I have a laptop but that’s all, no desktop computer.
I still listen to casettes and use my VCR almost every day. My old boombox (for lack of a better word- not a stereo, but a CD player/radio) crapped out on me a few weeks ago and I had to go all over hell’s half acre to find a new one, before happening upon one in the dollar store. That’s mainly what I use to listen to music (except the iPod, which I use in the car with it’s casette adapter.)
I have a DVD player and an HDTV but no video game system, no DVR. Don’t want one, either. If I’m not home when the show’s on, then I guess I don’t get to watch the show. It doesn’t really bother me. I bet if I had a DVR I’d never move my ass from the couch.
I’m not a Luddite at all, but most of my peers (I’m 22) consider me a technophobe. Hmm.
I’m not a technophobe, I’m just poor. (America-poor)
I have this desktop computer my dear daughter gave me. I have a 10 dollar Gophone that uses a 15 dollar card every month. I usually have minutes left over. I don’t care for texting. I don’t have cable, just one old box TV that only has the two holes so I can’t get the digital converter to work. I imagine I can buy something to make it all work but I watch TV online so it doesn’t much matter. I do have Netflix and I’m a fan of Hulu. I don’t care that much about music so I don’t bother with mp3 players or many CDs. I have no players in my car either. I don’t care about your Playstations or X-boxes or Wiis but my boyfriend does have a PS2. No games I’ve ever been interested in though I’ve used it to watch movies. I don’t have a GPS, a blackberry/tinycomputerthingy/camera whatever they have these days. I still have a VCR only because some kind person from this board sent me one.
I have DSL because my daughter had it set up before she moved out. Now I am spoiled. I was going to turn it off but it’s all I HAVE!
I have a VCR/DVD, and I’d love to get a DVR, but right now, that’s not a possibility. However, I’d still want to keep my VCR, if only because I have a bunch of tapes I still like to watch. (Old episodes of MST3K for example, that you can’t buy.) But then, my TV has a built-in VCR.
Um, I don’t have a Wii, but that’s just because I don’t play many video games, other than The Sims. And I only have the original version – but THAT’S just because I’m too attached to the Sim stuff I’ve already down-loaded. I haven’t seen anything I like as much. Oh well. Plus even then I don’t play it enough to warrant buying the new ones.
(I recently dug out my old Super Nintendo, just for kicks, but it was all moldy. :()
For the involuntary Luddites, please, please, please check out The Freecycle Network
Find your local group or possibly groups. Sign up and read the group’s rules. They are generally similar but there will be important differences.
If your group allows it, and I think virtually all of them do (although there may be some restrictions), make a list of the the things you want and post it to the group with the proper tags. For example my group wants people to preface the post title with the type of post it is - wanted, offered, etc.
You can also browse recent posts to see what has been offered, but just because you don’t see what you want doesn’t mean it’s not out there. Often, people don’t want to be bothered with the number of responses a post might get but they are more than happy to respond to a ‘wanted’ post.
I have no doubt that in any urban or suburban group, a post requesting a computer, monitor, printer, DVR, etc would get at least a few responses - and you only really need one.
Hmm. My cell phone doesn’t have internet and my TV is a 1985 RCA with no remote control. No, I didn’t lose the remote, it never had one in in the first place. I have to walk across the room to change the volume.
However, the 1985 TV is hooked up to Verizon FiOS (boy, that was a riot for the technician who set it up), my non-smartphone does have a full keyboard, I have an iPod Touch that I’m addicted to, a laptop and a netbook that are both heavily used, and I also have a Wii and a Netflix account. So aside from the antique TV, I don’t qualify as a Luddite.
And the antique TV is present because it was in my parents’ basement and they gave it to me for free. It has a coax input and nothing else. That’s all I need, so it’s fine.
I have a super fast computer and 2 monitors (great for gaming on one, watching a movie on the other). Husband has set up the wireless so I can browse the net on my laptop while watching TV (laptop was a free one from work). We have a pretty big TV (that we got on a rocking sale). I’m addicted to my DVR. I have an iphone which I use extensively (texting, pictures, FB status updates, Google Maps, gaming, music). I have an eReader that I use pretty much exclusively for trips (since I use the library for day-to-day reading since I can’t afford my 3 book a week habit). I dearly want navigation for my car someday!
I have a 15-inch traditional TV & see no need for me to invest in a flat screen. I have analog cable feeding the TV. I do not have a DVR. I have a standard DVD player. All related to not having major interest in TV/movies.
My home computer is fairly outdated by modern standards, but it usually does the job. Usually. I am trying to research for a replacement.
I have an Android smart phone that is a great tool.
I use Flickr quite often for my photos, which I take with a digital SLR, a point-and-shoot digital camera and the smart phone.
I use Twitter pretty frequently.
I’m quite happy with my cable Internet service.
I don’t consider myself a Luddite, I’m just being practical about my own needs and wants.
I have:
Pay-as-you-go cellphone for emergencies only, so it’s off almost all the time.
Cable TV.
High-speed Internet access.
HDTV, with a cable from my PC so I can use its DVD drive to play DVDs.
That’s about it.
I think an iPhone or similar device would be a lot of fun to have. However, I really don’t have a need for it, so for me it would essentially be a toy. I could afford it, but it costs more than I want to spend on a toy.
