Tech Stress

It  comes every xmas. You have more devices than you can handle and each device requires a good week learning curve. You are overwhelmed and weirded out as you sit on your couch in front of Its A Wonderful Life with your Lap top, Kindle Fire, Ipad, Smartphone. You are trying to get those pictures to upload to flickr on your television while solving the problem of your password with your Starbucks app and why wont your G mail autopopulate on your IPad and isn't it weird the way your book disappeared that you downloaded on your Kindle and why in the hell wont the songs you downloaded from Amazon dump into your I tunes. And on top of that your IPOD is eating songs. You have a bad case of....tech stress.

Throw Windows Eight into the mix and you have a perfect storm. And all these problems are a time suck at the very time you want to spend more time with your kids and significant other. Just a minute honey...Im going to just check the email. Where did it go. It was right here. Why are there two desktops on Windows Eight? And where is the START button. And how come you cant close any of the apps. Better switch to the Kindle. But it is not picking up the WiFi. Now just a minute...let me just figure out why it doesn't see the signal.

And you feel strangely overwhelmed. These devices should make our lives easier but we become incredibly upset when a password doesn't work or we cant open our online banking. Someone might have stolen our identities or somebody tossed us off facebook or locked us out. Who can forget the image of people in New York after hurricane Sandy fighting over outlets for power for their smartphones. Almost like it was food and water.

And it is now. Tech is our sustenance and nothing less than being left behind is at stake. We only have so much time to master our new tech because something else is on the way. Well we do have the holidays. Now, lets see. That app that is supposed to block texting when Im driving is not opening up. I wonder why that is?

www.billhazelgrove.com
 

The Black Ice of Tech

You know what I am talking about. That black ice that looks back at us from our latest bit of tech: our Ipad, out Kindle Fire, our smart phone, our Ultra book. It is a polished granite of black ice that mirrors the world in heartless black and white. We see a strange irony in the very device we are using to transport us to points distant reflects back to us our very terrestrial existence. We see our face and it is not something we want to see. For the black ice gives us who we are at that moment and the years as they have gone by.

And we have become like Rushmore. Craggy chiseled visages staring out from the black onyx as we frown at our keyboards or dab our Ipads with smudgy fingers. The tech is just fine, it is the human behind it we care not to see. And it is a distraction this face staring back at us on the plane train or in the car or in the coffee house. It is peering around our work in progress or appearing magically as the screen goes dead. And there we are. That person who we spend so much time avoiding.

And mostly we just close the lap top or put away the Ipad. But occasionally we stare and see that human. So un tech. So flesh and blood. Tech rolls on while we roll under. And the human face has no chance against that sleek black marble. We are there grimacing, frowning, grunting, groaning, trying to get across our point. And we feel a great relief when that screen flares back up and takes us way from ourselves. And we all know what is going to happen.

The hope I die before I get old generation will demand a screen that does not reflect back those years. There will be a filler, the screen saver that will save us from that awful image under the black ice. Our mortal soul.

www.billhazelgrove.com