“Hello. My name is Deb and I am Technology Dependent.”
From my Apple iPhone to my programmable Zojirushi rice cooker, I am surrounded and often overwhelmed by the devices in my life. I admit that I feel a strong need to control and master them, enforcing my will on their shiny plastic and metal bodies. I have long been a jiggler of toasters and once threw a Comcast Remote Control across the room. I want to share the story of my latest technology crisis in hope that it might help others.
An Unhealthy Relationship From the Start
My desktop computer’s name is Big Mac. He’s an elegant all-in-one model, which means the dual processors, hard-drive, and everything else, is hidden inside a slim, desktop case that fits like a tight white t-shirt stretched across muscular abs. He has a glorious twenty-three inch, high definition flat screen. It was love at first sight when I saw him resting casually on the polished granite countertop at the store. His big fruity insignia and sleek body led me to overlook the potential pitfalls of his ultra contemporary design. I looked deep into his screen and was lost in wonder. He is the most beautiful, ambitious, hard working computer that I ever aspired to own.
You see, I can’t see well anymore. My formerly keen eyesight has dwindled in middle age to a hazy blur making most everything on pages and screens look like a fading black and white photo. Big Mac’s generous sized, sharply focused display is critical for my work designing newsletters. To continue to work with words, I need them to be big, bold and held steady right in front of my frowning face. That’s Big Mac’s job and these days he frequently lets me down.
My Love Machine
Just two days after his One Year Warranty expired, Big Mac began to taunt me. First it was a screen flicker just brief enough to make me feel like I was losing my mind as well as my sight. Then it progressed to a full screen blackout, not sudden, but a sexy slow motion tease done in reverse. Big Mac covered up in inky blackness from his lower right corner until just a glimmer of light and tantalizing application icons showed in his upper left. I turned him off, then on again… the notorious hard reboot that is supposed to cure all. I allowed him greater periods of rest time. Nothing worked to restore his fabulous high definition display.
Eventually, wracked with concern, I succumbed to my caretaking instincts. I wrapped Big Mac in blankets and seat belted him into the backseat of my Subaru for a trip to the computer clinic at the mall. I cradled him in my arms like a sick child and blathered on to the sympathetic technician like a distressed parent before I surrendered my machine for an overnight stay and a thorough checkup. I kept my cell phone nearby waiting for a reassuring call pinpointing Big Mac’s disease and offering me hope for a cure.
“Maaam,” the adolescent tech shop worker said over the phone, “there is nothing wrong with this machine.”
“Oh, so not true,” I blurted. “If it’s not Big Mac, then it’s me!”
The technician’s embarrassed silence was deafening. I returned to the shop to retrieve Big Mac to live out his days at home with his mysterious ailment. I gave him a new power strip to protect him from untimely surges and cosseted him with fans and rubdowns like a Saudi Sultan. Big Mac continued to display his greatness off and on. I told myself that I would care for him until the end came and that I would practice loving kindness and patience in his presence.
Enough is Too Much
One day, as I worked towards a deadline with Big Mac flickering maddeningly in front of my reddened eyes, I raised my fist in a moment of blind fury and thumped him right in his glossy, aluminum clad face. He was momentarily stunned, then burst brightly to life as attentive and well behaved as an eight year old on Ritalin.
I’m ashamed to admit that we went on like this in the privacy of my writing room for months. Every time Big Mac acted up, I thwacked him upside the head with the fleshy side of my clenched hand. I told myself that I was not acting in anger. I began to believe that Big Mac actually liked the rough stuff.
I remembered 1960’s television sets with their honey colored Early American cabinets. Their wavy, irregular reception responded to a firm slap from above to stabilize the infuriating horizontal bounce of The Ed Sullivan Show. My God, was this evidence of multigenerational technology abuse?
The Jig(gler) Is Up
My worrisome secret reached crisis proportions last week when my neighborhood computer technician, Brian, made a house call. We worked together to defrag and update my mild mannered laptop, made specifications for a new telephone system and assessed the deplorable state of our out-of-date non-HD family room entertainment center. Encouraged by these little fixes, we reprogrammed a truculent garage door opener and diagnosed a faulty security camera at the front door.
“One last thing,” I asked Brian. “Will you take a look at Big Mac? Just a checkup.”
I stayed behind in the garage to put away the stepladder. In moments, Brian was back in the doorway with a look of deep concern on his youthful face. I scurried into my writing room like an addict covering a habit.
“Have you seen this?” he asked, gesturing as Big Mac’s screen flickered to black before our eyes.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” I said. My fingers curled into a ball that I struggled to hold in my jeans pocket.
The next moment I was overcome by the urge to thump, my shame unabated by the young professional witnessing my unorthodox fix. And it worked! My thwack hit just the spot on the lower left corner to make Big Mac’s screen burst into his usual brilliance. I smiled victorious with a rush of satisfaction.
“This can’t go on,” Brian said. He ran his hand through his floppy hair and chose his words carefully. “You’ll damage the hard drive.”
“But what can I do?” I pleaded.
“Take a video on your iPhone, upload it to the store, copy your emails to the whole organization.”
“Of course, I should,” I sighed, knowing full well that I wouldn’t.
Big Mac is now well outside of the warranty period, I know that the repairs would likely cost more than I want to pay. The productive life of this machine is, sadly, only about three years due to planned obsolescence and we are more than half way there. But I am reconsidering my damaging need to fix with force. I am trying, one day at a time, to develop a healthier relationship with technology.
Six Steps to Recovery from Technology Abuse
- Admit that we are powerless over technology – that our lives have become unmanageable.
- Make a comprehensive and honest inventory of the devices, programming steps, or malfunctions that confound and infuriate us.
- Accept that there are resources available: courses, tech experts, younger people, books, and tutorials, which can make learning possible in our mature years.
- Offer direct amends to the innocent appliances we have harmed in any way.
- Meditate on an ongoing basis to preserve a healthy body and mind in the face of an increasingly technological world.
- Find a great local tech support person like Brian and safeguard his or her cell phone number with your life. Watch, listen, ask “dumb” questions and take notes if technology is not as “intuitive” for you as it is for the younger generations.
My tech expert, Brian, had never seen a Baby Boomer bang on a piece of equipment and his distress was palpable. Learning to live surrounded with technology should one day be as natural for us as lighting a gas range with a match or waiting out a flooded carburetor in a 1965 Mustang. Watch the young ones do that if you want a laugh.
Tags: recovery steps, technology abuse
