Tuesday, March 01, 2011

Losing My Grip



The HEB by my house is fondly referred to as the "old person HEB." This store recently underwent a renovation, going so far as to rearrange everything in the store. During this time, the elderly patrons frequently sported baffled looks and could be seen shuffling to-and-fro, shaken out of their concisely planned shopping routines guaranteed to put the least mileage on their walkers. Frequently one would grab your arm, look pleadingly into your eyes and ask in a slightly frantic tone, "Can you please tell me where the rice is?"

And now, every time facebook upgrades, I find myself staring at the screen like an old person in HEB, wishing someone would point me to the rice.

I'm not yet even 30, but I can already feel myself losing my grasp on technology. Sometimes I have a hard time figuring out the functionality, and other times I just don't understand the point of it. And with that last statement, I have fully resigned myself to being an old person.

It first started with The Twitter. I still don't really "get" it, nor do I quite grasp "trending" and all the # stuff. My problems accelerated when I was thrown from a PC world into a work environment that uses only Macs. Suddenly, simple tasks like flipping between windows and locating documents became a struggle. And just yesterday, another idea I don't fully understand yet: Check-in apps announcing where you are at every moment of the day. I remarked to my father that life is becoming too easy for middle school and high school boys - they don't even have to work to figure out where the girl they're stalking is. He said, "That's because teenage boys are the ones developing the software."

And that's when it really sunk in: I am way past my technological prime. What once came naturally now requires great effort. The fluid ease with which "young people" inherently learn to use and incorporate new technologies is leaving me in the dust...or in the rubble of antiquated processors.

And with that, I'll kick start my series, "The Fact That I Now Refer to a Segment of the Population as "Young People" is Troubling: You kids Stay Off My Lawn!" This series will explore the issues of rapidly advancing technology and learning curves for those over 25.

It's gonna take a lot more than big buttons on a cell phone to keep me relevant.

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