I’m sure that most of ye are familiar with Apple’s latest offerings, the iPad and iPhone 4. Along with the iPod, iMac, these are things that I just don’t understand. Getting left behind in the infinite technological evolution is generally reserved for, well, older people, not people like myself, that live in the middle of it! Plain and simple, Apples scare me. However I am well aware that the fear is born from my own ignorance. I’ve tried to use their products, but they just don’t appeal to me. But it’s not just the products of Apple: there are lots of things that don’t suit me, like touch screens. I’m sorry, but no matter how fancy they are with their graphics and fancy fake phone call features, I just prefer the feeling of buttons on my phone when I’m texting.
But this is coming down to personal tastes and away from the heart of the matter, my fear of being left behind as technology advances. In some ways this is how older generations must feel about our one. It’s not just the actual technology though, the jargon that our generation uses nonchalantly must seem like an entirely different language altogether to them. Poking people, writing on their walls, linking videos, tagging photos, it must all sound insane, and that’s just social networking. Gone are the days when you took photographs of an event, left the camera in a press for a few months and then got the film developed. Nowadays, the moment is captured and relived in a matter of seconds thanks to the digital camera. And, more often than not, if we don’t like how the moment looks, we just take the photo again.
Maybe I’m just being a little resistant to change, but I think there is a lot to be said for the way things were. The excitement of getting a disposable camera developed, because for one you didn’t remember taking half the photos, and then having actual photos that you can physically hold in your hands and put into photo albums. Watching something on TV and having a shared experience with potentially millions of other people at the same time is another thing that has changed. While pause and rewind has no doubt enhanced our lives, not to mention series link, there is still something to be said for watching something happen “real time”. Plus if you’re watching sport, they have the tools to show replays, let the director do the work for you! I will never forget the scream I let out when my aunt tried to pause the action in an All-Ireland Football final, needless to say she hasn’t tried that again since.
So what’s the moral of our story here? I suppose it has to be, that as long as people are living technology will keep advancing, but the pace of these advancements doesn’t always suit everybody. We should always spare a thought for people who aren’t tech savvy. I suppose I would consider myself fairly handy with technology, it’s just the Apples I don’t get.
Of course our technophobe is only one of a very small number of people, young or old, male or female, who are finding themselves out ran by the modern age of social networking on the go, iPads and the latest video games – check out one of our earlier features ‘Gamers: Breaking the mould’.
Our technophobe will be back in a fortnight as she tries to get her brain around the new fad that is 3D cinema!
