WordSisters

Category: Cell phones

  • “Why, in my day . . .”

    Growing up, I recall elders recounting tales about life before some innovation. Today, the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) is a hinge moment like so many technological advances I’ve experienced in the last 40 years. I look back on past breakthroughs with wonder and nostalgia. I’m trying to come to terms with current developments.

    1984 – Desktop Computers

    I roll my eyes when young volunteer coordinators enquire if I’m comfortable with computers. In 1984, my boss handed me boxes for an Apple IIe desktop computer and an amber monitor (orange type on a black screen) and told me to set them up so I could write marketing and training materials. 

    1989 – Internet

    Today, that old setup is quaint and humorous—a one-color monitor, 5¼ inch diskettes, a computer that didn’t connect to the Internet . . . because the World Wide Web wasn’t mainstream until 1989-90.

    When the Internet became commonplace, we used painfully slow telephone dial-up modems with their crackling static and rubber band sound. Modems meant I no longer had to courier work product files to my customers on diskettes, which had shrunk to 3½ inches. 

    1994 – 2001 – Search Engines and Websites

    In the mid-1990s, search engines like Yahoo, AOL, and Netscape came on the scene and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helped people, products, and businesses get found. Google started in 1998. It’s hard to imagine a time before Google, when research meant visiting a brick and mortar library to use printed resources that might be checked out to someone else.

    As websites grew common, having one for my business became important. A friend and I designed and rolled out mine in 2001. Several versions followed until I retired it several years ago.

    1996 – Cell Phones 

    For me, the next technological cliff came around 1996 or 1997 when small cell phones arrived. They made calls. That’s it. If you had the patience to tap number buttons repeatedly, you could eke out texts. No camera. No Internet. No email. No music. No maps. Next, I owned a different dumb phone that opened to a qwerty keyboard. Around 2005, I acquired a fancier flip phone with a camera. Woohoo! Before long my 35mm digital camera was obsolete.

    2007 – Smartphones

    The world shifted dramatically again when the iPhone was introduced in 2007—the best of the available smartphones. Cell phones had enabled me to keep up on client calls and emails seamlessly when I was away from my home office—in other words, an early version of remote work. Staying connected with family became immensely simpler too.

    2007 – 2008 – Facebook & Twitter

    The advent of social media—Facebook and Twitter along with their many step-children—has transformed the world. How we discover, understand, and consume news. How we see ourselves and connect with or demonize others. There’s no denying social media’s far-reaching impact. Despite my mixed feelings about Facebook, it’s where a number of readers find our blogs. 

    Now – Artificial Intelligence

    Evidence of artificial intelligence is everywhere—Siri and Alexa, helpful spelling prompts in texts and emails, blank-eyed, AI-drawn models in ads, and who knows how many AI functions we are unaware of. 

    AI makes me uneasy. But I don’t want to be a Luddite, so I’ve told myself I really ought to dig in, try to understand its scope, possibilities, and implications . . . insofar as any non-AI developer can. I’ve begun experimenting with ChatGPT as a research tool (think of all the data it accesses), but it’s never going to be writing my blogs! Count on 100% Ellen, all the time.

    Five years from now, when the next technological wonder launches, who knows what we’ll be saying?

  • Reclaiming My Focus

    Focus. It’s an ability I used to take for granted. But not anymore. For whatever reason—age, information overload, pandemic-induced anxiety—I’m just not able to concentrate the way I once did.

    Is the inability to do so a warning sign of cognitive decline?

    After coming across conflicting opinions online, that’s a question I plan to ask at my next physical. In the meantime, I did what I usually do when seeking answers, I found a book to read: Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again byJohann Hari.

    What I learned—that our attention is being stolen—was disturbing enough but the fact that Facebook and other social media companies have intentionally designed their sites to keep us online and coming back so they can maximize their revenue has prompted me to shy away from logging on.

    Despite this, Amazon knows what I’m reading, and Alexa often knows what I’m having for dinner. Google Nest knows if I’m home, and Google Maps knows where I’m at when I’m not.

    While there are some positives to this—for instance, I no longer have to look up and then print directions—I don’t like feeling that I’m being surveilled.

    So I unplugged Alexa and put her in the basement, and I closed out 60+ accounts I rarely use. I also unsubscribed from dozens of e-letters.

    And, after a University of Oregon study found that if we are focusing on something and get interrupted, it takes 23 minutes on average for us to get back to the same state of focus, I’ve turned off the ringer on my phone and no longer leave email open all day.

    The goal: to return my focus to what I really want to be paying attention to: my family and friends and the causes I care about.

  • Time to Rewire My Brain

    Now that hands-free cell phone use is the law for Minnesota drivers, I was faced with a choice: A) buy a new car with built-in Bluetooth technology or B) retrofit the one I have. I have no quarrel with the intent of the new law, but my mind boggles at how awkward the retrofitting is.

    I have an old car.

    My 2011 RAV4 is a prehistoric gem with only 75,000 miles on it. Definitely pre-Bluetooth technology. Until now that wasn’t an issue, because I seldom used my cell phone while driving. When I made or received calls, I connected my phone to my old-fashioned earbuds (the kind with wires) and stuck the buds in my ears. Simple hands-free calling. Decent quality sound. Yay!

    Now that’s unlawful, so I had to get a phone holder. The several articles I consulted pointed out that attaching a holder to a vent is hard in a RAV4. Besides, I don’t want to block the AC during Minnesota summers or the heat during Minnesota winters.

    My best bet was a holder that attaches to the CD slot. Mmmmk. I don’t play CDs anymore. I listen to the radio, not even Sirius. Or I use the oldest iPod you’ve ever seen for music and podcasts. The Smithsonian museum probably has one in their ancient technology display. Originally, I was saving all that memory on my phone for photos, not music.

    That’s only half of it. I also needed a Bluetooth speakerphone thingy to clip onto the visor.

    I have an old brain.

    Retrofitting the car was step one. My brain needs rewiring, too. In the olden days, cell phones were for talking, iPods were for music, and Garmin was for directions. I do realize that my iPhone 8 can do all of that—in one delightful device—but I have an unreasonable and balky reaction to being bossed around by devices even when they’re trying to help me. Until now, I hadn’t taken advantage of all that seamless wonderfulness.

    Now, if I want to call while driving, I’ll need to tell Siri (Dang! I never use Siri, so I’ll have to learn that.) How long before Siri mistakes, “Call Margo S.,” for “Call Martha Stewart,” who I’m pretty sure doesn’t want to talk to me.

    For music, I’ll have to reach under the cell phone holder to press radio buttons or convince my elderly iPod to talk to the Bluetooth speakerphone. (Oh wait, my beloved iPod doesn’t have Bluetooth capability, so it and the speakerphone aren’t friends. Sigh.)

    It’s 2019. Time to rewire my brain and how I approach calls, music, and directions. I bought the devices and they work–sort of–but they certainly aren’t simpler.

    Maybe I just should have bought a new, fully-equipped car!