"Technology…the knack of so arranging the world that we don’t have to experience it." Max Frisch

      Change is a terrible thing.  One gets used to the way things are and then it changes and nowhere is this evident than in technology.  I remember (I think) the awe I felt when the rotary dial was replaced with push buttons.  Could life get simpler than this?  Modern smartphones can microwave a pizza.  When you’re not old there is natural tendency left over from our infant days – not doubt implanted by evolution – to be curious about new things.  That’s how we learned to control fire and the ballot box.  But when you’re old, figuring out how a new gizmo works is labor, and besides you’re completely happy with the obsolete predecessor.  However, you recognize that a push button phone would cause derisive giggles from the grandkids in addition to the smirks generated by your bathrobe, so you strive to learn why the little line is blinking.

            But I think that for old farts the piece of new technology that is most baffling is the computer.  (My career was as a scientific programmer.)  As a volunteer for a couple of semesters I was part of the teaching staff at the local university that offered courses for “senior citizens” in computers.  In that role, the question I dreaded most was, “Do I single click or double click?”  I wanted to scream, “TRY ONE AND THEN TWO!”  It’s not Einstein’s theory.  (I’m a physicist.)  But I may be unjust.  The truth is I don’t know the answer.  My fingers just seem to have the knowledge built in.  I don’t even think about it.  It’s like Michael Jordon shooting a basketball.  If you have to think, you’ve failed.  Michael looks better in shorts than I do, however.  I've never seen him in a bathrobe.

There is a popular misconception among the mature that a computer is really a bomb just waiting for a particular sequence of keystrokes before exploding and destroying all life on earth.  This misconception comes from an overdose of Road Runner cartoons in our formative years.  So, the belief is, one should always hesitate before a particular sequence and ask, “Have I done this sequence before?”  If not, it could be the trigger.  “And why is that little line blinking?  Is it trying to goad me further?”  “ Instead of using email maybe I could just telephone the kids?  Ah, but my phone is busy microwaving my pabulum, so – ‘Do I single click or double click?’”  Those were tough courses to teach.

But old dogs can learn new tricks and we “senior citizens” (Are there sophomore citizens?) have learned more than we realize.  Take microwaves, for example.  Did our mothers ever cook with a microwave?  Most of us can use a microwave – especially if there is only one button.  And high-definition-digital-TV-over-broadband coupled to a blu-ray player.  Well OK, maybe some of us are behind the curve on that one, but wait and we’ll all be aces if it sticks around.  I think the argument can be made that we old farts are just being prudent and waiting to see if the new technology will linger.  Microwaves have earned their stripes but remember (as I do, I think) 8 track tapes, 5 ¼” floppies and zip drives?  Why waste our time learning about something that’ll see the setting sun before we do?

Changes also work the other way.  Many things that were very useful and completely adequate disappear – or almost.  Drive-in theaters are one.  What technology replaced them?  There was no better milieu to share with a date on a weekend night - except, perhaps the cemetery.  You’re all alone in a confined space.  Nothing could replace that.  Seatbelts would’ve helped but they hadn’t been invented yet.

Vacuum tubes were great.  I know transistors and printed circuits have replaced them, but a vacuum tube caused problems the ordinary person could fix.  There was a real feeling of accomplishment in taking the back off of some gigantic electronic gizmo, removing a few tubes and checking them at the local drug store  (Every drug store of any merit had a tube checker.), to find one was bad, replacing it and have the gizmo work again.  You felt like a man returning from the hunt dragging a woolly mammoth.  When was the last time you took a printed circuit to a drug store?  Some changes are definitely for the worse.

Speaking of drug stores, what happened to the drug store with a counter where you could order a strawberry soda?  Where did they go?  You could see the clerk make it – not pull a prepackaged factory manufactured object out of a freezer.  Sometimes the clerk was a not-old lass.  However, you might have to mow the neighbor’s lawn to get the quarter to pay for the treat.

There will be more great inventions and technology in the future.  Someone will dream up a way one can use a camera without hooking it to a computer.  It may even have the film inside and after you take the shot the photo will eject automatically and you can have the finished picture right in your hand wherever you are - no cables, no software to install and you don’t have to worry about the computer printer having enough ink or the right kind of paper.  That would be nice.

© 2014 Lester C. Welch