Parting Shot
Technology Junkies
By Mark J. Lucas |
|
Technology is like a drug addiction. You start when you're a teenager. While doing all your math problems by hand, you hear someone from behind you mutter:
"Psst . . . psst . . .Why don't you just use a calculator to do that?"
Then you, as any student reared in the public school system, reply with:
"I can't use a calculator. I have to show my work."
"Aww, man. You can fill in the work later. It'll be easier to work backwards."
"Gee, I don't know . . ."
"Oh, c'mon . . . just a couple of problems. I know you're gonna like it, plus hey . . . everybody does it . . ."
So you start small, just a few long-division figures on a TI-36 - nothing too fancy, just your standard run-of-the-mill 'scientific' calculator. Hell, you've seen your dad do it a million times, right? He didn't turn out so bad.
But then, things start to get a little hairier. The pressures start building up. Eventually, the TI-36 just ain't doin' it for ya no more. You're getting into some heavy algebra, and you need a tech fix. Somebody turns you on to a little thing called a graphing calculator, or as it's known on the streets, TI-86.
Contributing writer, Mark J. Lucas
In just a matter of weeks, you're using it every day. Your little sister walks in on you using it in your room, and you see her seeing you . . . and you just don't give a shit. Who's she anyway? What makes her so damn special that she can recite the quadratic formula from memory? You're nobody's pet, man! You're nobody's tool, plus you know when enough is enough. You've seen those dip-shits in the park on their palm pilots - can't remember a date or a phone number without the damn thing anymore. You're not one of them.
Then you go off to college, and college . . . college is like a black market for tech. People are on laptops, right out in front of the student union, and no one even thinks twice about it. They're sending emails and text messages and doing conference calls. They all say they're "expanding their minds," and talk about how small the world is now, and how we're all one.
"Ever tweet, brother?"
"I don't know if that's my scene, friend . . ."
"It'll take you places you've never even thought about going. You know Forbes does it? Forbes, man. The world's changin'. You don't wanna be left behind, do you?"
And who does? You're no square, so you get a little taste. Just some stuff about a sub-standard indie film that you saw the night before, that you didn't really get, but the girl you were with was into it, so you just filled in with some bullshit stuff you heard on Bravo. You take all that minutia, type it up and send it out to the universe, baby, and you see the stuff of which dreams are made.
It's a fast track, too. Next day, you pick up your own rig - a shiny new iBook. Suddenly, you're on a whole new plane of existence. Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn. You even set up your own music page, and you don't even write music. You just did it to get connected, and connected is where you want to stay. An IT guy gets you hip to BitTorrent, and now you're starting to plunge deeper.
The stuff just blends together now. Forget about writing a paper. You're chasing the Dragon Naturally Speaking dictation software right down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass. Then there are your little video-streaming and instant-messaging-to-talk-about-what-you're-watching cocktails you use to backsplash the YouTube-ing afternoons.
It's all moving so fast.
You're broadbanding now, and there's no way back from that. It's a $56-a-month habit, and once you're there, you know you'll never stop. You're in it for the long haul. You just try to fill up the days - which now run together - until you go wireless.
The iPhone comes on the scene.
Aka, the 3G network. Lord, Lord.
Like a gunfighter's Navy Colt, you never go anywhere without it; it is in your pocket every second of every day. Hell, you use it to wake up in the morning and it sings you to sleep at night. Most of the time you get pretty good WiFi, but you'll settle for Edge Network if it'll get you by. They say it can tether to the computer. You're already tethered, in a bad way. Now you're doing things you never thought you'd come to. Couple of hackers jailbroke the thing, and unlocked it. You're working on borrowed apps, but you'll hit Apple back when you get some more cash.
You're good for it.
One day, you're in the bathroom. In the mirror, you see your face. It's paler than it used to be. Thinner. Got a Bluetooth in your ear. People see you on the street, think you're talking to yourself, but you're not. You're talking to everybody. Everybody's talking to you. You're connected . . . all the way.
It's been so long that you can't remember what life was like before. How did you do anything without this stuff? It saved you. You owe it, somehow. You're streaming Pandora Radio so hard, you start to get fuzzy . . . then it happens, just like you'd heard it could happen, but never to you, because you're careful . . .
You drop the iPhone in the toilet.
You do your best to hold on, but it's not gonna happen. The thing has a damn slippery surface, and you can't get a grip. Why the hell didn't you use protection, like the guy at the store advised? All you had to do was get a non-slip cover.
The calendar dates are gone. The applications are gone. The music stops playing your tune. All your contacts, all your photos, all your notes: gone. You had your whole life stored on that thing, and now it's sinking. Now you're sinking. You descend as it descends.
When they find you, you're sprawled out on the floor with your head against the bathtub, covered in toilet water. It's a sorry-ass sight to behold. That thing cost you a lot of money. You'd figure out exactly how much you've been paying a day, but for the life of you, you can't recall how to do long division.
It's an old song, man.
An old song.
Originally Published: November 1, 2009
