Dislike of Technology
 

Not sure where to begin with this, but there are areas where I dislike the proliferation of technology. I deal a lot with the elderly and, for those who have trouble adapting to change, technology is not always friendly.

I've never lived in a "new" house and I find that so many things these days must be plugged in or charged. Houses I've lived in didn't even have the necessary amounts of outlets to plug everything in that needed to be charged so things ended up with unsafe amounts of powerstrips and extension cords all over the place.

Telephones used to be one of the most reliable devices around. Power outage? No problem - telephone lines carried a safe & separate minimum electrical charge to keep phones working. Now all phones have to have batteries, they have to be charged, if they use a charger it has to be plugged in, if there's a power outage you can't charge your phone. Or you might have a house phone that works during an outage IF it's plugged into a modem and the modem has charged batteries - but cable companies give you modems with used batteries that often don't work and will charge you upwards of $80.00 to obtain new used batteries that often don't last long!

My mom keeps her cell phone next to her bed for emergencies. But she forgets it must be charged at least every couple days (she remembers that phones were plugged into the wall with one wire and they were always on). I've tried to explain that a dead cell phone will be of absolutely no use in an emergency.

Need a drill? Neighbor guy has the latest, most versatile, high-powered drill that does everything... BUT... oops, he forgot to charge the battery and it takes 8 hours to charge it. You've got the latest drill, you've got electricity, but you're completely out of luck because you don't have a hand drill or one with a power cord! (Or better yet, you're almost done with a job and the drill dies because the battery runs out of charge.)

Re: Dislike of Technology
 

So;) I'm thinking you don't have a refrigerator that talks to you? Ahh, me neither. They do make them and they even interface with a blue tooth device...Why someone would need to be interfaced with their refrigerator is beyond me. I think some people have way too much money to burn.

This reminds me of how my brother's family got "Alexa" - that entertainment system that you talk to.

That device made for such an uncomfortable family dinner get-together. I never want to enter another home that has one of those present for any type of social or family function.

First, there were the distractions by my sister-in-law & nieces trying to show it off by using it constantly (and thus disrupting every conversation) and second by the device misunderstanding the verbal commands and needing things repeated, clarified or expounded upon every time - which became everyone's only purpose for being there. It was so distracting, disruptive and dehumanizing that it overrode all human interaction.

It was like if Kevin Bacon came to live in your house and your family could never just relax and have normal interaction - it would always be: Hey everyone look! I have Kevin Bacon in my house, let's ask Kevin Bacon - he's a celebrity, let's include Kevin, let's ask him to dance for us, maybe Kevin's getting tired of always being included, etc.

Experiencing the Alexa thing was like trying to have a heart to heart talk with a guy who just got a new car and all he wants to talk about the entire time is his car and show you all the things it can do - that gets old for other people after about 12 minutes. Then, 2 hours later, he's still going on and on about the car and trying to figure out how to shut the alarm off!

Wow, I never heard of Alexa, what did it do exactly?

Ha, that made me laugh:D

They call Alexa an "intelligent personal assistant" - it does everything.
(Think of Miss Vicky's favorite movie: Her.) ;)

At my brother's house they were mostly trying to use it to request songs to play on its music system, but instead of enjoying a playlist of music it became an entire evening of interactive playtime with the new toy that couldn't get any of the voice commands right in lieu of any actual human conversation or connection!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Alexa

Re: Dislike of Technology
 

OK, read about Alexa, ahhh, not for me....sounds annoying all right.

Oh, another annoying thing is everyone has to YELL at it - like a lot of people do with their cell phones. I guess that's a natural reaction since it only seems to understand about 10% of what's actually said to it, so people start treating it like it's hard of hearing!

A few weeks ago late at night just as my iPad was about to run out of juice I suddenly noticed the lightning cord had frayed & was not charging the device. So annoying. Next day I had to run around looking for a store to buy a lightning cord from. Went to the next town over & bought one. Next day I noticed that my corner convenience store had 100s of the darn things. Now I always keep a spare.

Re: Dislike of Technology
 

The touchpad on my laptop either freezes or clicks all the wrong stuff.

