(Author: Charlotte Cohen, Vol. 76, #3, Spring 2021)
Reminiscent of an article written only a few years ago, which emphasized the incredible speed and technological advances with which the world is radically being changed, older generations (many born even before the advent of television) are left floundering in this miraculous new age in which we find ourselves.
It has been noted::“The future is already here.”For many though, it is a case of: “Hold on: We haven’t yet caught up with the present!”
When Woody Allen’s computer crashed. he yelled, “Quick, call a child!”
With much truth spoken in jest, Woody Allen recognized a new role reversal: Not the ‘male/female’ shift, but that of the adult/child:
Today babies are born with a new-age intelligence and aptitude which did not exist when their elders were adult. They are born technologically adept. They are techno-fund is before they are four. They understand immediately what we grapple to grasp. Older people rely on the younger generation, with their innate, inborn knowledge of I.T. for guidance and direction. Children are telling their parents what to do.
My grandmother lived 96 years from 1883 until 1979. When she was born, no plane had yet left the ground. By the time she died, a man had walked on the moon. The electronic age had not yet been born. Faxes, personal computers, cell-phones, remote controls, digital cameras and drones, were still to come.
Growing up in an age where we were expected to listen to our elders (not necessarily heeding their advice), we nonetheless took their injunctions with a certain tolerance and inevitability. That was the order of things.
But those days have gone.
As with the discovery of the wheel, penicillin, the invention of the motor-car, Xrays, airflight, space travel, etc., we are experiencing an electronic explosion in a runaway non-reversible technological era. Never before in any one lifetime (ours) have there been so many changes and advances. Children of today could not visualise a world without television, remotes, cell-phones, I-pads, play-stations, Excel, Powerpoint, Twitter, Instagram or Snap Chat.
What was previously safely the parents’ role as educators has now been relegated to those born into this new age.
Familiar with a language and way of life that is foreign to many of us – electronics, computer-speak, codes of dress, music, social reins and attitudes have shifted into the hands of the young.
Today, youth rules.
A recent-e-mail shows a picture of an exasperated 3-year old saying to his grandmother on the telephone, “No grandma, listen!! Double click on the chrome icon!” (Someone pointed out that the video was very old because a 3 year old today wouldn’t know what is a landline was.)
Language has been reborn. We have new synonyms: A ‘virus’, ‘mouse’, ‘worm or ‘ram’, does not now necessarily describe a living creature.
A website has not been spun by a spider.
It has given rise to a new technology tongue that never existed a generation ago. “ ‘Bluetooth’ Cyberspace. World Wide Web, Megabyte, Gigs., Flash drive, router, Data Bundles, Dongle, Pentium, Modem, Scanner, an X box , ….”
Acronyms like “PC., CD., SMS., DVD., EFT, and XP. enter our conversation with practiced ease (often without our having the foggiest idea what they stand for.)
We are learning ‘techno- manners’ (not that anyone really pays any attention to it) i.e. Turn off your mobile before a meeting. Don’t speak on it when you’re out for dinner. Look up every quarter of an hour or so from it when you’re at a family function. Delete all previous recipients and addresses before forwarding emails. Check ‘warnings’, political and racial hate-speech and scandal with ‘Snopes’ before sending on:
And be very, very careful before putting comments – and photos – onto social media.
In a time of turbulent change, where world order has been revolutionized by the role reversal – single parents, same sex marriages, (together with increasingly rapid technological advances), attitudes and social norms have changed irrevocably:
On every front, from on-line dating to porn to cyber-bullying to the iniquity of terrorism, we see how social media has taken control of our lives. We are very often more connected verbally, emotionally and intimately with someone who lives hundreds of miles away, than we are with our own families.
We are swimming upstream in a bizarre technological tsunami.
Since my grandson was born in 2004, Amazon Echo, Siri and Alexa offers voice recognition which answers us when we request music, news, the weather, people, street directions … anything. Artificial intelligence is now a reality. It might start thinking for itself and override that of human beings who are programming it. Electric cars have become another reality. Some already drive themselves.
