Originally posted on February 17, 2010.
I don’t have anything against technology, technically speaking. Heck, I was part of that field myself, churning out software for the hapless, before I jumped over to the other side. However, as much as the technological advancement is transforming the world into a Global Village, in my opinion, it’s also turning us all into collective imbeciles.
Email, twitter, facebook – they are all the rage now, right? I agree that they provide the easiest means to keep in touch with old friends, make new ones, and generally keep abreast of happenings around the world.
Here’s my gripe: all these networking tools do as much harm as they do good. Let me elucidate: can you hear the sender’s tone of voice in an email or on a facebook message? No! Exactly! So, sometimes you do not know whether they’re being sarcastic, or earnest, or just blah when they express their opinions.
And the smiley faces can only go so far — when someone winks at you via a smiley face, do you take that wink as a “hey, co-conspirator”, or “I hear ya”, or “I’m leering at you right now, baby!”? There are instances where all three (or more) of these scenarios apply to that winking/hung-over happy-face that keeps blinking at you from your screen. What’s a girl gotta do in that situation?
Is there anyone out there, who has used any of these electronic media as a means of communication and not regretted or second-guessed themselves the very second they hit the “send” or “publish” button?
It’s scary the way you lose control in a matter of nanoseconds. If it were snail mail, you’d have to sit down to write it neatly, which in itself means that you’d have put careful thought into what you wanted to say. And then you need to find an envelope, print the address, put a stamp on it, and then seal the envelope. This provides plenty of opportunities for you to rethink your strategy, or just change your mind about sending the letter/message at all in the first place.
One of my very good friends sent me an email two days ago asking me why I was not “approving” her comments to my blog site. I quickly checked my Inbox (like I needed to! I’m almost surgically attached to it, especially these days, for various reasons) and there were no pending comments for my site. I mulled over this and thought about it some more, but couldn’t figure out which black hole had swallowed up my friend’s comments. And then something occurred to me, and I quickly checked it out. Yup, my suspicion was right – the software “protecting” my blog from spam got overzealous and had decided that her comments were spam. Why? No idea. There was not even an ounce of advertisement or as much as a hint of a URL for a product in her message. Argh!
And then the other day, I was busy typing up something using a word processor (I’m not going to name it, but I’m sure you all know which one I’m referring to), and when I looked back, I couldn’t believe that I had typed so badly. When I looked at it more closely, though, I realized it was not me who was the bad typist. See, the word processor thought that it knew my mind better than I did myself; every time I typed something that it, in all its astuteness, knew to be obviously wrong, it patronizingly smirked behind my back and set about correcting my mistakes.
(Ooh, just had a brilliant idea!) So, from now on, let it be known that ANY mistakes that you see in my posts (including idiocy in opinions expressed, along with typos), are due to my word processor taking over control and spewing its infinite wisdom onto these pages.
And cell phones – don’t even get me started. That’s a whole series of posts for another time. I’m not touching that one. Not today. Not with a long pole.
I know I’ll sound extremely shallow and clichéd saying this, but I’ll say it anyway: Technology! Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.
Or, maybe, it’s just me and my control issues.
Nice post, Hema! I’m not very good a sarcasm in person or online. I pretty much avoid using it because I don’t want to be taken wrong.
The first week I was on Twitter I made a comment to a big time agent and had a typo in it…UGH! You can’t take it back once you’ve tweeted…
I’m always adding new words to my computer’s dictionary. The mg hf I’m working on is set in England which means some of the words are spelt differently, plus I’m using some (dialect) phonetic spellings.
Have a wonderful day!
Good Post Hema.
I agree. As much as I want to stay away from my laptop, I cannot ever give it up for anything else!
I better NOT start on that topic again… could do a whole rant/post about technology! ;-)
Thanks, Ladies! I’m happy to know that I’m not alone in this gripe :).
Sharon, good luck with trying to teach your software how to spell differently. (I have the same problem with trying to tell it that just because it hasn’t heard a particular name doesn’t mean that I’ve mis-spelled it!)
Haha! This is HILARIOUS! And I get what you’re saying here. It’s so hard to interpret some of the emoticons…
Thanks, June :). (In case you’re wondering, this smiley face means just what it is: a smile.)
I have the same love/hate relationship w/ technology. Nice post :)
Thanks, Patti. Welcome back!