Technology Dependence

Home to Stay

/ Ann Coleman / 84 Comments

I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty smart dog, so it’s hard for me to admit that I’ve been fooled.  And to make it even worse, I’ve been fooled by the people I love most in this world:  my mom and dad!

I know how lucky I was to be adopted into a human family.  I spent time in two shelters, and I can tell you that no matter how well a shelter is run, living alone in a cage is VERY hard on us dogs.  (And the situation is even worse now, because most shelters are both full and short-staffed.)  So on the whole, I count myself lucky.

But like most dogs, I believe that my parents’ number one priority is taking care of me.  I want them to stay home, all the time, with me.  Dogs are social creatures, and we like having our loved ones around us.  Always.  So you can imagine my dismay when I realized that Mom and Dad think nothing of leaving me at home alone, sometimes for hours, and sometimes even for days when they go off somewhere they call “vacation.”  (Sure, they hire a dog sitter to come over a few times a day, but the rest of the time, they’re off having fun on a beach and yours truly is sitting at home alone.)

And I’ve made my feelings known.  I give Dad my best sad face when he leaves in the morning, but he just pats me and says, “I’ve got to go to work now, Finn.”  Mom does the same thing when she leaves to go to the shelter, or the grocery store, or any of the other places she finds it necessary to waltz off to without me.   I can whine all I want, or do my best to slip out the door with them, but it always ends the same way:  they leave me.

But here’s the worst part:  I’ve discovered my parents weren’t being honest when they said they had to leave sometimes.  These days, people can work from home, and have everything they need, including groceries, delivered directly to their house.  They can use the internet for all their entertainment, and even “go to church” while sitting at home in their underwear, staring at the screen.  They don’t need to leave the house to see their family and friends, because they can use “FaceTime” on their phones.  The truth is, there is absolutely no reason, with the possible exception of an occasional emergency, for my parents to ever set foot off their property again.

Now all I have to do is figure out a way to teach my parents about this basic truth.  I know they’ll resist giving up their vacations, but seriously, every day spent with me is just like a vacation, right?  And they do love holding their grandchildren, particularly the baby, but I’m not against having the little ones come to our house.  I rather like them, honestly, and not just because they leave trails of food in their wake that I can snarf up.

It won’t be easy to convince my parents never to leave home again, but I bet I’ll be successful.  Because when you come right down to it, I really am a pretty smart dog!

Love,  Finn

No Longer In Service

/ Ann Coleman / 85 Comments

DSC00209I lost track of my cell phone last Friday morning and I haven’t seen it since.  I’m not sure exactly what happened, but I think I left it in the bathroom at the animal shelter when I was changing clothes after finishing my dog-walking shift.  But whatever happened, my phone didn’t come home with me and I didn’t realize it was missing until Friday night.

Naturally, I was panic-stricken.  That phone had all my contact numbers, my texts and a whole lot of pictures.  I wasn’t sure exactly what kind of havoc someone could wreak with a stolen cell phone, but I imagined all sorts of scenarios ranging from hacked emails to identity theft.  The fact that I had my cell protected by a pass code was a small comfort, but I figured a truly dedicated thief could crack that code eventually.

It didn’t help when I tried to call my service provider to report my phone stolen or missing only to have an automated voice tell me that my account password was incorrect. After three tries, the voice offered to reset my password and send it to my phone.  And while I’m sure whoever stole my phone would appreciate that very much, I personally didn’t think it was such a good idea.

Eventually I got a real live person on the phone and he graciously walked me through the process of turning off my old phone and ordering a new one which I could pick up on Saturday afternoon.  In the end, I was only without a cell phone for less than twenty-four hours, and I even got to keep my old phone number.

Looking back on the whole thing, I’m kind of embarrassed.  Not just because I managed to lose my phone in the exact same bathroom where I had dropped my previous cell phone in the toilet when it fell out of my coat pocket.  (Although I have sworn that I’m never going to use that particular bathroom again, since it seems to be very unlucky, cell phone-wise.)  What I was most embarrassed about was how worked up I got about losing a phone.

