Technology Advancements? Part 1- The Gadgets

Let me grab my pizza from the microwave and turn on my iPod. There that's better.

So a rather shocking incident inspired this post. You see, at a funeral this year, the minister took out her iPad. Not her Bible. It was in a pretty green case, too.

Now, I get that the iPad is easier to hold, handle and had all her prayers, notes and scriptures handy. Convenient, yet... why did this make me uncomfortable? I love technology and feel we should maximise it, yet a part of me felt a line was crossed. Maybe it's my love of books, but a Bible is a symbol and I needed that comfort in that moment. The iPad, threw me off.

Now technology advanced rather quickly in my lifetime. I do remember getting our first computer at school. The thing was stupid. It only did what I commanded it to, and that C-PROMT screen was using a language that didn't make sense. And why was there an apple on it? No one knew. I used a word processor to type up my first articles, and the idiot lost all my work in a power surge, and no other machine can read those disks so I spent a month retyping the few stories and the one novel I wanted to save which I'd had on a hard copy, and back then there were no programs to help with this.

Now I have a notebook, hybrid, a tablet, a phone that thinks it's smart, a PC, a printer that scans, copies (although I hardly print anything anymore), and faxes-- I'm not bragging, these are just the tools I need for some unknown reason. I don't use CDs or disks, and my kids think records are decorations. My kids are versatile on all PCs and MACs, they use cell phones and this conversation horrified them;
"Hey Mom, how old were you when you got your first cell phone?"
"33."
"Ah, that was last year."
"Yup."
"Why didn't your mom buy you one, were you bad?"
"No, they didn't exist."
"That's horrible, how did you text each other?"
I won't tell you the rest, but know it traumatized them to know I had to pick up a phone that was tied to the wall and sit and talk. How did I play video games with my friends, or compare homework?

I became a writer after the days of THE TYPEWRITER. I can't imagine typing up my stories on a typewriter. No. Not with the amount of typos I make. I can type as fast as I think. Not all the words are spelt properly all the time, and yes, form and from happen at awkward moments. But! Using technology, I can easily fix these. WORD SEARCH. FIND AND REPLACE. My new computer gives me a list off the side, so I can see every time I used a word at a glance. What a time savior. Oops, I mean saver. Easy to fix.

I feel good about myself when I know I can write yet save trees. Millions of them. Because I don't have to print that first draft until I'm ready for a hard copy. In fact, last five books I sent to my Kindle, no need for the hard copy. And I recently learnt I can authorgraph digital books!! WOW!

Formatting is much easier thanks to technology. I set up margins, word spacing, line spacing, so everything is automatic. There are programs to help with grammar, punctuation, and spelling. If nothing else, they get my brain thinking in a new way. Of course, I don't rely on them, but they help sometimes.

Speaking of help, there are some incredible dictionaries online, aren't there? Give you the word origin and everything. Wow. I'm in heaven.

Photos are at my fingertips, (yes accessible by that phone who thinks it's smart). My albums are not crowding my cupboards anymore, they are all digital. And! I can't lose any because they are backed up. That's right, paranoid people like me came up with a solution. Yay!


So many changes so quickly. Are you finding these leaps and bounds in technology a hard adjustment? Is it ruining your life or improving it?

6 comments:

Jess said...

I can see how the iPad at the funeral might have been a bit...jarring. I feel the same way about technology~ there are great things, but I also find myself longing for the days when a kid had to sit in the kitchen to talk on the phone, when the whole family would hear a phone ring if someone called to ask your kid to hang out. Instead, you get all these conversations and plans happening via text and then then kids just say, "Yeah, Billy X and I are going to __. We need a ride." "Oh really? That a fact?" And it's hard to watch how painful it is for a teen when their phone device breaks--they can feel so helpless. My stepdaughter even wrote a poem in high school called "security blanket" about how the teacher taking away her phone was like having a security blanket taken away.

Can you believe that we once had to look up information for school reports in (*gasp*) encyclopedias?

Okay, so it may sound like I'm venting a little, but really I love all that we're able to do with technology. I just wish we didn't always appear to *need* it so much :)

Jon said...

I'm all for modern technology, but a minister using an iPad at a funeral is tacky and disrespectful. I'm sure she didn't intentionally mean to show disrespect, but she should have used common sense.

By the way, I remember an ancient time when the typewriter reigned supreme. Once in awhile I tend to miss those less complicated days.....

Tanya Reimer said...

That's a good point, Jess. It IS scary how much we depend on technology. Great stories!!!

I did ask her about it after and she said it was easier to haul around. Funny how easy has gotten complicated.

Anonymous said...

What a great way to illustrate the changes we've seen and that our kid no nothing about. The Bible on an iPad is a tough one. It's convenient, but it feels wrong somehow. Yet all of us are about convenience nowadays. Why should the pastor be the only one not to benefit from technology? No easy answers.

-Vicki

writing and living by Richard P Hughes said...

As long as all this technology works the way I expect it to, it's great. But, when it doesn't, I curse it vehemently.

Suzi said...

The first time I saw a tablet at a a church service threw me too. Wasn't a funeral though, just a regular service.

I agree that using a real bible feels more natural. It feels right. And a table just doesn't.

Plus, then i wonder, oh, does he have his email open? Is he instagramming? okay, probably not, but you never know.