Back in my day, you could get by with a pencil, a piece of paper, and a copper-bottomed knowledge of long division. Today, it seems everything from ordering a pizza to parking your car relies on some spaceship-grade gizmo with blinking lights and a screen that’ll blind you if you don’t hold it just right.
The problem, as best as I can see, isn’t that the world has become more complex—life’s always been a riddle wrapped in an enigma served in a hand basket—it’s the breakneck speed of technological advancement and the human race’s collective obsession with it. These days, kids are more comfortable typing on a touch screen than they are kicking a soccer ball around.
I can’t pretend that living in Schenectady, New York, has exposed me to the dizzying heights of urban life—Lord knows we’re more invested in Friday night football than the latest Snapchat filter. But even right here, I’ve been swept up in the technological tide. I’ve watched my beloved town trade good, honest American steel for half-baked tech startups. Factories shuttered while e-commerce warehouses sprouted like weeds.
Don’t mistake my meaning. Naturally, my job as an op-ed writer has been made all the more comfortable by technology. Research that took me days to complete, cross-referencing books at our local library and then typing on a clattering typewriter that left my fingers sore, can now be completed in mere minutes. To ignore or deny this would be like refuting that the earth orbits the sun. But a shortcut, ladies and gents, ain’t always the high road.
A memory spirals back, perhaps 20 years prior, to when my son, fresh out of RPI with a gleam in his eye and a computer degree gripped firmly in his hands, came home for Thanksgiving. He brought with him a contraption that he referred to as a ‘router’. The beast was meant to give us ‘blazing fast’ internet service. The installation process was exhausting. Wires ran amuck in our tranquil home, resembling a plate of spaghetti more than an organized tech setup. I remember sighing, missing the days of plug-and-play appliances and thinking to myself, “Whatever happened to simplicity?”
Fast-forward to today, almost everything in our lives interacts with a computer chip at some point during its workday. What’s brewing your coffee? A computer chip. What’s controlling traffic on Erie Boulevard? Yep, you got it, a computer chip. Let’s not forget about our cars, those glass-encased computer houses on wheels. Why, just the other day, my nephew’s car refused to start because of a malfunctioning sensor that deemed it too chilly to function. Back in the day, my tough-as-nails Ford would have coughed twice and then rumbled into life, regardless of a little nip in the air.
Now, I’m no Luddite who advocates ditching modern conveniences to return to a world lit only by fire, but I believe we’ve traded more than we’ve gained. There’s an art to doing things by hand, a tactile joy to cranking a gear or turning a page and smelling that old book must. We’ve traded those for screens that leave us bleary-eyed and minds so consumed by virtual avatars and digital amusements that we barely notice the world turning beneath our noses.
Do I dream of a world bereft of these gadgets, gizmos, and endless streams of information? Not necessarily. But I yearn for a balance, a melding of the old ways and the new, where people can appreciate the intrinsic delights of life and not be chained to their screens.
The average American, says a much-quoted statistic from the Nielsen Report, spends eleven hours each day interacting with media. If that doesn’t stun you, I’ll say it again—eleven hours! That’s more time than most people spend sleeping, eating, or socializing. Chasing the dragon of endless online novelty, we’ve become junkies strung out on the cheap hit of another person’s Instagram-perfect moment.
Everywhere I look, I see people seeking solace in their screens and the convenience they offer, divorcing themselves from reality. Even sunny Saturday afternoons here in Schenectady have been clouded by the hum of gadgets. The local park used to buzz like a beehive with kite-flying enthusiasts, Sunday painters, and hot-dog vendors. Now it’s filled with stationary bodies hunched over their screens, isolated from the beauty of a perfect fall day.
In the end, I yearn for a world that allows us to disconnect, unplug, and remember what it was like when a phone was just a phone—not a lifeline to a synthetic world. A world that cherishes the feel of a good book, the joy of handwritten notes, and the thrill of waiting for film pictures to develop.
Maybe I’m a dinosaur, a relic of an age that’s fading faster than the northern New York fall foliage. But in this ever-accelerating whirl of binary code, even a dinosaur can dream of simpler times. Something’s gotta give — eventually, the human psyche may not keep the pace with Moore’s law.
So, this grumpy old writer shall continue to see the world through his thick-rimmed glasses with his MacBook at his side (for the convenience) and typewriter within reach (for the love of keys under his fingers). There’s some joy to be had in the complexity—we’re exploring unknown frontiers, after all—but let’s not forget the beauty of the simple, the analogue, and the tactile as we blindly chase the digital horizon.
As for yours truly? I’ll be in my well-worn armchair, looking out over the town I love, remembering how it once was and dreaming of what it might be. Just ask, and I’ll spin you a tale or two. Yes, it’ll be slower than your fancy internet, but I promise it’ll be quite the ride.
