In recent days, I’ve found that I’ve sent email messages to some unintended recipients. Thankfully, none of it involves national security, and if Hillary Clinton is reading, please disregard, Madame Secretary, and my best to Bill.
In the early days of home computers, it was fairly straightforward. We did have a little mix-up when my wife and I were in graduate school at the same time. We both used the name “journal” when we saved our work, and hers wiped out mine on the floppy disk. Remember those? It was an Apple II G – great machine that now seems like a quill and inkwell as we balance our checkbooks and research meatloaf recipes on line. I know what you’re thinking – my God, why meatloaf? (My wife likes it.)
Folks that program technology now try just so darned hard to make our lives easier. So, in an effort to facilitate, I’ve discovered that in sending emails, one that I use has a tendency, when I send to multiple people, to add names it thinks I might like to include. Unless I actually take off their names, they’re on the list. That’s not always helpful, particularly if I’m writing ABOUT them to someone else. I have got myself into trouble several times in the last couple of months, although in one or two cases, they’ve stopped speaking to me, which is for the best. So, what is this compulsive need of technology to do what it thinks we want, rather than allowing us to just do what we intended.
Part of the problem, and in many cases, is that technology today is the hoarding mechanism of the 21stcentury. Our computers, tablets, and phones save EVERYTHING. After that, they want to anticipate our needs by taking the next step. Even cable tells us, “You watched this last week, so we think you’d enjoy these shows too.” Really? Just let me flip channels aimlessly like I used to, making random decisions based on the title. Ten minutes in, I’ll change again. That’s my system. Don’t tell me what you think I’d like. I went grocery shopping early one morning, taking along my trusty cellphone after a number of reprimands had been issued by my wife and daughter that I hadn’t taken it and was thus out of the communication beltway. In the car on my way home, my daughter called to ask if everything was ok. That’s strange – she was in DC while I was in New Hampshire. What’s up with that? The truth emerged that my phone, all on its own, mind you, had called home repeatedly – the home incident report counted about 15 repeat calls from my phone. At the time, of course, I was travelling up and down the grocery aisles, blissfully unaware of this. My wife, at home and aroused from her slumber, was yelling into the home phone to attract my attention, on the assumption that I’d either been abducted or had a heart attack. The phone was safely in my pocket, so I wasn’t likely to hear the yelling, which in retrospect is hilarious. Anyway, my daughter, a/k/a Walters Tech Support, calmly explained that a) I needed to reset the phone so it wouldn’t robo-dial home, and b) be very nice to her mother when I got home. A scary thought occurred to me later – if the phone was calling home, who else was it calling?
In another enlightening and a bit frightening incident, our state driver’s licenses were up for renewal this year. The state DMV now has an online renewal platform, making this much easier for us old folks. My wife went to what she thought was the DMV website, which popped up first on the list. Turns out, it wasn’t. It was something with an official sounding name like DriverRenewal.com., which assisted people in renewing online, of course for a fee. You have to open the website, and in tiny letters, it tells you that this is not an official government website. Let’s just say that after several terse emails and unhappy phone calls, she got her money back and her license renewed. You have to look for those little boxes that say [Ad] next to them to avoid an “Oh crap – what just happened?” moment.
On a note of “how did they come up with this name?”, I’ve noticed some really interesting naming rights in technology. Someday, someone is going to look back on this era and wonder exactly what went on here. For example, Dogpile is a place where you can peruse websites easily, while DuckDuckGo apparently, according to their ad, helps you protect your privacy. We now have the capability to search anywhere and everywhere indiscriminately and still live the fantasy that our privacy is totally protected and secure. Let’s give Mr. Putin and his minions a round of applause. I read in the newspapers that the Chinese are catching up to the Russians in internet hacking. Come on, people. We’re falling behind in the hacking race. Let’s build a firewall and make somebody else pay for it – it’s the American way.
We should move on to my absolute favorite, Auto Correct. Just so you’ll know, Hillary isn’t “reading” in the first paragraph, she’s “ready”. Thanks so much, AC. When I’m using the computer – as I am now, it’s not a gargantuan problem because I often reread, edit, and have a chance to correct the corrections. It’s typically when I’m texting, which I do with “Mr. Pointer” because I’ve never been able to do it effectively with my thumbs, that AC steps boldly forward to change entirely what I intended to say. It often injects a sexual element into otherwise innocuous messages. I think the people that created this feature really need extensive therapy, if they haven’t already been listed as Level 3 offenders. Texted my daughter the other day to see how her “presentation” went. This corrected to “proposition” – not exactly what I meant. She also indicated when we’d gone to a film festival and I was on a coffee run that she wanted “soy latte”. I was texting back what was intended to be confirmation, and that came close to grief and possible jail time. Thank God the folks at the NSA were also on a coffee break. For those that wish to read some of the more interesting text changes, one can view the site, DamnYouAutoCorrect. My favorite is still the one that changed Epi Pen to Epic Penis. Again, the techies that created AC definitely need to spend a little more time developing healthy social interactions.
Technology today is double edged sword that makes lives easier and impossibly difficult. I say, let’s take back technology from the professionals and put squarely in the hands of incompetents like me. Let me say what I want to say, and send it to whomever I wish. Don’t assume, technology people, that you know what I want, because often I don’t even know. You can’t anticipate confusion, so don’t even try. You can’t “manage” my lack of technical skills, so give it up. I still text in complete sentences with punctuation. You can’t even imagine that, much less deal with it. Redial is as tech savvy as I get. I struggle with Caller ID. I have lots of pictures of my feet, high quality pictures all, taken entirely by mistake. I’ve only recently figured out how to use the navigation feature on my phone. I reloaded my donut shop app multiple times until I had an available balance in the hundreds because I didn’t know how to stop it. When it comes to helping me out here, I’m thinking . . . . . . . .NO!.
I'm Thinking...No! 