I get it. I do. There have been many technological advances since the Eighties. And yes, most of them have made our lives easier. Streamlined. Faster. And sure, I’ve embraced some of them. I’m not completely living in the past. I see the upsides. After all, you’re reading this here, via some form of the digital world—either the internet or an app. Not on a newsletter that I taped together, mimeographed, and then stuck in the mail.
(I know you’re thinking that’s oddly specific. It’s as if that might be something I did…)
I came of age in a time that digital things were more for play than seriousness. And frankly, not to be trusted.
Who can forget the Speak and Spell? We literally fought over that thing because we thought it was a toy. It had buttons and made sounds. Only to find that it was teaching us how to spell over three hundred commonly misspelled words while we were playing what we thought were games? What’s the fun in that?
Simon? That robot toy literally introduced an entire generation to anxiety. Faster and faster, it went until it was impossible to replicate the pattern. And then that terrible buzzing sound let you know you’d failed.
The Little Professor Calculator?
I know it should have been more than obvious that one was teaching us basic math. But it was cute. It had a wrist strap! And yet again-learning designed as games? Another bait and switch!
Oregon Trail? History, reasoning skills and humanity? Taught to us by a computer? Please. I died of a snake bite as soon as we crossed the Mississippi. But a game of Little House on the Prairie on the playground? I’d mix up a potion of mud and rocks that would draw that venom right out.
(Now don’t take this as a full-on bash of Oregon Trail. There was no greater joy in elementary school than when your teacher wheeled the one computer the entire school shared in on a cart and you knew you were going to get to play that game. I’m just saying, real life play was still where it was at for me. And Oregon Trail was like the gateway drug to a strictly video game culture.)
And we all watched Short Circuit. We know what happens when the computers get things wrong. (I’m kidding, but also not completely.)
The thing is, I’m an analog girl at heart.
Not for everything. I am not without the love of some digital creature comforts.
For example, navigation is way better with technology. Before, we were like road pirates with a paper maps. Now? The nice robot lady tells you step-by-step directions. Stoplights, distances and turns, though she is very optimistic in my ability to know how far eight-hundred feet is. Like truly. (Maybe the Little Professor could have worked on distances and not just addition and subtraction?)
Just spit balling here, but maybe someone could come up with a navigation system that says things like “see that blue house up on your left? Your turn is right after that. But watch out because there’s a driveway before the road.” And then maybe just a nice “congratulations! You made it!” instead of just “end of route.” And maybe the voice could be Mr. Rogers. What a dream that would be.
But I digress.
Analog.
I’ve already discussed how much better landlines and passing notes was than their modern-day replacements, so I won’t bore you by revisiting the topic. But there are so many other ways analog is better.
I will forever prefer a paper calendar to the digital one. How are you supposed to see an entire month in relation to an obligation if all you ever see are dots. Ends of months and beginings are sometimes in the same week! Who has time to click on every dot on every date to see if you actually have something going on or if it’s just some benign computer programmed event like “daylight savings ends”?
Where’s the thrill in having a different color marker for each kind of activity if all your doing is tap-tap-tapping on your phone? Boring.
And movies?
People who have only streamed never knew the absolute joy of the pop and snap of the VCR when you put in a movie on a Friday night. Never knew the joy of the phrase, “please be kind, rewind.”
Now we spend more time trying to find something to watch and what streaming service carries it then we do watching the movie. And if I have to enter my email and password? Forget it. I’ll find something else.
Yes, streaming music is crystal clear, and you can hear every tone and beat as intended. Seamlessly.
But there was something so appealing about the pop and crack of putting a needle down on an album. Of having to rubber band pennies to the arm to keep the record from skipping. It took effort and ingenuity to listen to an album multiple time. We literally wore them out.
And while I do on occasion use the notes feature of my phone, nothing compares to a paper to-do list. Crossing things off as you complete them is so much more satisfying than deleting them. Where’s the sensory satisfaction of drawing that neat line through a completed task?
Or of physically circling a word on a word search?
Or doing a crossword puzzle in pen.
Hell, I know people who do jigsaw puzzles on their iPads now.
How will they ever know and get over the thrill of almost finishing a puzzle, only to realize the last piece has gone missing?
So, while I’ll begrudgingly admit to technology making some things better. Easier.
I’m not sure easier is always better.
Easier should give you loads of free time. To do activities. Like crossword puzzles, and jigsaw puzzles and fall in love with robots…