2015 The Year of Living Old School/Technological Discrimination

[Van Blaricum]

He's probably from Washington state.....

With that hair and " tan " I was gonna bet five dollars on New Jersey.

 

[GNTLGNT]

'Five Dollar Foot Long!!!'

...you wish....

 

[GNTLGNT]

 

[Van Blaricum]

I know someone else who is a little technologically behind...as a matter of fact, he's suffering from Failure to Launch Syndrome.

" Kim Jong, does your rocket work? "

 

[Grandpa]

I think I'm older than you all. My dad grew up in a home that didn't have a telephone.... or plumbing or electricity or a furnace or a toilet.

Things just progress.

When cars came around, there were people who used them and people who saw no good reason to give up horses. Look where we are now.

When phones came around, there were people that used them and people who saw no good reason to use such things when any information they had could wait until they could talk to people or mail them. Look where we are now.

Let me shortcut a metric ton of examples, because you can see where I'm going. You can forego TV, or cell phones, or smartphones, or all kind of connectedness - but years from now, what you're turning a cold shoulder to will be part of history that has already been built up and taken for granted. And you can certainly do that, but don't be surprised or upset when you find yourself out of the casually accepted and adopted cultural mainstream.

As for being completely technophobe - I must assume everyone here has at least a handshaking familiarity with the Internet (what's that, we would've asked in the '80s) or you wouldn't be here.

 

[Dana Jean]

I think I'm older than you all. My dad grew up in a home that didn't have a telephone.... or plumbing or electricity or a furnace or a toilet.

Things just progress.

When cars came around, there were people who used them and people who saw no good reason to give up horses. Look where we are now.

When phones came around, there were people that used them and people who saw no good reason to use such things when any information they had could wait until they could talk to people or mail them. Look where we are now.

Let me shortcut a metric ton of examples, because you can see where I'm going. You can forego TV, or cell phones, or smartphones, or all kind of connectedness - but years from now, what you're turning a cold shoulder to will be part of history that has already been built up and taken for granted. And you can certainly do that, but don't be surprised or upset when you find yourself out of the casually accepted and adopted cultural mainstream.

As for being completely technophobe - I must assume everyone here has at least a handshaking familiarity with the Internet (what's that, we would've asked in the '80s) or you wouldn't be here.

My dad also grew up in a home that didn't have those things. And so did my mom. They both went to one room schoolhouses.

When I was born, my dad was 38.

 

[GNTLGNT]

...we grew up in a paper bag in the middle of the road.....and we LIKED it that way!!!...

 

[FlakeNoir]

...we grew up in a paper bag in the middle of the road.....and we LIKED it that way!!!...

 

[GNTLGNT]

...PRECISELY!....

 

[Grandpa]

My dad also grew up in a home that didn't have those things. And so did my mom. They both went to one room schoolhouses.

When I was born, my dad was 38.

Pretty amazing, the unprecedented rate of change that has occurred in human society in the last 100 years. It makes one wonder if we're capable of assimilating it, and we see things that tell us, no, not really. Yet it's going to continue to happen, and like any organism, we change to the environment or we don't succeed very well.

 

[kingricefan]

...we grew up in a paper bag in the middle of the road.....and we LIKED it that way!!!...

But did the turtles stop and say hi when they crossed by you????

 

[Neesy]

When I recently moved into my new apartment I decided to forgo a cell phone, and just get a house phone with my internet. I had installed internet at many points in the past, but uninstalled it because I felt like I just sit on it and use it way too much. If I'm not Googling things, I'm looking on Wikipedia for sources. I had even switched from internet cell phones back to those without internet. After being introduced to the internet and then going without it, that first time I needed directions, or to know what the temperature was, and I didn't have the internet to immediately tell me, I had to get out a paper map and turn on the radio to find out. It was so tedious. I felt lost at sea.

I didn't own a cell phone until 2004. Then this year I had a seriously scary car accident and shook my brains up. The next day I saw a man driving by me holding a box up to his face and talking to it. I laughed at him and thought he was crazy, until I remembered right then that they were called cell phones and had gone into production during my lifetime. I just read online that people are paying top dollar for the old Nokia cell phone that was my first. Back when I had it, it was already so outdated that people laughed at me, now supposedly people are saying they are the greatest cell phone ever and searching for all the old ones to buy them up.

