False Focus

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I seldom use my iPhone.  I admit that I like having a camera with me most of the time and I don’t look like a tourist.  I don’t text and when I feel like tweeting I do it from my laptop.  I often forget where I put my phone and walk out of the house without it.  What I’m trying to say is that it’s not a distraction.  Now I realize companies (which seldom undertake to comprehend those of us who are anomalous) have to appeal to the lowest common denominator.  In iPhone world this means that they now want you to use “Focus.”  In other words, if you’re behind the wheel or in danger of losing your job for being distracted all the time, you can filter what gets through.  I recently had a request from my phone to send me Focus notifications when I’m home.  Of course it knows when I’m home!

It seems unnerving to me that we need to have our devices remind us not to use them.  What does it say about our love-love relationship with devices?  We use them to guide us when we’re driving—no longer experiencing the wonder of getting lost.  We read on them, forgetting the feel, smell, and non-reflective look of a book.  Some people even smoke their devices.  Many people now protect their houses with devices that allow them to see who’s at the door.  Do we really feel safer with our devices taking care of us all the time?  Perhaps we do.  Perhaps the cyborg revolution has already begun.

When I see how simple things like telling an apple from a tomato still flummox machine sensors (and even if they learn to tell this difference, the point remains the same), I realize just how much life experience teaches us.  We’re constantly taking in sensory data and interpreting it.  Often subconsciously.  I can smell and feel the difference if the same shirt is dried in a dryer or on a line.  I know which is better but I struggle to find the words to describe why.  I can tell the difference between the taste of this peanut and that one.  Some scents can trigger euphoria while others warn that a mustelid is nearby and wants to be left alone.  I know to look around for a skunk, to honor its wishes.  I can infer that the apples that have started to go bad are why that opossum is in our compost bin.  Perhaps I’ll pull out my phone and take a picture.

Soft Wired

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A museum of discarded electronics.  I’ve been thinking that might be a good use for all the tech we’ve had to buy over the years that quickly becomes outmoded.  (Useless, that is.)  As I look over these devices I can recall just why they were purchased.  Mostly it was to solve a more immediate problem.  You perhaps overspend so that you can avoid disrupting the tech services you’ve learned you can’t live without.  Then new tech comes along and you need new hardware to do the same thing you’ve always done.  Soon you’ve got a museum’s worth of old tech.  I tried to get my mother on the internet by sending her an old computer that I bought with grant money back in my Nashotah House days.  When it was all set up, it was discovered that it was too old to connect to the modern internet.  I’ve lost track of how many computers are in the attic, but at least now there’s one less.  The thing these all have in common is that they require electricity.

Image credit: Mircea Madau, public domain via Wikimedia Commons

A few weeks ago I wrote about our eclectic electric issues.  While our utilities company and electrician try to sort out who does what (it turns out that our house was never properly wired up from the mains), we’ve got a dilemma.  Since we all work from home and we all use computers, how are we going to work on a day when the electricity has to be off?  (Let’s hope it’s after this cold snap is over.)  We depend on electricity in this electronic world.  The solution may be to buy some new tech.  A battery-powered hot spot and fully charged laptops might be able to get us through an hour or two with no electricity.  We’ve become so dependent on the juice that the thought of being without it is scary.

The solution, of course, will quickly become outmoded as 6G and 7G, on to infinity, await in the wings.  They will all need electricity.  A house that was never properly hardwired can be a tricky thing.  Electricians and linemen have to have weekends too.  In a world where constant connectivity has eliminated snow days, such force majeure on a personal level holds no, well, force.  Aligning three employers who say it’s okay to step “out of the office” for a few hours at a time not of your own choosing will be impossible.  So we buy a new tech solution and hope it’s fully charged.  And when we’re fully wired up again the new device can eventually go in the museum of obscure electronics.