I do have to put in a vote favoring MP3 players. It contains all my music, so I don’t fool with drawers full of CD’s. Itunes makes it really easy to find new music and buy it and store it. The whole mess gets backed up to other disk drives. No more CD’s disappearing, no more empty jewel cases, no more scratches ruining them. Now I like listening through headphones for 10 or 20 minutes before falling asleep, randomly playing some category of music or some playlist I’ve put together, or thinking of good old tunes I’m in the mood to hear. It’s amazingly convenient, and the way I now like to listen would be practically impossible with other technologies. For a $150 gadget, that’s pretty hard to beat.
I am old–66. Yeah, I might be slow at adapting to “modern” technology(I didn’t have a microwave until they had been out for 10 years. I still let my kids show me what my cell phone can do beyond what I can discover).
But, you’re only as old as you feel. I don’t feel old yet. I’m willing to go down swinging.
That doesn’t mean I need to compromise my common sense and join twitter or facebook. Sometimes stupidity is just stupidity. 
On one hand, I’m old skool geek. I remember when two of every three Vax in the lab were dickless, er, diskless because hard disks were too expensive. I remember the excitement in running windows 3.11 on my Pentium 120 because I could have multiple DOS windows open just like the workstations at College!
I then was ecstatic at the $300 HP Pavilion that was a PIG in Vista, because it SCREAMED running Linux.
I then was overjoyed at paying only $300 for a Netbook. I couldn’t believe that the $300 I spent two years later bought a full computer plus screen, plus battery…and really, all the places you expected it to cut corners? It really wasn’t all that bad.
I just recently dropped $1100 on an i7 based monster workstation. Honestly, I feel more than a little guilt over it. Based on how amazingly fast the thing is, I figure I probably would have been happy spending a third of the money.
At the same time, I realize I’ve nearly ALWAYS felt that about my latest greatest, and three years later, it’s old, busted n slow. I suspect it’ll be the last desktop computer I purchase, as everything seems to be going laptop/tablet and cloud.
I’m …used to computers. I haver a Mac, I virualize Windows on it, it asks me which system I want to connect to when I plug in my iPhone, etc, etc. I’m on or at least aware of things line Facebook, Steam, MMORPGs, etc.
I think that a technology would have to arrive from a fundamentally-different basis and then become common for me to feel left behind by it. For sake of discussion, let’s say that the new technology is genetic and biological, with people growing artificial organs, programming life forms, modifying their berain chemistries and body capabilities, adding limbs, etc.
Some of Rudy Rucker’s Wetware series has the feel I’m thinking of. And there’s a Stanislav Lem story that I read in high school, where the protagonist goes to a planet where the inhabitants had total contreol over sculpting their bodies. Or there’s the changes that take place in David Brin’s Blood Music.
Maybe there’d be things like ‘merge clubs’ where people go to merge their bodies. Or people would marry sentient pets or houses. But even these are extrapolations of current thinking in new clothes.
It’s the secondary effects, that would be hardest to get used to, that would have unanticipated, truly alien possibilities. People predicted the automobile, but not the rise of drive-in theatres. Or there were the changes in popular music caused by the conbination of electric recording and amplification technology and African metaphysics and rhythm, starting with the First World War, as described in Michael Ventura’s Hear That Long Snake Moan.
New technology doesn’t make me feel old, because I find so much of it inferior to what was there before.
Doesn’t make me feel old because I use most of it. I don’t have the time nor inclination for social networking (beyond the Dope and minimal effort for LinkedIn).
However, I was just in LA at the Dodgers Cubs game last night (Jonathan Broxton was incredible). And I had to find my hotel in downtown LA afterwards. Because I had a smart phone, I could either call the hotel for directions and/or use GPS to guide me there step by step. And that doesn’t consider I could use my smart phone to get on line, find and reserve a different hotel on the fly, and then get there easily. As opposed to the old days of trying to find a pay phone, making sure I had change, find a gas station for directions or to buy a map.
I’ll take the technology. thanks!
Map and a pay phone would have cost you like $5…what’s your monthly charge for your phone and 3gs service?
If you can keep up it, it’s almost like you don’t age at all.
Actually, I feel like I’m getting younger as technology evolves.
But hey, that’s just me.
I think all males - and a lot of females- on this board would not argue abut that.
No, new technology does not make me feel old. I’m youngish (27) and I’m used to the fast pace of technology at this point (though I’m also old enough, I think, to appreciate it.) Constant evolution of technology is an expectation I have rather than an aversion. It is a part of the daily rhythm of life.
I tend to jump on the technology bandwagon later than others. I didn’t get a cell phone until college, or a Blackberry until two years ago – and man, it blew my mind with the awesomeness. Being able to read the New York Times and other websites during my previous three-hour daily train commute was worth the price of admission alone. I have a Droid now which does texting, e-mail, web-browsing, MP3, GPS, and yes, phone. I’m not sure how having everything in one compact unit is inferior to having several different pieces of technology to keep track of.
