Catching Idle Butterflies

Techno-junk

Among my self-nicknames, I describe myself also as a techno-junkie. I love new gadgets, many times spending money I shouldn’t - and don’t really have - on the latest of technologies. Then I will spend hours if not days completely focused on figuring out everything the thing can and can’t do.

My latest is my phone, going so far as to annoy people with text and picture messages. Nor am I done. My brain is now percolating with devious ideas on pictures I can send to partyof5dj. *snicker*

I’ve always loved to figure out the inner workings of mechanical devices. As a pre-teen and teenager, I took apart my typewriter a dozen times, finally the twelfth time, I boo-booed somewhere and it never worked again. I also took apart calculators and radios. Anything that screwed together, I unscrewed to poke through its innards. Does that make me screwy?

In college I hadn’t changed. Although my hubby and I had to scrape by I managed to save enough money ($2500) to buy a brand new PC. When it came in, I flew home to set it up.

Dave came home a few hours later and about had an aneurism when he saw what I had done. Instead of sitting at my desk and playing games or whatever, my brand new computer sat in pieces on the bed.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked me.

I wondered at his angry and startled tone and said, “The instruction manual said I could.”

True story. The manual did say I could open the case and poke around inside to find the memory, hard drive, etc. It was a Gateway, and with it being mail order, the company figured the user would have to go inside to replace or upgrade parts at sometime. It actually recommended (after 25 pages of warnings) to open the case and determine where all the parts were.

Dave, still startled, backed out of the room and mumbled, “Don’t come crying to me if you can’t put it back together or it doesn’t work.”

I shook my head with a grin. I knew what I was doing.

That computer lasted me all through college, and ended up giving to my sister 5 years later.

As I grow older, though, I don’t take things apart like I used to. I’m also not so much of a techno-junky. I still love new gadgets, but I don’t drool over the latest and greatest like I once did. I figured out how behind I am by reading the latest PC World magazine yesterday. Much of the stuff they talked about I'd never heard of, let alone know how to use if I ever needed to.

In some ways I get tired of technology. Many of it makes our lives easier, but at the same time, what used to be a simply tool has become complicated. Look at cell phones now. It’s not enough to make a phone call any more. We all now have to have text and picture messaging, GPS tracking, internet capabilities, and taking video and digital pictures. I don’t “turn on” my new phone. It actually boots up like a computer, where I have to wait a few seconds before I can do anything with it.

Still, we come to depend on all this technology after a while. What was once a fun gadget has now reached "necessary tool" status.

God forbid should we ever lose it. Do you ever think about that? Do you ever take a look around and wonder what you would do, what would happen to us if we suddenly didn’t have all these tools and gadgets?

It used to scare me, but not so much any more. Mankind has not only survived but thrived without technology for thousands of years, we could do so again. In fact, I sometimes think we’d be better off without many things such as video games and television. Maybe families would start talking and playing together more if we didn’t have so many other things to distract us.

That’s what I'm thinking about as I listen to XM radio playing through my satellite dish and 32" television, type this entry from my laptop, and soon to post on WdC through my DSL internet connection . . .