The other day I put some cash on a pre-paid card in order to pay a bill over the phone, the internet bill actually, and after I bought and paid 80$ fore the card, I got it home and it wouldn't work. I called the number and they said I had to go on the VISA website, and give them my name, address, social security number, etc, in order to fight fraud and terrorism. I went to the website and filled it all out in order to help stop the terrorists. When I got to the section asking for a cell phone number, I left it blank. It was rejected, due to the fact it had no cell # listed. I looked over the document and discovered that that field was was required and in order to get the card I already paid for registered so I could actually get the 80$ out of limbo, I was required to have a cell phone number.

When my cable installer put the internet in, with the phone, he commented on how I am the first person he has done an installation for in a long time that doesn't own a television and he seemed to think that was strange. He asked me what I watched and if so how did I watch it. I pointed at my mountains of books and said that if I wanted I could read those, and I pointed to a few stacks of premium DVD's and said that I had every season of Stargate, as well as numerous horror and comedy films so I was set as long as I had a computer. He asked me if I disliked televisions and I said I didnt think I had a problem with them so much as I felt they were unnecessary for me.

In 1999 several friends and myself, we the Anti-Cyber Punks, found a shopping cart on a sidewalk and we rolled it to my house and we put my two televisions in it and then we took the shopping cart to my friends houses and we collected some of their televisions. We tried to collect televisions from random people around the neighborhood we knew, and caught a lot of hell. Then we took the televisions and threw them over a railroad bridge onto the rocks below. The tubes exploded. That was my last television.

When I got a surgery I was in the hospital and I woke up on drugs, they handed me a clicker and I discovered Honey Boo Boo and these guys that chase rattlesnakes in burlap sacks in barns. When I was a kid tele was simple it was Laverne and Shirley, Happy Days, cartoons, and we didn't yet have cable. To me a sensational show was 3's Company. We certainly didn't have cable shows centered around the unfortunate lifestyles of the likes of people such as Mama June. I am skeptical of a society that has technology that is so great, but merely uses it to make comedy shows about sad morbidly obese uneducated middle Americans. I don't think people watch those shows for nice reasons. I think those kids are exploited.

Our family had the first Atari when it came out and the first NES, but if you were to hand me a modern game controller I wouldnt know what to do except maybe have a seizure. I still get excited about the old table top Ms. Pac Man game at the peanut bar across the street. I still want to play old fashioned video games.

People seem to be amused when they take my number and I tell them it's a land line, and not to text me. They act amazed. Then I don't get any calls except from the most important callers. That's fine with me. And it's always a mystery as to who is calling, I don't have one of those new fangled caller I.D.'s because people just spoof calls now anyway.

I meet guys and they ask me if I want to text back and forth and I say I have a land line, just call me. " Wait, so we can't send each other sexy pics? " There's nothing less dignified I can think of then a man who assumes I want a picture of his junk right away, and that I am going to send him mine, but apparently, it's one of the initial steps of ritual courtship now. The cell phone junk pic exchange. Having a land line means I spurn that social convention. Spurn baby, spurn. Wouldn't you just like to hang out instead?!

I also sometimes feel discriminated against by people that I know. I don't want to have a big screen tele and a box in my hand poking it all day long, waving my fingers over it like a tool. Several friends have left me out of things merely because invites were sent via text. " I didn't know how to get in touch with you " When having land lines, I have given people my number, but once hearing it's a land line, a lot of people don't even keep it.

I feel like I am left out of the future because I simply do not like some of the downsides of what it has to offer and I do not want to participate in those things because of the costs. For example, the cost to my psyche in the constant barrages of sexist advertisements on the tele. I don't know how to absorb things and filter things out with out somehow being damaged by these things.

I know there are consequences to the choices we make, and I have chosen to be a weird nerd. I am socially unacceptable to most of my generation. I don't have an iPhone to show off, or a cool huge Tele, I don't know how to use Pinterest or Instagram and in a lot of ways I like it that way. I guess I should look at me not having technology as an A-hole limiter, but I feel like technology totally separates people or maybe people separate themselves. This internet and this computer is my life raft to the future, and I use it mostly to talk to other weird nerds. Is that irony?

Anyone else have any thoughts on living with technology and having too much, and living without technology and being left out? What is your relationship with modern day communicative technology, and is that a comfortable relationship for you? How do you think these technologies have affected your life overall? What is your experience?

Where I live it is illegal to talk on your cell phone and drive, although I still see the occasional idiot taking the chance and hoping they don't get caught!

