Because I hadn't blogged about this article and also the Response to it, I thought I hadn't read them yet. So, I set about to read the articles and they seemed very familiar. As I continued reading them I realized that I began having this sinking feeling about the content of what I was reading and that, too, also seemed familiar. Now I knew why I hadn't blogged on these articles earlier. Both articles gave me this horrible depressed sinking feeling that you get when you realize the futility of something, that no matter what you feel or say, nothing is going to change for the better. I had put off blogging because I simply didn't know what to say.
This feeling was further underscored by one of Carla's recent lectures in which she showed market predictions that by the year 2015 we will no longer use desk top computers, that all of our connections to the internet, to the world, will be through hand-held mobile devices.
This struck a chord of horror with me. I love my new iMac desktop with a 20" screen I bought in September 2011 with my student loans. I bought it at the Apple store in West Towne Mall where I felt I was treated like a queen. This was the first large purchase I had made since co-signing to buy a 10-acre farm in 1995. None of my automobiles have been this nice and or cost more than this computer. I just entered the world of current technology and now they are telling me that it's already outdated and I will soon be looked at as an old fogey because of my attachment to it.
Further more, I objected to the predictions of 2015 as totally exclusionary for people with disabilities and diseases that prevent them from holding a mobile device or pushing the buttons. When I brought this up in class--what about people with disabilities--I got the same eye rolling and groans from my younger technologically adept classmates. (Like, "There goes the old person in the class talking about stuff we don't care about again! Why doesn't she just die of old age already?") (The first time I brought up the question of "Don't we have a responsibility when creating designs for technology to consider people with disabilities?" I received a resounding "NO!" from someone in the class.) Later, in the lecture about mobile devices Carla turned to me and said, "This is in answer to your question about people with disabilities [and the 2015 prediction] " and proceeded to read a section about how there will audio interfaces so that people who can't hold the devices or push buttons will be able to speak into them. "Well," I wanted to ask, "What if they can't speak either or their speech is slurred like what happens with people with severe MS?" but I didn't. I shut my mouth, kept quiet for the peace of the class and the expediting of the lecture.
Things will work out as they will. Technology will eek it's way into our existences whether we will or not. Whether an iPad has this function or not doesn't concern me. I don't own one. When I find that I can't exist without one or that my life is bettered by it's existence (like buying a cell phone so that I could call AAA if I got stuck in a snow bank out in the country) I will buy whatever it is that is the next great thing. Meanwhile, I am non-plussed by current changes and improvements on devices that I simply haven't found a need for. Furthermore, I am appalled at people who buy technology only the sake of owning the latest and the greatest. That is, to me, a shallow, meaningless existence.
My mother passed away last year. Recently my siblings and I began the task of cleaning out her house of 60-odd years of belongings in attempt to get the house ready for sale. We found out that she did not throw anything away, ever. We came across magazines dating back to the 1950's or earlier. There was an army of coffee pots, some working, some not. Among them was a beautiful metal West Bend percolator with a glass dome from the 1940's. I was charmed by it and took it home cleaned it up and made coffee with it. Yes, we have a Mr. Coffee purchased a year ago. But, guess what? This old percolator makes the best darn coffee! And it smells better and I LOVE seeing the coffee percolating up into the glass dome. Yes, it requires a great deal of cleaning, more so than Mr. Coffee, but it is a price I am willing to pay for the experience. (I even figured out how to make my mother's cinnamon caramel rolls using frozen bread dough and they go excellently with the fresh brewed coffee in the old coffee pot.)
Also in that dig was an old waffle iron dating back to about 1930. It works, too, but my first adventure with it was not as successful as the coffee pot and after a miserable attempt leaving me with scorched waffle batter on a not easily cleaned iron, I took my batter and finished up the waffles in the new Salton waffle maker.
So, what am I getting at? What's the lesson learned? New technology in moderation is okay but don't throw out the old just because it's old. Don't turn your nose up at old stuff just because it's old. It's all part of the whole. In order to get where we are today we had to go through all of that other stuff. Some it actually functions better and lasts longer than new stuff. Just because it's new doesn't make it better or right or what's new today is old tomorrow or… or…. or don't give up on us old farts. We still have some kicking to do. Besides, if you didn't have us around who would you have to roll your eyes at? Oh yeah! And always make design useful for people with disabilities or are older or who have disabling diseases like MS or arthritis. One day you will be old, too, if you're lucky……
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