We recently bought a new refrigerator, so we looked at all the new ones, and they have some now that have a monitor built into the refrigerator door. It looks like a TV screen, but it shows you what's inside the frig, so you don't have to open the door to find out what's inside. :facepalm:

This morning the living room TV wouldn't turn on so of course I turned to google for a fix. I unplugged the TV, held the power button in for 10 seconds, and then plugged it back in. It worked perfect but what the hell.

Re: Dislike of Technology
 

so you just dislike electricity, huh? me too.

Re: Dislike of Technology
 

Double-edged sword that will spiral out of control until we are all either Morlocks or Eloi. With that said, I love tech!

Touchscreen devices are convenient, but terribly inconsiderate to the visually impaired and elderly. I'm sure that will shift as the current generation gets older, having experienced such tech since birth, and with the recent addition of voice-only devices such as Amazon's Echo. I guess that's with anything though. My grandparents cannot handle a regular desktop computer short of eBay and email ...until the Yahoo home page changes its interface design again. when I am their age, I am sure that I will be just as lost with whatever the new mental holographic projection interface will be.

The old plug-in phones were good. You had them in a storm, unless the lines went down. As long as you have a 30%+ charge on your mobile though, you're good to weather the storm most cases. Ha...puns.

Tech itself does not irritate me. It is the EULAs that we all as users must accept to use the tech that freak me the hell out. Most people seem to just breeze past this terribly intrusive release of private information! That refrigerator that has a camera inside allowing you to bluetooth your stock on a mobile device? Yeah, it's also tracking and recording your eating habits. Among other things.

http://www.npr.org/templates/transcr...ryId=440305167

I never want a touch pad laptop, it means more physical work than just using a cursor and a mouse.

Talk about over use of non required technology, it's crazy! I've seen that too at department stores.

When I get a new refrigerator, I'm getting a 1950s style one. This is one of the retro models that are made today, love the aqua color.

https://bigchill.com/wp-content/uplo...eachblue-1.jpg

Re: Dislike of Technology
 

Remotes: before my dad passed away we got him one of these power lift chairs - it had a remote attached to it that looked remarkably like the TV remote. So my dad would try to change the channels with the chair remote and end up raising or lowering the chair. Then he'd get trapped in the chair and try to get out by raising the volume on the TV. To make things worse - I had to get my parents a new phone - the phone looks extremely similar to both TV & chair remotes. It's a world of confusion.

The last house I bought was because it had this in the kitchen. Reminded me of my grandma. Sure as hell lasted a lot longer than the new piece of crap I put into this kitchen, and still going.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...a58f05de07.jpg

Re: Dislike of Technology
 

I don't even have a camera on my phone, let alone the internet. I like to turn it off as much as possible, also - I don't wanna be interrupted. I also think technology has hurt music and movies. It's making people more robotic, and less educated. Social skills..

Also, it's made impossible to live without it, as if you don't have a choice. If you want to apply for a job, you have to have a computer/laptop, internet access... Also, I've noticed most people seem to "hook-up" via the internet. If say 99% use that, the 1% who wanted to meet their partner naturally won't be able to, since the decision is made for them.

And as mentioned earlier, the elderly are at a big disadvantaged. I'm pretty good with computers, but my mom has never used a computer in her life.

Of all the gifts I've gotten my mom over the last decade or so (High-Def TV, CD / cassette / turntable stereo combo, DVD player, DVD movies, new doorbell, new digital house phone with all the bells & whistles, cell phone, etc.) her favorite wasn't any electronics or tech item, but this:

http://odditymall.com/includes/conte...pener-6991.jpg

It's a manual jar opener and probably cost less than 3 bucks at the supermarket!

Re: Dislike of Technology
 

LOL. I got my mil this to keep her busy in the kitchen cleaning up crap she doesnt need to juice her home grown citrus

http://www.juicerselect.com/images/l...s-juicer-1.jpg

Just kidding. I got her this instead and she was so happy

http://www.barware.com.au/assets/full/3648.jpg

How about the perfect egg makers

https://www.williams-sonoma.com/wsim...g-cooker-c.jpg

what the hell is wrong with this?

https://s3.amazonaws.com/marketplace...jpg?1494960965

I have one of those, and it works great. I got mine at a flea market for 50 cents. :)