Technology!

I'm neither a technophobe nor a technophile. However, I do find myself frequently getting frustrated with people older than me, or sometimes even my own age, that have trouble dealing with technology.


I try really hard to be patient and understanding. I mean, I understand that not everyone spent 6 hours typing code into a Commodore 64 so that a round "ball" image would bounce across the screen. Not everyone was paying attention when Nintendo came along and totallly blew away Atari (and even fewer held a secret allegiance to Intellivision before that). There were a lot of people that didn't have to learn Windows '97 when it was released and had to learn every stupid revision since...even the ones that made the system more difficult to use. Many people still have never worked on a Mac, let alone remember when the operating system didn't look like a Microsoft knock-off. Sure, I can download an app to my iPhone that I bought on iTunes as my kids watch an episode of iCarly. I'm sure that there are plenty of people that have never bought something on eBay and paid for it using PayPal. And, based on my experiences in the workplace, I'm one of the select group of people that knows how to install a network printer. I have a blog, a Twitter account and a Facebook page, but not everyone does.


The community theater for which I am president of the board fills the other seats on the board with people who's average age is 74, so I'm frequently in a position where I'm reminded of this gap in the use of modern technology. I mean, they still talk about people using checks...whereas I couldn't tell you if we still actually have paper checks attached to our bank account.


Here's the problem though, I'm pretty sure that -- hip as I think I am -- I'm really just the new generations' technology bitch. I say that because I'm pretty sure that my sons already look at me that way.


When either of my boys has a problem with their DS and they bring it to me, it turns out that they really are only looking for my advanced finger dexterity -- sort of like when they want me to write something because I can type faster than them -- but not for anything else. As soon as I move past the point that they were having trouble with, they rip the device out of my hands immediately so that I won't "mess anything up."


They watched a video that I edited on an earlier version of Final Cut and they thought that it was "quaint." They both grab my phone out of my hand because I'm "not going fast enough." They each complain about the speed of our wireless connection and of our now dated iMac (for the record, we were actually thinking of upgrading right up until the unexpected major expenses just prior to Christmas...see the post "My Holiday Luck").



Someday, I'm apparently going to be in the old folks home with my sons becoming angry because I don't understand the latest intuitive software that was just introduced. That's the bitch about getting old...you still think you're cool even when all facts point to the contrary. I guess I should've known that it was coming...I think vampires are stupid, not sexy, and I'm not actually interested in writing anything that has the word "zombie" in the title.

I guess I'll just keep fighting the good fight...reading my Sports Illustrated on my iPad, while listening to a podcast on my smart phone and Tweeting about the whole thing. I'm going to fall behind but it won't be because I'm not trying.

Now, if you'll excuse me, Marty wants to show me how to access classic "Donkey Kong" through the Wii.