A Pain in the Whatchamacallit
By Tiny Ruisch
Everyone knows how much I like technology. One of the few things I don’t like about new technologies is how it has made many of the other things I like obsolete. Does anyone still fly a kite? Every now and then I see kites for sale in one of the local stores. I can’t remember the last time I actually saw one flying in the air. Like many other things, technology has largely replaced them with drones or virtual reality simulations. The days of going to the park and watching the kids showing off their kites are history. These days, they’re playing with their tablets.
I recently lost another of my favorite activities to technology. Never again will I be able to take my Grandson to a circus. People are spending their money on other forms of entertainment. Of course, the entertainment mostly relies on technologies such as fast internet to deliver movies, virtual reality, CGI movies, etc.
When I was younger, it was a treat to ride a train to the city for a day of shopping with my parents. Although, you can still ride the train in some areas, modern technologies have made it more difficult. In this modern age, we go everywhere in our high tech automobiles and airplanes. Passenger train routes are limited in locations and times. Never again will we routinely see a steam locomotive on the tracks.
My son in law and youngest grandson are X-Box fans. In their house they have three of them. I get a laugh when they play a game together. Each of them is in a different room and they communicate either over headphones or by yelling across the house. It makes me nostalgic for the old Atari console. You hooked up your controllers and competed with a player in the same room. I can’t remember the last time I played a game of cribbage, chess, monopoly, etc. that wasn’t on a computer screen.
I’m writing this column while sitting in a rocking chair on my back porch. Porches are another thing that technology has largely made obsolete. When we do sit on the porch, we seldom just sit. Instead we are looking at our mobile devices. I remember the days when the back porch was a place to sit, talk and just watch the world go by.
Have you heard that vinyl records are making a comeback among people that take their music seriously? Today’s younger generation has no idea what a record, cassette tape, reel to reel, 45 RPM, etc is. Almost all music is listened to online of downloaded as an audio file. Technology strikes again.
Of course, technology has also replaced a lot of thing that I won’t miss. I like having a large library on my mobile device. Automatic transmissions make driving easier. A computer in your pocket makes lots of things easier. There is so much good that it almost sounds like a future column.
Thanks for reading.