I agree with many of your statements, however I guess it all comes back to that old maxim that "moderation is the key" meaning sure, embrace technology if you wish, just don't become addicted to your Smart phone or Android.

(and also, like GntlGnt says, in a social setting be polite to others and treat them with respect, so don't ignore a real life face to face conservation in favour of your texting and Facebook updates!)

 

[Neesy]

I have not turned on a tv in a decade and I got rid of my cell phone...they are far too annoying. I get irritated when people talk to me about shows they watch and look at me like I am crazy because I do not know what they are talking about. I do not want to hear about something that happened on reality tv or some talk show. It is not important to me. I am doing quite well without it. I get my news from the internet.

This was me in the 90s - I spent most of my time reading and the TV was kept in the basement. I recall people at work discussing TV shows and being left completely out of the loop.
I do have a Samsung Galaxy Android but I will just leave it the way it is and not update it, even though it is around two years old.
It's weird - I just cannot imagine being without my cell phone when I go out, simply because I feel safer, knowing I can call 911 at any time, so for me that is worth it.

 

[Neesy]

I have a 'smart phone' and it scares me because it is smarter than I am. I have thousands of 'aps' available to me but wouldn't know what to do with almost all of them. I have a big tele and a surround sound system because I want to be able to watch a good movie and actually be able to 'see' it, not like folks who watch movies on their phones. I don't 'get' that at all. I have internet and enjoy using it, but am not a slave to it. I use it mostly for coming here, emails and Ebay shopping. I like that fact that if I want to find an obscure copy of a book I can simply go on Ebay (or other venues) and it might be there. I do enjoy the thrill of the hunt for said books by perusing used bookstores also. Technology is here to stay.

Hey guess what? (thread hijack) - my limited edition Carrie just arrived in the mail! - it is beautiful! I did remove the shrink wrap so I could look at the pictures. This is the one limited to 3000 copies so my very first collectible Stephen King book!

so there's an example of a good use of technology - I ordered in on-line and paid for it that way. So technology can be rather useful

 

[kingricefan]

Hey guess what? (thread hijack) - my limited edition Carrie just arrived in the mail! - it is beautiful! I did remove the shrink wrap so I could look at the pictures. This is the one limited to 3000 copies so my very first collectible Stephen King book!

so there's an example of a good use of technology - I ordered in on-line and paid for it that way. So technology can be rather useful

Mine has been sitting in a freaking warehouse somewhere in the middle of the country for a week now. I'm NOT happy! I paid extra to have it shipped UPS and this is what UPS does? Bullcrap! Next time it's just going to go via USPS and I'll save some money that way.

 

[Neesy]

Mine has been sitting in a freaking warehouse somewhere in the middle of the country for a week now. I'm NOT happy! I paid extra to have it shipped UPS and this is what UPS does? Bullcrap! Next time it's just going to go via USPS and I'll save some money that way.

Did you order the same one as me? Mine was 85 bucks but with shipping and handling I ended up paying almost 117.00
p.s. the invoice date is December 16, 2014 and I just got it today but considering I am in Canada I guess that is not too bad.

 

[morgan]

Mine has been sitting in a freaking warehouse somewhere in the middle of the country for a week now. I'm NOT happy! I paid extra to have it shipped UPS and this is what UPS does? Bullcrap! Next time it's just going to go via USPS and I'll save some money that way.

I also paid extra to have mine delivered UPS and haven't received my copy yet.

 

[kingricefan]

Did you order the same one as me? Mine was 85 bucks but with shipping and handling I ended up paying almost 117.00
p.s. the invoice date is December 16, 2014 and I just got it today but considering I am in Canada I guess that is not too bad.

I ordered both versions- yours and the 'Artists' edition. Was notified a week before Christmas that it was 'shipped' and it hadn't shown up so I checked the tracking number and that's when I found out it has been sitting in a warehouse somewhere after being picked up from Cem Dance's warehouse.
Don't mean to make you feel bad that you got yours already, luv. I hope you truly enjoy it alot! Now, you'll be bitten by the 'limited edition' bug and will have to get these types of books now!! Are you planning on getting the rest of the 'Doubleday' limiteds that Cem Dance is going to do?

 

[kingricefan]

I also paid extra to have mine delivered UPS and haven't received my copy yet.

Makes ya mad, don't it?

 

[king family fan]

Maybe we will all get them by next Christmas.