When cell phones first came out, I thought they were convenient for making calls while I was away from home, but I vowed that I would never be one of those people who are glued to their phone.  I remember rolling my eyes at a particularly pushy salesman who told me that my cell phone would become the most important thing I owned.  Yet here I was, a few years later, panicking just because my phone was gone.

Yes, it had my texts, my photos and my contacts on it, but I was able to recover most of those from back-ups.  And it was worrying to know that some out-of-town friends who were dropping by on Saturday morning might be trying to get in touch with me, but they also had the numbers of our home phone and my husband’s cell.  Ultimately, the only real problem I encountered by losing my phone (aside from having to pay for a new one) was the mild inconvenience of not being able to easily and constantly communicate with all my family and friends.

I’m almost sixty years old, which means I have spent more years of my life not having a cell phone than having one.  And yet I have obviously managed to become far too dependent on this particular device, and I find that a little disturbing.  Maybe I need to “misplace” my phone every now and then just to remind myself that I really can get along without it. . . at least for a little while.

Broken Connections

/ Ann Coleman / 42 Comments

DSC01566I have never thought of myself as a huge fan of technology.  I get annoyed at people who spend too much time staring at their tablets or cell phones; I prefer to shop at real stores rather than buy things off the internet, and according to my son, I have absolutely no understanding of what Wi-Fi is.  So I was a little surprised by just how much my life was disrupted recently when a storm that blew through town knocked out my cable and internet connection for over two days.

At first, I didn’t mind when I realized that the cable was out, meaning I couldn’t watch television or log on to the internet on my computer or phone.   For one thing, I was just grateful that our house had power, since so many of the homes and businesses in our area didn’t.  (Some lost their power for days, ours was out only for two hours.) And I kind of liked the unexpected break from technology, especially since it meant I had more time to do things like read a good book and tackle some of the chores that have been on my to-do list for a long time.  I never quite realized just how much time I wasted “surfing the net” until I suddenly couldn’t do it anymore.  And I may have lost my instant access to the news, but that meant that I was also less stressed and worried than I usually am when I actually know what’s going on in the world.

For a while, I was feeling a little smug about how well I was coping without my cable TV and my internet access.  But I’m embarrassed to admit that it wasn’t very long before I was also feeling a bit anxious.  We had no service on Thursday, which is one of my usual days to publish a blog post.  I actually began to fret about not doing that, as though thousands of readers around the world were going to be logging onto my blog, only to be disappointed to find no new post.  Worse, I had no way of reading or commenting on the many blogs I follow, and worried that I might be offending my fellow bloggers by my absence.  (Because no one can possibly feel they have a successful blog unless they know I’m reading it, right?)  I’ve gone “off the grid” before, but I was always able to let people know ahead of time.

I was supposed to go out to eat with some friends, and  wanted to call the restaurant beforehand to make sure they had power. My first thought was to check their website to get the phone number.  Only I couldn’t do that with no internet, and I also couldn’t remember what I did with all my old phone books.  I needed to buy airline tickets for an upcoming trip, but I knew I didn’t have the patience to try to do that over the phone, since it seems that most airlines have exactly three customer service representatives answering their phones these days and calling them usually means waiting on hold for a day or two.  In short, I kept thinking of things I needed to do, and wanted to do, but no longer actually knew how to do without the help of the internet.

Which brought me to a rather startling realization.  I may not have any idea how my computer or cell phone actually works, and may believe that WiFi is something that exists solely to allow me to play solitaire on the internet, but I have become just as dependent upon technology as everyone else.  I like to think of myself as an old-fashioned sort who has a “take it or leave it” attitude towards technology, but that’s just a sham.  I never thought it could happen, but I’ve become addicted to the internet.  And as far as I know, there’s no twelve-step program to help me cope.