Of course it’s superior. I can check my e-mail without turning on my computer. I can listen to anything I want at any time. I can text my husband to pick up milk on the way home, which is less time consuming than calling and because it doesn’t require interruption of his day, vastly increases the chances he will receive the message. I can get anywhere I want from any point in my car without having to ask or print directions.
I came from the generation of cassettes and CDs, from a time when research was something you did in the library with a pile of index cards. We got by, but I’d be lying through my teeth if I said computers, Microsoft Word and online databases weren’t 1000x more convenient for research and life in general. Because of Google, I’m accustomed to being able to answer practically any question within moments of its first formation. Technology as I see it allows us to do the things we need to/want to do without wasting as much time on preparation, maintenance and clean-up.
Now, I don’t necessarily think every new thing is superior to every old thing (see: Windows 7 vs. Windows XP), but new technology as a general rule is a beautiful thing.
Hal. I’ll be 48 soon and am completely in agreement with you. My cell phone was stolen from my car about 6 weeks ago (actually I just checked and it was 13 weeks ago!) and I haven’t missed it much. I’ll get around to replacing it soon!
I’d much rather call than text. I don’t own an MP3 player and don’t really see the point in carrying my music collection around with me. I’ve heard it all before and am not very open to appreciating any new music; it all sucks anyway!
I bought my first computer in 1983: and Atari somethingorother, and have been sending emails since, well anyone remember Vax mail?
Nope, about 10 years ago I started to lose interest in the latest fads, whether it be technology, television, music, movies, whatever.
I’m happy, nay complacent, with my level of technological prowess. (ETA: Or lack thereof.)
Yes, but the map, and the payphone, and the steamer trunk full of Reel to Reels, and the stereophonic, and the Oracle of Delphi, and the Weatherman, and the Theme park all get hard to carry around in your pocket.
I bought Dragons Lair for my iPhone the other day. Cost a buck. When in the Arcades, it was the first laserdisc based game, with graphics that GREATLY surpassed anything else. It used to be $0.50 a play, and now not only does it fit on my phone, it uses 5% of the storage. How is that now awesome? How is that inferior to what has come before?
I really don’t get it when people (typically old people) complain about technology. If someone sends me a text I can read it and respond to it at my leisure rather than having to stop what I’m doing at that moment to talk in real time. If I have a thousand songs on a device the size of my thumb I have a variety of songs that I can listen to regardless of my mood. And the idea that cell phones should only be used in emergencies? Why? If you were born a century ago would you say that electricity should only be used for emergencies? If you have abundant, cheap technology, why not use it? Change might be frightening, but I, for one, can’t wait to see how technology will have advanced in another ten, twenty or thirty years. I really hope I don’t wind up on a porch complaining about all that stupid virtual reality or whatever.
New technology doesn’t make me feel old; it’s all the teeners and tweeners who go ape-shit over it and “Must Have It NOW! So I Can Be Cool Like All The Other Kids” that makes me feel old.
I think it’s more of a personality thing than an age thing. My grandmother is pushing seventy and plays DDR and Katamari Damacy on her PS2. She has a cell phone and an internet. She has a Facebook with which she keeps tabs on distant relatives and former friends/’‘siblings’’ from the orphanage she grew up in. She has always been the kind of person to want to explore and learn new things. I am not the least bit surprised she is not intimidated by new technology.
She needs to stop living in the '90s. Everyone I know has at least three internets.
Because cellhphones used to be EXPENSIVE. Think $200 for the phone, and $30 a month for 30 minutes. But those were 1980 dollars, so it FELT more like $400 for a phone and $100 a month for little to no service.
I remember my wife and I waiting til the ‘cool’ phone came to the grocery store (!) before buying it. It looked like this:
I don’t feel old, just out of touch. I don’t have any desire for all this stuff.
Don’t feel bad, I’m the same way with entertainment today. Eclipse? Glee? Lost? I know next to nothing about 'em.
We don’t complain about technology; we just don’t give a shit. Why should I read some itty bitty text message from someone, when he or she could have called and talked to me? And why should I take the time to type in a bunch of eensy letters when I can call and converse with the person in real time. I don’t have a need or want for communicating two sentences at a time, in single duplex mode. Cell phones shouldn’t be for just emergencies, but the call itself should serve a purpose. Most people my age don’t call to say “Hey. What’s up?” “Not much. What’s up with you?” “Not much whatcha doin’ tonight?” “Not much. How about you?” “Not much. Wanna see a movie?” etc. etc. etc. More like “We’re out of bread. Can you grab a loaf on the way home?”
As for music, I don’t listen to much any more, and I certainly would never, ever, ever, think about walking around in public with headphones on listening to music. Why on Earth would anyone want to isolate themselves from the real world that way? Because that’s what it is; you’re tuning out real life to immerse yourself in a prerecorded fantasy world.
No, I was an early adopter of technology, but it’s gotten to the point now that the latest gizmos just don’t interest me at all.