You may know one. You may even be one yourself. I kinda-sorta used to be one…well, borderline, anyway. I’m talking about Luddites, those folks who despise technology almost to the point of throwing their cellphones (they wouldn’t be caught dead with a smartphone) out the window in anger and disgust. The name goes back to a character named Ned Ludd, an Englishman who was so distraught over the invention of the weaving loom, and the number of weavers it put out of work, that he went around smashing every loom he could find. Or so the story goes. Look it up…or rather, I should say “Google it” in the parlance of today.
I’m one of those Generation Xers that was well into adulthood before the “information superhighway” (remember that term?) became mainstream. I didn’t buy my first personal computer until 1999. I didn’t have my first cellphone until 2002, and just got my first smartphone this year. It’s not that I don’t like technology, it’s just that I lived half my life without it. I got along just fine without all those newfangled modern conveniences. Oh yeah, and I’ve seen all the Terminator movies, and you know how they turned out!
Then I moved to DFW.
I have a new appreciation of tech, mostly because of my absolute reliance on GPS to find my way around this (these) town(s). Trying to get back to the station from Addison one afternoon was my moment of clarity. The 21st Century punched me square in the mug.
GPS not working. Okay, I took the Dallas North Tollway up, I can just take it back down. Oh. Traffic report says there’s a wreck. Gee, is this a freeway or a parking lot? Okay, I’ll just get off here and find the next road going south…
Two and a half hours later, I finally got back to Victory Park. Next stop: the smartphone store to figure out what was wrong with my GPS.
Yeah, yeah, yeah…I know. “That’s letting a machine do your thinking for you!” Or, “You’re just asking for someone to steal all your personal information and your identity!” I’m not saying stop thinking for yourself and put your trust in Skynet. I’m not saying don’t use good judgment with a smartphone, in fact, I believe in using good anti-virus, scanning your files often, and not clicking on links from unknown sources. But lighten up, Ned. Not everything that’s new is bad.
