Confessions of a Technophobe

All of those years of beating up Star Trek geeks is coming back to haunt me. My phone doesn’t have a digital camera, or maybe it does and I just don’t know it. I’m fairly sure that my digital camera doesn’t have a cell phone. I never thought that I would have a cell phone, but I broke down when they became cheaper than home phones. I don’t do text messaging, not yet. When text messaging becomes cheaper than talking, I suppose that I’ll break down and start doing that, too. I’m not some sort of neo-Luddite, I’m not Amish, nor am I a rebel. I am just too lazy to learn the skills necessary to be on the cutting edge of technology.

I can’t stand to plug people’s names into my cell phone, so writing text messages is totally out of the question. About 99% of the names in my cell phone directory are misspelled because I fucked up when I tried to enter them. I haven’t figured out how to make corrections so when my phone rings and the caller ID says ‘Mgjd’ I just answer it blindly. It turns out that it is Mike on the phone and the only reason that the first letter is correct is because that is the first letter on the keypad for #6. I don’t think the code breakers at the National Security Agency could read one of my text messages if I ever get around to sending one.

I don’t wear my technical ignorance like some badge of honor. To be perfectly honest it’s pretty embarrassing these days to be a tech know-nothing. I try to hide my ignorance like people do who are illiterate, and like those poor souls I find most of the modern world to be fairly bewildering. When I get into one of those phone calls that require that I punch in a bunch of numbers I just start pressing keys on my phone until an operator comes on and politely asks me what the fuck do I think I’m doing.

I was over at someone’s apartment the other day and they asked if I wanted to play some new video game. My screen character lasted about 2.5 seconds before it was shot, stabbed, garroted, and then gang raped (Video games these days are really warped). 2.5 seconds represents my entire video game career. Not only did I get killed immediately, I think I actually broke the game. I haven’t been invited to play again.

I have a brand new state-of-the-art laptop computer. I would say that I exploit about .001% of its capacities. That’s like someone giving me a space shuttle and I only use it as a storage shed. My prime objective with computers is trying not to break them. Let’s just say that not breaking computers is an art I have failed to master.

Television remote controls and I have never been on speaking terms. If you were to kick in the door when I am in a hotel you would probably find me watching the farm report just because that was the station that was on when I checked in. I just hit the power button on the TV and leave the remote control for people with engineering degrees from MIT.

Every time I buy some new bit of technology I tell myself that I am going to read the directions and learn how to use it, really use it. I mean, what good is a color photo printer if I can’t get it to print a page of text with a page number on it? I never learned how to program a VCR. VCR’s are all but extinct so I feel that my ignorance has been vindicated.

I’m a writer but I could write everything I know about Microsoft Word on the back of a postage stamp with a heavy felt marker. In the course of writing this short essay I had to rewrite several sentences because the first drafts just disappeared, vanished into cyber space.

I’m not stupid; I can learn stuff. I went to college. I got good grades. Maybe it’s not my fault. Maybe all of this technology just needs to be a hell of a lot more intuitive. Why should I invest the time to learn about some new gadget that will just go the way of the VCR?