One of the worst things about getting older—besides discovering that even your ears are getting wrinkles—is realizing that you have hit a wall in your overall “with-it”ness. Whether it’s when you turn on MTV and can no longer recognize a single person or when you spot 19-year-old hipsters wearing your favorite outfits “ironically,” it’s a tough path. But by far one of the most depressing moments is finding out that modern technology has left you totally confused.
There was a time when I proudly showed off my tech savvy to anyone who bothered to notice. I was the one explaining how the timer on our brand new microwave works to my dumbstruck mother. In 1987, I was the first of all my friends who figured out that you record an entire television show on your tape player if you knew how to prop it up against the TV speaker. I was basically the Steve Wozniak of hacking ’80s devices to make them cooler, like the hairbrush I duct taped to a handheld cassette player so I could sing along to Madonna’s “Dress You Up” and make it “look real.” I thought I was the bomb.
But then, something happened. One moment I was setting up our new camcorder and the next I was calling tech support in a panic to figure out which button on my new computer turned the sound down. The tech knowledge I had so prided myself on had flown out the window, right along with my Barbie Stylin’ Head and my neon paint-splattered Keds. By the time I finally figured out how to set the clock on the VCR, people were watching Netflix on their iPhones. I was left fumbling in the dark (mostly because I keep accidentally deleting my phone’s flashlight app).
This revelation is surprising to most people, since my profession involves quite a bit of work in digital/social media. Sure, that’s why I took 75 pictures of the inside of my purse today—because I am a tech wizard. At a cursory glance, I may look like I have it together when it comes to keeping up with Silicon Valley, but it’s all a thinly veiled ruse. A few years ago, I bought the best, most state-of-the-art laptop to blog and provide news content on five websites I edited, integrated through Facebook, Twitter, and countless other social media and news sites, navigating through information moving faster than the speed of light throughout the world.
But what did I get to keep all that organized? A crummy $1.99 paper desk calendar because I can’t figure out Google Calendar. (I still have an alarm that goes off at 10 a.m. on the 15th of every month to remind me I had a dentist appointment in 2011.)
While most people are captivated by things like the Mars rover and self-driving cars, I’m still trying to get my mind around the two-lane drive-thru thing at McDonalds. (They always know which car is at the window! It’s witchcraft, I tell you!)
And as much as I hate learning new technology, I’m convinced it hates me back. I consider things like GPS to be my mortal enemy. If I need to go somewhere, I look at a map. I don’t need the Knight Rider car to explain to me that I have to merge to get on a highway. When I have friends come over to visit and I hear them say, “Oh, I don’t need directions, I have GPS,” that’s my cue to sit around for 90 minutes, waiting for them to call, utterly lost, so I can endure this brain-numbing conversation.
Friend: Hey, my GPS says I’m here. Where are you?
Me: I’m at my house. There’s no car outside. You must be at the wrong place.
Friend: But GPS says I’m at the right address.
Me: Oh, then clearly it must be me, living at the wrong house here with all my things in it.
Friend: Well, this where GPS says you live.
Me: Wow, then I must live at that dumpster behind the gas station where you ended up because that’s where the dumb thing told you to go.
Five hundred years ago, illiterate sailors who couldn’t even write their own names and were basically insane from scurvy still managed to use maps that were nothing more than crude drawings of the ocean waves and giant sea monsters. They used nothing more than vague descriptions, passed on to them by people who spoke languages they’d never even heard of and still were able to figure out how to get around in places like the South Pole. My GPS can’t direct me to a drugstore four blocks away without taking me onto the highway driving in the wrong direction for 15 minutes to “avoid traffic.”
But even if I’m able to make the leap of faith and put my trust in whatever Orwellian device Apple or Microsoft convinces the world is as essential to life as water, one thing I know I will never be able to do is evolve the language I use to describe said devices. It is simply not possible. Allow me to explain.
The other day, an older relative of mine mentioned casually to us that we could “page him” if we needed anything. My boyfriend was dumbstruck. “It’s 2016; who still has a pager?” he asked. But I knew exactly what he meant. Of course he doesn’t have a “pager.” It’s a cellphone. It’s just that by the time cellphones came out, he was done upgrading his terminology.
As you get older, you give up calling new things by their new correct names. There comes a time when you stop caring about the efforts of corporations to constantly rebrand things. Because after so many years of nonstop upgrading and repackaging, you realize that everything new pretty much performs the same basic functions they always have.
It’s hard enough for me to remember all the important things I need to keep in my brain (where I put my keys, where I parked my car, why I left my house and drove to this parking lot in the first place, etc.). I don’t have room in there to remember to change “portable phone” to “cellphone” to “smartphone.” I still tell people to leave me messages on my “machine” (even though I’ve had voicemail for more than 10 years). Yesterday I asked my boyfriend if he had seen my “Walkman.” Sure, I meant my iPod, but to me any portable device that plays music through headphones is still a Walkman and will be a Walkman until the day the Earth stands still. I went to a mall a while back and asked some teenage girl working there if they had a “record store.” I have not purchased an actual vinyl record since 1987, but to me music will always come from a “record.” She was positively baffled.
Young people get really freaked out by the concept that when you start to get old, you no longer bother to upgrade your terminology. To them, the idea of using an outdated tech term is utter blasphemy. But little do they know. Heed this warning, smug tech-savvy millennials. One day you too will do the same thing. You’ll be telling your grandkids you “downloaded” some new song and those kids, who by then will probably be using a brain implant that stimulates the experience of music telepathically, will laugh at what a fuddy-duddy you sound like. Keep that in mind the next time I call your Xbox “the Atari” and you start to correct me.
Now, you will excuse me while I try to explain to the talking map on my pager that I do not want 700 pictures of my dog uploaded to my LinkedIn page.
Rebecca Rose is freelance writer and satirist who has written for Cosmopolitan, Jezebel, Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, Marie Claire, Elle, Seventeen, Redbook, and many others. Her origins are largely unknown. Some people suspect she was raised by a pack of wolves, except it is highly unlikely that wolves would put up with so much drinking and swearing. Contact her via Arts Editor Joe Payne at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 3-9, 2016.