The Age of Technology (Sucks!)

Don't get me wrong, I am a lazy woman at heart so I really enjoy all these modern conveniences.  But I must admit that I am often overwhelmed by how much content is out there, and sometimes missing the old school social sites like McDonald's or the local supermarket.

The trigger for this melancholy moroseness?  Facebook.  I recently created a Facebook page against my will because my aunt went to Ireland and I wanted to see her pics.  Her answer?  Find me on Facebook.  Which I still haven't done!  I did the bare minimum to get a page so I could search for friends and family, searched for them, couldn't find most of them, and only check it about once a week.  Needless to say, I was astonished at how much time these grown, working adults with families spend on this social site.  Farming, empire building, and why do I keep getting requests for their lost farm animals???  Who has time to sit on their computer and do all the things I see on here?

I'm not a domestic goddess or anything, and I still don't have time to play on my computer.  In fact, I have to put off some household chore like laundry or something to get the thirty minutes every few days I do.

What happened to running into a friend at the grocery store on Saturday and chatting it up in the produce section?  Or having a couple over for a fun Friday night dinner and board games while the kiddos run around upstairs possibly destroying themselves and your property?  I can tell you why these things don't happen anymore - they are all at home playing Farmville!

I used to promise myself when I was a teenager that I would be one of those cooler adults who knew about the latest bands, fads, and new technology.  And then I got to be an adult.  Well, I'm a big liar!  I can't stand most of the new bands that are out, but I do recognize their songs because they've all been done before!  And the fads??  Since I was a child of the eighties I most definitely get the fads, and no, they don't look good on women my age (see my earlier post).  Technology???  Most definitely not!  Oh I love the new cell phones and can tell you all about them. TVs and some computer stuff, but websites?  Social sites?  Twittering and all that??  Are you serious??  Okay, that's a lot of question marks.

Does anyone remember why we stopped sending telegrams?  Because they invented the telephone.  And now with texting and Twittering, we've gone right back to telegrams.  Instant ones to be sure, but still, it lacks that depth of connection you get when you hear another person's voice on the other end.  This may explain why kids today have no social graces.  Because you don't have to play nice online, you can just go find another guild, Facebook friend, etc.  And don't get me started on those people who have like 600 friends.  Baloney!! 

We are dumbing down as a society because the only way we ever progressed in the first place was by meeting new people, learning about new cultures, and trying to be better for each other.  With a faceless, heartless computer screen conducting my relationships, what consequences do I face when I am rude, hateful, or selfish?

Be careful of your friend technology!  Remember, the aliens always start out friendly in the movies just before they suck out your brain!!

It's Not My Age, It's Total Capacity

Okay, you know when someone forgets something or loses something they say, "I'm getting old"?  I have figured out a better way to explain our "senior" moments.  It's actually from the computer era so any of you computer nerds (like my husband) will enjoy it.  It is called "exceeding capacity".  If our brain is like a computer hard drive, then I'm sure most of you out there have experienced the lack of capacity problem at least once.  Well, I have decided that is what is happening to our brains.  Especially moms (and any single dads out there).

Just like your computer has stuff that is constantly running in the background, so does our brain, but instead of security programs, possible viruses, and windows framework it's schedules, meals, bills, etc.  And depending on the weather, possible viruses whether it be ours or our family.  Think about it.  If you work, you're in charge of everything you do at work, remembering your kids' school holidays, programs, science projects, math homework, daycare days, weekend plans, sports or dance, doctors appointments, daily nutritional needs, amount of clothes before you absolutely have to do laundry, household inventory for food and supplies, and then there's more if you're married - your husband's schedule (because apparently he has the capacity of a Windows 97 PC), his daily needs (including food!), dry cleaning, in-laws, birthdays, anniversaries, world holidays, cousins, nieces, nephews, friends, bar-b-ques, hunting season, sports teams' names, seasons, and scores, pet needs, separate tv, music, video game needs for each individual, not to mention housework, gardening, notes to the teacher, notes from the teacher, notes about the teacher.....need I go on?  And then your husband has the nerve to gripe when you forget to mention the car needs an oil change!!  Or your kids whine when you forget their favorite cereal in the $400 worth of groceries you shopped for, bought, and are now carting in ALONE!!

Just remind them that even an hundred years ago, women of the house, the mistress or lady, wasn't required to do any of this alone.  From the lowest born to the wealthy, everyone helped.  The nobles had servants to tend to the cleaning, the kids, everything.  The mistress was only required to oversee it all was done properly and in a timely manner. 

So the next time your boss asks you where that presentation is or you forget what your husband just asked or you can't finish a conversation with a friend because your "hard drive" just crashed, instead of saying you're getting old, say that you've reached capacity.  And just like with computers, you need to be restarted.  Then find a nice, quiet place, lie down for five minutes, and when you're boss asks what you're doing, you can honestly say, sending an error report to Microsoft!!!