Technology and Me

Some Snowy Friday Takes about how I love and hate my phone, how I don't love electricity, those two car ads, a funny reel, and a short read the comments pod

Well, it sure is a winter wonderland out there. Heavy snow is careening down from the sky. All the schools are closed, and I’m making the stunning and brave decision to sit right here in front of my computer with my feet on a hot water bottle. I have a lot of work backed up, don’t you know, like lost writing projects and email, maybe even some filing. This seems like an excellent moment to do it. Matt, bless him, is going to the gym because he’s such a good person.

Let me see, can I find some takes?

One

This is where it all went downhill:

File: Independent Telephone Company (1905) (ADVERT 188).jpeg - Wikimedia Commons

She looks so happy, poor fool. She doesn’t know that in a mere hundred years leggings will become trousers, no one will be wearing hats, and that darn communication device will be in the pouch attached to your thigh, as much a part of your movement through life as your own hands and own feet.

Two

So, as I mentioned one or two times—that’s how uncomfortable and preoccupied I’ve been—on Monday as I was bending myself into the shape of all the machines at Planet Fitness so that I can retain decent levels of mobility into old age and not succumb to osteoporosis, heart disease, and hopefully not cancer either, I dropped my phone on the edge of the side by side contraception and shattered the screen. This was a terrible circumstance to befall me, of course, and I was deeply grieved because, like too many people wandering around the wastelands of modernity, my whole “life” is on the dumb thing. Texting, Signal, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Audible, Apple Pay (I know, I should probably use cash, but my life hasn’t worked out that way), Voice Memos, the Substack App, Discord, and the only way I know what time it is. Oh, and the app by which I am admitted to Planet Fitness, the app by which I read kids’ papers, the app by which I access the bank, and the other two by which I send people money, and the one by which I listen to the Bible. All of it was in little bitty shards of glass so that, as I navigated around, I was reminded of my frailty and the misery of my estate, that I am but dust, and to dust I shall return.

Three

The thing is, we were supposed to wait a bit and trade in these wretched devices in order to upgrade, but I had already dropped Matt’s phone and broken his camera, so his was out—but still, maybe mine could be worth something.

It isn’t now, tragically, though I may try to see if I can get the screen replaced if that is even allowed so that a teenage child can use it like an iPod or something.

So, Matt bit the bullet (what a dark and terrible analogy that is) and ordered new phones, which arrived along with a payment plan, just like if we were buying a car, and last night, instead of drafting a post for today, I sat there trying to transfer my whole life from one device to another. And what I discovered is that one reason I had been hating my phone was that the screen was so small that I couldn’t see anything on it. This new one is quite big and I am able to easily read most everything without having to take off my glasses or pinch out. Too bad I’m about to give up scrolling for Advent.

Four

The existence of technology is one of the things I dislike so much about the world as we live in it now. Unlike most of my generation, I enjoyed whole swaths of time during childhood away from electricity. When night fell, it was time to go to bed. When the sun rose, it was time to get up again. If you wanted to cook food, you had to make sure your propane bottles were full and you had matches. If you wanted to go somewhere, you mostly walked. Sure, we did have a car to venture into far-off places, and a minute fridge, but any water we wanted had to be hauled out of the well, and the only way to know what was happening in the world was to drive to town 40 (or was it 20?) kilometers away to fetch the mail and catch up on gossip.

Intervals in America as a child did not make me love electricity. Nobody looked happier for being able to go to the mall. The food wasn’t better or more interesting. And the televisions were loud and full of people shouting and singing annoying songs. The hum of fridges and lights and televisions wears on me still. Whenever the power goes out, which is so rare, I breathe a huge sigh of relief, until I realize I can’t charge my phone and then I enjoy a discomfiting mixture of happiness and despair, like the very mixed blessing of being able to be in contact with everyone I know all at the swipe of my finger.

Five

Speaking of technology, did any of you see the Jaguar Ad?

Gosh, this feels so last decade. And also thrown together. Why do they have to look so miserable? And the clothes are just awful. Do you suppose whoever made it is stealing all the money and using it to buy an island somewhere? What other explanation could there be?

Ok, I’m sure you’ve also seen the heartrending Volvo ad:

volvocars

A post shared by @volvocars

I was surprised at myself for enduring through the whole three-plus minutes, and then watching a second time because I’d been distracted and forgotten to turn the sound on, and so didn’t know what was happening. It is schmaltzy, of course, and the baby has to be a girl whose highest and best good will be to follow her dreams. And yet, it’s quite moving how the paradigm so subtly shifts away from the purchasing of a car in order to achieve higher and better self-hood and onto all the people who will have to be around and in those enormous chunks of machinery. The man and the woman give way to the child, and the woman in the car hits the break in that breathless second of time to give way to the person crossing the street who has a whole life, a whole world to inhabit. Instead of each person enacting their brightest and best self, they are choosing each other and suddenly there is a whole panoply of very human images—of grief and joy, of confusion and order, of love.

This, it seems to me, is what the stupid Jaguar ad thinks it is doing, but because all the people are not really people, but are badly dressed, miserable techno-cyborgs it doesn’t work. There isn’t even a dumb car. They are sitting on some brown lump of earth. Is the maker of the ad trying to troll the whole world? Maybe Jesus came down and made it, unwittingly, so we could finally put the woke, as some think is happening, away.

Six

Matt keeps sending me reels from The Spicy Nonna on Facebook. This is the kind of technological mending I love best (click to go to FB because I can’t embed for some reason):

Seven

And, finally, it’s been some weeks since I’ve read the comments—find the pod below the line. Have a great weekend!