I have three laptops. one is the tiny ASUS EEE-PC that I use when traveling (like now). Another is a small computer with a 13" screen that I used to use when traveling and the third is a six year old 15" screen that I like for the extra screen size. But I will soon replace it with a 17" screen, but only b4ecause my research grant will expire on 3/31/2011 and has well over $10,000 that I don’t want to give. I didn’t personally pay for any of these laptops. I have a Jitterbug cell phone that I use only occasionally, mostly when traveling. The comment above about airport pickups is very a propos. When the phone company took a week to replace the squirrel-gnawed wire from the pole to my house, I got a pay-as-you-go cell phone. But the minutes I paid for for very occasional use expired after 30 days and that was a mugs. Also it didn’t work in the US where all three of my kids live. So I got the Jitterbug, on their 50 minutes for $15 (plus tax and fees, bringing it to nrearly $20) and works in US and Canada. I use it sometimes to call home and mostly when away visiting. It does not text (I could get that turned for a fee, not interested), nor has a camera nor does nothing but phone calls. It does not work anywhere else do I also use Skype.
I have no i-pod, i-phone, or i-anything. I own a 26" digital TV that I bought about two years ago when my 17 year old 20" set stopped working. I watch it mainly for sports, baseball and curling and, for both of those a cable is needed so i subscribe to a cable. In fact, after the fiasco with the phone company, I get telephone, cable and internet all from the cable company.
I’m 52 and am reasonably up to date wrt the hardware. Two fairly recent laptops, navigator in the car, and a spiffy smart phone that currently holds nearly 900 songs with room for many more, has a 5-megapixel camera which I do use on a regular basis, and can stream Internet audio content. (AV content can be downloaded but not fast enough to watch at the same time.) In fact, I probably talk on this phone about 10 minutes a month; it’s really all the other bells and whistles that I do use, and for which I wanted a good phone.
We don’t have flatscreens, just two largish tube TVs. Of course we have satellite; there’s no point in having TV sets if you can’t pick anything up on them. I know there’s supposed to be a brave new world of Internet TV delivery right around the corner, but our DSL’s performance is too poor to handle that. God I miss the cable internet we used to have.
But this facebook thingy I don’t really get. I do have an account, and have friended a few people. Some of them I know IRL and some I know from elsewhere online; but either way I don’t use my FB account for actual socializing or collaboration. I communicate with my friends the old fashioned way–email. Or I actually see them IRL.
I know not of “Farmville” or any of those other newfangled games.
I just purchased my first cell phone - a Tracfone for my car in case of emergencies. I don’t have the phone number memorized nor do I know how to use any of its functions. I do plan to look at the manual and figure it out because what’s the point of having it if I’m unable to use it when the time comes. On the other hand, I can’t see myself ever carrying it around. Not trying to be a judgemental, antiphone type; I’m simply not that popular so no one to call :(
I don’t have a digital camera but the above mentioned phone has a camera function so that will probably suffice. I’m not a big picture taker.
I just signed up for Fios because I wasn’t able to afford to be online at home before and I just got a great deal through my employer. I was supposed to get DVR service free for a year but I changed my mind at the time of install in favor of getting HBO. I know I’d never use that feature even if I could figure out how.
I do have an Ipod I use for working out. I wouldn’t think of using it anywhere else but at the gym or out running. It creeps me out not to be able to hear what’s going on around me. I know how to download music but not how to do any of the other things it does / might do.
I’m not entirely sure what Blue Ray is . . . just another format to play movies in, like VHS and Beta were for VCRs?
Being this technologically challenged does not make me proud, believe me. I want to want to learn about these things if for no other reason than not to look like an idiot.
Yep, Blu-ray is a format. It basically holds much much more information than a DVD (like 5-6x more). Blu-ray Disc players also read Blu-ray discs faster (with a special high frequency, super cool blue laser, hence the name). The combination of big storage and fast transfer speeds mean you can get better picture and sound quality (like 7.1 surround sound, with all the special codecs - the way movies were made to be heard).
The nice thing about nearly all Blu-ray Disc players - they are backwards compatible and also play DVDs. So, if someone has a big DVD library, they don’t have to replace everything and start over with Blu-ray Discs. Most Blu-ray disc players will even upscale existing DVDs so the picture looks better than on a DVD player.
I have a bottom of the purse cell phone. I have an iPod Shuffle. I have a laptop that is 4 years old, a 24 inch TV that weighs 70 pounds and a DVD/VHS player. I do have a DVR that comes with my cable subscription. I’d love to have a Nook. I still use my landline. I have no computer games, no PlayStation, no Wii.
And all of those electronic goodies are more than the majority of my friends have. Now that is sad.
For those of you who only have cell phones for emergencies, even if you leave them off, you should check them at least once a month to make sure that they still have a charge. They will probably hold a full charge for a lot longer than a month, but I doubt they will do so indefinitely.
I forgot to mention that I also have a digital camera. It’s just a little point-and-shoot model that I bought because I’m going to sell some stuff online. But I’ve had fun taking photos in my local Forest Preserve, too (mostly of the deer). And it also shoots standard-def video, which I didn’t know when I bought it and was a nice surprise. All in all, it’s a fun toy.
