From Future Shock to Frontier House -- a Technophobe Speaks Out

I wonder if there is a 12 steps program for technophobes. I would love to start one.

“Hi! My name is Susan and I am afraid of technology.”

“Hi Susan!”

Or me sitting on a psychiatrist’s couch. “It all started when my Dad asked what a DVD player is, doctor.”

But I am getting ahead of myself.

The first warning sign came a few years ago. I started a career at the most wonderful company I have ever worked for, a fast-paced global financial news and service provider, one of the largest in the world. I knew my computer skills were good. Not great, but good. At the time I started, I was competent on an Apple Macintosh platform and Windows 95. I also knew Windows 3.0, and 3.1. Then to my chagrin, my beloved Macintosh, christened by me as “Mackie” (Mac enthusiasts are of a different breed than those who like Windows), could no longer handle the Internet. It was time to upgrade Mackie, or get a new computer. I bought a laptop, running Windows so I could work overtime at home, and it came with the newly minted Windows 98. So far so good. But I realized there were computer programs used at work I never learned, like Outlook and PowerPoint. Fortunately, work had classes in those – you miss a whole day of work (hooray!) and sit in a conference room with 30-some other people to learn a new program, or an updated version of one you may be using like Excel or Word. I learned the programs and practiced during lunch. But what I found was the interns and the new hires who had just graduated from college knew them better. I felt old! Hey, when I was in college, I used a typewriter. I took one computer class; it was called programming with COBOL. Yes, COBOL! Hey, it was 1983, that was the Computer 101 course. I still remember it. It was taught by a visiting professor from India who could bearly speak English. But the beauty part of the class was that he went over everything painstakingly slow because of it. And for a novice like me, well, I plodded though it and got one of the few Cs I got as an undergraduate. And felt grateful to get it.

But in the past two weeks, two events made me realize what a complete technophobe I really am. The first was a video catalog I received in the mail the other day. I noticed the majority of the videos were in DVD format. A few weeks ago my father asked me what a DVD player was when I went over to their house for Sunday supper and to do my laundry. I told him what it was, but realized I have never seen a DVD video. This week I got a flyer for Circuit City or Best Buy, and they have DVD players under 100. OK. So I can afford one. But I have over 100 videos at home. I have a collection of Britcoms it has taken close to 15 years to accumulate. What happens to them if I get the DVD player? [Editor’s Note: You can click here to go to the BBC America Shop and get ‘em on DVD. You can even enter code EM002 to receive free shipping!]

This is why I never wanted a CD player. I had a turntable – well I still have a turntable. Yes, when I was a kid, I had 45s that went to 8 tracks which were replaced by cassette tapes. But I love records. I loved the feel of them when I was a teenager. I loved the graphics on them. I defy anyone to tell me an album cover like, say, the Beatles “Sgt. Pepper,” looks better on a CD-sized graphics. It doesn’t. You can’t decipher all the “Paul is Dead” clues! And that is just to start! (Susan’s note: Paul never died. It was just a really strange hoax.) I had a ton of records, all collected during the strum and drang of being a teenager, Pink Floyd, Beatles, Stones, really great stuff from the 60s and 70s. I think I bought my last record in the 80s, I remember what it was. An album by the Alan Parson’s Project, Turn of a Friendly Card. By then CDs were coming into vogue. Vinyl was fading. I thought of buying a CD player, but looked lovingly at my records and figured it would cost me several grand to just replace those from vinyl to discs. So I didn’t. I held on to my records and my tapes. Then in 1998 I bought a new car, which came with a CD player. I realized with horror that I had to buy a CD to listen to on the daily driving commute to work. No biggie. I bought the new REM CD and played it over and over again, and was happy. And eventually I got bored, and bought another one. And another one. At last count I own about 45-50 CDs. Not a lot. But enough for me, considering I still have about 200 tapes. And with my fear about CDs, this is why I don’t want to invest in a DVD player. But then of course, I have a 1969 TV set from Sears, huge, but not cable ready. If I do not work the VCR, I have to change the channels the old way. By getting up out of the chair and flipping the channel. No remote! It is exercise!

Which leads me to my computer. I got my current computer four years ago. It was a hand-built laptop at a store, now out of business, in my hometown. When I got it, it was a top of the line wonderful marvelous invention. Today, she is slow, takes 15 minutes from the time I turn her on to get all the applications running. She crashes constantly. She reminds me of Scotty, “She can’t hold Captain!” I have been deleting applications, backing up files, to no avail. To remedy her problems, add more memory and increase her hard drive would cost me close to buying a new one. So I have two options. I can buy a new one and keep this one as a backup, or I could continue to use this one, knowing that the computer works for everything but the Internet.

Today I went to a computer store. Which brings me to this column. My computer has a CD-ROM drive. The ones I saw today had DVD players with re-writeable CD drive. When did this happen? I was asked if I wanted to burn music on my CD. I felt like Winston Valentine Smith, a stranger in a strange land. What was burning music? You mean I don’t have to buy CDs at the mall or from Amazon? I walked out of the store, armed with a couple of brochures and some prices on laptops.

To make things even more confusing, I was told by a colleague at work to get an XM radio for my car. I know AM, and I know FM – what is XM? I went to their website, and now I know. Seems silly, because I listen to talk radio when I drive, and that is only on the AM band. Why invest in a new car stereo and pay a fixed fee each month for something I wouldn’t listen to?

I am confused. So very confused. When I was a kid, one of the best selling books was a book by Alvin Toffler called Future Shock. At the time, a lot of it made no sense to me. I may have been able to read it, but not to grasp some of the concepts; I lacked the maturity that would only come by living. One of the arguments I recall was something I think more and more about. In our family, my parents have a friend whose mother is 107 years old. I think about all the things she would have experienced in her life time, not only recalling man landing on the moon, but to see house equipped with candles and then electricity, from toilets being outside to inside, radios and televisions. All the things we take for granted. Toffler’s hypothesis, if I recall, was that this kind of thing lead to future shock.

This past week I have been glued to a TV show called Frontier House showing on PBS. As I write at the present, Channel 13, the PBS station in Manhattan, has been showing the episodes during one of their begathons, with Mark Glenn, one of the participants, providing commentary. This fascinates me.

It is not too much of a stretch to imagine someone who had lived in 1880s Montana living in the 21st Century. But going backwards, there is a part of me that would love to live during that time, nestled between the Civil War and World War 1. I think I would love to live in Paris during the 1920s when all the expatriate writers hung out and wrote. Sometimes I think modern life is a bit too difficult. Yes, we have indoor plumbing and refrigeration, but with all the modern conveniences maybe we have lost something. A sense of family, a sense of soul. We don’t have roots anymore to a place. Or maybe I am just feeling panicky and strange knowing by the end of September, I will be approximately two score. Where did the time go? When did I get so out of touch?

Perhaps going back to live in Montana before all of these modern-day conveniences would put things in perspective.

But meanwhile here I am, trying to figure out what kind of computer to buy, wishing there was indeed a program for those of us who want to go back to the simpler times, when technology wasn’t so all-encompassing.

“Hello my name is Susan, and I am afraid of technology.”

“Hi Susan!”

Susan can be reached at sschechter@earthlink.net. Even though her computer has crashed, making her really behind on e-mail and articles, she loves hearing from readers, and promises to eventually respond to every one.

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