And one also wonders how the world will cope with the copious redundancy and technology ‘waste’ that awaits us…. or when Google will not be able to deal with the mountains and mountains of information that is being fed into it every day. Where will they store it?
How will his world be in 50 years time? It is futuristic, fascinating and frightening.
On a recent radio program, the discussion centered around ‘The Acceleration of Social Media’; ‘Technology Moving Faster than Society’ and what was referred to as the “Disconnect’ caused by them from normal life.
A man phoned in and said he didn’t “get it” – about any of them: Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, etc. He said he didn’t want to know when anyone else was eating dinner or showering or going to a movie – or what movie! He didn’t want to wade through hundreds of puerile responses like “I’m with you.”, “Good luck” or “Get Better Soon”– when he didn’t know them, didn’t want to know them – and didn’t care what they did or didn’t do, anyway.
He completely echoed my sentiments. Having been led fairly successfully (albeit kicking and screaming every step of the way along the IT route), I still face my Facebook Phobia, for want of a better description. I hate it when Facebook in particular, continually asks me whether my password is valid, makes me repeat it, refuses to take it because it is incorrect, refuses to take my comment (why, I have no idea!), asks me if I have forgotten my password and whether I want them to contact me for a new password.
In fact, I heard of someone who gave himself a password “Incorrect’, so that every time the computer said: “Your password is incorrect”, it would remind him what his password was.
To add to my discomfort (I often dry up when I try to think of a comment on Facebook. It feels like I’m in a room with hundreds of people – suddenly expected to pipe up and say something meaningful. … I can’t even think of another platitude like “Well done!” – never mind something I will regret or be held accountable for later.
So, like returning to what is familiar – I’m more at home with e-mails, where I can (or think I can) talk on a one-to one basis specifically to the person I’m addressing.
… Mind you, even e-mails are becoming overwhelming.
The plethora of e-mails, text messages, social media and the information on Google and youtube (where the world is served to us on a plate) is making me realize there is too much on my plate.
At what point do we say: “Slow down! I need to catch breath! I crave a world that I remember – gardens, walks, comfortable silences. … It’s all too much and too fast.”
So just as I am desisting from attending every meeting to which I’m invited, I have started discovering the benefit of allowing myself some time off from this social quagmire of having a thousand friends all over the planet – none of whom I know personally or actually give a fig about or what or why they doing what they do – or joining them in the exchange of idle, trivial, chinwag in order to waste more precious time.
So I have made a decision: I am going to give myself more ‘me time’. I have made a promise to myself: a promise I intend to keep. Precious Privacy has become pivotal. I am about to embark on a strict IT diet. Starting from now, I am going to turn off every electronic device for at least two hours a day.
… Ag, hey, sorry, man. I’ve got to go now. My cellphone is ringing.
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Postscript: This article was originally written for the West Coast Writer’s Circle 2013 competition in 2013 (winning 1st Prize). What we could never have imagined three decades ago is now an actuality – with holograms, Zoom-rooms, and possible trips to Mars. And what will be an actuality in three decades time, is probably, for most of us, beyond imagination.
As we face an accelerated future of ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and ‘ Virtual Reality’ etc, it may be worth remembering that the ‘4th revolution’ has been built on early ideas, trials, experiments – and multiple mistakes. .. And as they say, “The best thing about making a mistake, is that it is the best lesson from which one can learn.’
At Rosh Hashona, besides looking forward to the future and at the same time, back to the past, we also look inwards at Yom Kippur, when we ask forgiveness for wrongdoings
Putting our remarkable technological progress into perspective then, perhaps it is also a time to forgive ourselves for past mistakes.
A toast written to ‘The Old You’ at the time of the calendar new year reads: “ If you feel inspired to use the new year to help you reset or change habits: Great. …
– and yet, the old you has survived every terrible day, every hardship, every awful circumstance and every heartbreak you’ve ever felt. The old you is a fighter – and that’s worth celebrating. “
Charlotte Cohen is an award-winning short story writer, essayist and poet, whose work has appeared in a wide variety of South African publications since 1973.
