I’m being pressured to throw away all electronic devices and go live in a cave in the forest. The one instigating the rebellion is the tiny voice that sporadically echoes through the cob webs in my middle-aged brain and whispers, “They’re all out to destroy you. Run away now.”
The current wave of frustration was caused by a few exasperating problems: my credit card number was fraudulently taken and used to purchase sports equipment in Delaware and a tourist trip to Australia. Then my cell phone died. Then my computer got a virus and went black while I was working on an important project. If I lived in a cave, I’d never experience these annoyances.
It took several days to deal with the issues. My computer returned from the repair shop with a perfect screen and a hefty repair bill. The credit card company canceled the card and the debts, and my cell phone just needed to be recycled. A 10-year-old child could have handled all these problems while simultaneously creating a video and texting 100 of her/his closest friends.
It’s a challenge to keep up with technology, especially because I grew up thinking a keyboard was on a piano, a ram was in the pasture, a cookie was something to eat, and the one telephone in the house was attached to the wall. I wrote papers and short stories on a manual typewriter and was positively giddy to get an IBM Selectric typewriter. Now I take my Ipad on vacation and input, format, copy, and insert my blog with attached pictures onto the World Wide Web. Amazing.
All this marvelous technology that allows me to instantly research facts, pay bills online, book an airline flight, and watch a video on my cell phone also attracts evil scoundrels who steal credit card numbers and send malicious viruses through the Internet. The answer is to spend more time with my small grandchildren. They know how to download an app for that.
