Gadgets

I have been accused of having to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21^st century. This, I believe, is not only untrue, but also an unfair assessment of who I am.

People assume that, because I don’t have the latest model of something, I’m somehow not modern.

Not so.

I like gadgets as much as the next person. But frequently I find myself saying, “That’s really cool. What do I do with it?”

Despite having a laptop and a Surface, I wanted an iPad – or I thought I did.

When I got my smartphone, my phone company was running a special deal on iPads, so I got one.

Cool.

Except the only keyboard is on-screen.

I’m a tactile kind of person who prefers the feel of a real keyboard. But I can deal, except that I tend to make a lot more mistakes with an on-screen keyboard. Like the phone keyboard, it tends not to be whole hand, much less two-hand friendly.

And then there’s the fact that the iPad has no thumb drive compatibility, so anything on the iPad is non-transferrable to any other device unless I send my work via email. What a hassle!

So, my iPad is basically only used for an Irish language app that I use because the iPad screen is better for that than a phone screen.

Oh, but you can take pictures with it!

Yeah. There’s nothing dorkier, in my humble opinion, than using something that cumbersome to take pictures.  That’s what seniors do to try to prove they’ve come into the digital age to so they don’t have to use their reading glasses.

Oh, but games!

Do I look like I’m 10? I have no desire to get roped into Fortnite.

I spent several months once playing Diablo in my free time instead of doing something useful. I couldn’t get past a certain level in that, and realized, eventually, that all I was doing was raising my cortisol level for no very good reason. I can do that driving to work every day.

And most of the game apps seem to be the same game in different colors.

Having to wait through commercials is annoying, and I don’t like any of the games enough to pay a monthly fee for them just to skip the commercials.

Of course, I can use it for answering emails or social media. But I prefer my laptop for that, since it has that nice clicky keyboard that has room for two hands typing.

The only thing I hate about my laptop is the more modern thing on it: the touchpad. No matter how I try, I can’t get the cursor to cooperate, so I have to use a mouse, instead. I’m good with a mouse. I just wish the mouse disabled the touchpad the way it did on my previous laptop.

“Why don’t you just use the touch screen?”

I don’t mainly because I usually forget it has one. I find the mouse faster, anyway. And, since it’s already connected –

So I get called a Luddite.

The first time someone called me that I had never heard the word before. Someone had to explain it to me.

But that’s not who I am.

I also have a Surface, for no better reason than I thought it was cool.

What I like about the Surface is that it’s lightweight, dual voltage, and has a detachable keyboard for those of us who prefer tactile keyboards. And, I can attach a mouse and use it just like a laptop. I mainly use it for travel.

What I don’t like about it is it’s slow on the internet. I don’t spend much time answering emails or going on social media when I’m using it because the slowness is so frustrating.

Of course, that’s a good thing on vacations. I’m not distracted by the internet. The main reason I bring it with me is to download my pictures and title them daily so I don’t forget which castle or cathedral I have a picture of.

Yes, I can feel your eye roll. Yes, I use a digital camera. A DSLR. One of those big things.

Why?

It was an upgrade from my 35 mm camera that I still have but seldom use. It takes much better pictures than the phone or a point-and-shoot, and I can do a lot more creatively with it. I don’t have to limit my photos because of the expense of film, and I don’t have to worry that an entire vacation’s worth of pictures didn’t come out. On my honeymoon, I lost an entire roll of film somewhere between England and Ireland.

I still prefer the ease and the feel of the 35mm over any other camera I’ve ever used.

But you have an iPhone, you say.

Yes, I do. It’s a phone. I use it as a phone and to send texts. 

True, it has a camera, which, in my opinion, takes so-so pictures. It’s good for that in a pinch, but not for real photos.

As for the keyboard, it’s slightly better than the one on my old flip phone, but hardly something I could comfortably type emails, much less a blog on.

And as for reading, in a pinch, for brief periods, I can use it in place of my Kindle.

Yes, I have a Kindle. I got it for reading when I travel. It’s probably 10 years old by now, ancient by tech standards. But it works. And it’s smaller than the Surface, so even though I have the Kindle app on all of my tech appliances, it’s more convenient on a plane than pulling out the Surface, and easier to read than using the phone. And it still works, so I don’t need an upgrade. And I can read it outside, which I can't with other devices.

But I do prefer real books.

Even my iPhone is now two years old. It’s a 6s that I got a few days before the iPhone X was released. Why didn’t I get the X? Who would spend over $1,000 on a phone in the first place, much less one that will be considered obsolete in two years? And then, there are “improvements” that I don’t want or like. My 6s works, and is a convenient size. It will meet my needs until it no longer works.

I’m not opposed to new things. I was raised to take care of my things. When I was a child, if I broke something, I didn’t get another one. Now, if I have something that works and meets my needs, I see no reason to get another one. It rankles to have to replace something that works because the internet companies have rendered it redundant.

I will say that I like the GPS on my phone much better than the independent GPS that I had. That was difficult to program and didn’t work in other countries.

But I will never be attached at the hip to a phone.

I originally got a mobile phone because the powers that be had done away with pay phones. Because I travel long distances for work, my husband thought it was necessary in case of emergency.

Even Superman had to make adjustments.

So, although I have a variety of gadgets, they’re not necessarily the most up-to-date ones. And that doesn’t bother me. Call me what you will, but I’ve never been one to cave in to peer pressure, whether it was to smoke cigarettes or buy an iPhone X.

And as for my blogs, I write them by hand in cursive before they ever make it to the computer. Call me old-fashioned if you wish, but I do what works best for me.