchen, the bedroom, the airport, the toilet…

Could I live without any of this? Sure! I used to balance my checkbook in that little ledger that came with the checks. Of course I rarely write checks anymore but so what; it can be done. I could survive without technology!

Except Tivo. Don’t take my Tivo!