Monday, April 23, 2012

Not a Luddite

I am married to a man who is not a Luddite.  He understands the importance of technology to improve accuracy, speed processes, make discoveries, etc.  He does not fear technology, but he does not really embrace it either.  For years I have had to help him with his computers.  He could never understand the concept of menus and folders and lost every download.  He has come a little way from that.

He is an outdoors type.  Loves to garden, fish, birdwatch, hike, and explore.  But this love has caused him to destroy and/or lose about 8 mobile phones over the last 10 years.  The most recent he bought this past year and was told it had a gorilla case.  Well, he cracked the screen not once but twice!  So the other day he comes home with a smart phone at some bargain price, of course.  My husband has little sales resistance.

Smart phone?  Is this like Adult movies?  Reality television?  Fat free?  Free lunch?  Microsoft Works?  Wireless Cable?

The phone may be smart, but the user also has to be smarter.  The problem is that my husband has had this phone for about 5 days and it is a nightmare.  It took him the entire day to figure out how to answer the phone and make calls.  It has taken 5 days and he finds the icon with the videos that show him how to use the phone, except the videos go too fast for him to understand them!  I have avoided the phone entirely in self-defense, but picked it up off the table today and asked what the various portholes were on the back.  He said he didn't know and then he picked it up and looked at them closely and said one was the camera lens, the other was the camera flash and the long one on top was the earphone and the little hole on the bottom was the microphone.  I held it to my head to test the length of the microphone and earpiece for my head.  He then inhaled sharply and said,  "Ah, maybe one of my problems with my calls is that I have been holding the phone screen side to my face when making calls!  I have been having trouble hearing and they have been having trouble hearing me."  OMG!!!!

Yesterday his 'business' partner who has been lobbying for him to get a smart phone for over a year suggested that he download an APP that allows business conferences among individuals and groups.  This project kept him busy most of the afternoon.  Seems he had downloaded it dozens of times, but couldn't find it.  The download folder is a fairly new concept to him.

This is a man who is very smart.  He has several graduate degrees in difficult subjects, has been a fast enough thinker to actually have saved two lives, and has been able to keep track of major concepts when running large meetings.  But he is also the guy who back in the late 1980's asked a colleague how a 'virus' could live in a computer?  He asked if it had found a way to live off the plastic.  He is also a person who finds details chaotic and a bother.



I will stick to my old fashioned Razor phone which was all the rage almost a decade ago!  I can rest assured that it is not smarter than me.


21 comments:

  1. Anonymous1:01 PM

    Hilarious!!! What a hoot! Is he for real???

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  2. I am so sorry. I live with a computer guru who is now learning various new systems in a day. I've been hiding with my tiny clamshell Samsung.

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  3. Oh my, Tabor, I have no idea how old my cell phone really is - it spends its life in the glove compartment of the VW and is just for emergencies.

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  4. I don't have a cell phone because I don't want to be bothered by callers when I'm away from home. This is what I want you to think. I don't have a cell phone because nobody ever calls me. Sob. Sob.

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  5. That is funny. I just bought my first smart phone, the galazy note and I LOVE it. I don't know how I went that long without progressing.

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  6. When I told my 10 year old grand daughter that my phone did not take pictures, she was aghast. When I told her my phone did have texting capability but that I had never used it it and didn't even know how she shook her head and kind of gave up on me.

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  7. I am pathetic when it comes to new technologies. I learn to use only what I must and my cell phone, which I only rarely use (where I live there is no coverage), is still a mystery to me.

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  8. I just recently forced myself to text, because my daughters don't like to phone. My fun phone conversations are with my contemporaries. They didn't do the teen on the phone thing the way I did, so I am bowing to their preferences.
    My phone, a Noki clamshell is smart, but not very. The guru of all that sort of thing around my house is my husband.

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  9. The cell phone in pocket is only for emergency. Know how to turn it off and on and that is all.
    My computer of 5 years - I can write, read and download my images from my 3 year old camera.
    That is all I know and all I want to know....

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  10. Oh my.. how familiar this all sounds. Frank just got smart phones for the two of us a few months ago. I'm not sure he knows how to answer it yet. Or that just might be what he tells me...

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  11. The most difficult thing about watching old movies is wondering why the endangered actors don't pull out their cell phones and call for help.

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  12. I'm still not convinced I need an iPhone. There are times when I'm confounded by it while my non technical husband has mastered it. I don't do with with technology but I know I must make the effort if I'm going to keep up with the world. Grrr.

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  13. Granny Annie suggested I called round as today I did a somewhat similar post.
    My husband could be yours 20 or 30 years on.
    Thank you I really enjoyed the post.

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  14. laughing - not at, with. I can make a call on my cell, and I can answer it. It's much smarter than I and stays in its case unless I'm traveling, when it comes silently along for the ride. I usually turn off the sound when I open it - accidently of course. Someone smarter than me put the volume button right where my fingers go to open the &*%%$# thing.

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  15. Thanks for the laugh! Finally someone else is being tech challenged...
    I still have an ancient flip phone- took me weeks to figure out how to get to blogger n has itty bitty pics of the web on it if you wait long enough... There just aren't enough minutes for the learning curve sometimes! Razor would be a big upgrade for me!

    A coworker had me ask his iphone by voice if it was going to snow today (it was forecast on tv I reported to the drivers) but the phone kept saying it couldn't answer the question- Some gizmo!

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  16. I have a very smart husband who has a head full of useless facts, a wonderful vocabulary, the scores of untold operas, etc. etc.

    Technologically, he is a complete virgin and has no desire to have intercourse with any digital object any time soon.

    What is it with these men? Is technology what they have wives for?

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  17. I'm with your husband here. Heck, I don't even carry a phone, anymore! Everyone I know has a mobile phone, if I need to reach them, I can, otherwise, they can leave a message on my answer machine..

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  18. I would have that same razor, color and all, if I hadn't dropped it in the snow a couple years ago, to find it 3 days later not working. Actually, I still have it in a drawer and can view the pictures stored on it.

    Thanks for a great laugh! I don't know what was funniest; maybe the virus living on the plastic in the computer.

    It reminded me of a woman I worked with years ago, who asked how to use the computer mouse. She was holding it in the air, aiming it towards the computer like a remote control.

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  19. PS: Yes, please take a picture of your overloaded night stand. :)

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  20. Anonymous7:42 AM

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    Hi. I also have a very old phone. I had it for 4 years already. It's kinda malfunctioning already though.

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  21. Computers (inside phone cases and on our desks) make our lives easier and save us time.

    Heh.

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