Digital Anxiety

Forget the global pandemic. That I can manage through personal choices to vaccinate and wear a mask in confined spaces with strangers. No, fears of contracting a novel coronavirus pale in comparison to my constant anticipation of some failure of my desktop computer, my laptop, my phone, wi-fi, social media platforms, and everything else electronic. Recent experiences have only heightened the tension in my brain and body.

At the end of the 2021, my old (admittedly too old) desktop began to display a blue screen at start-up. The local computer fix-it shop determined it was a compatability issue between the ancient processor and the desire for Windows 10 to update properly. Do not tell me to get a Macintosh. I am too committed to Microsoft, and while it is arguably not that intuitive, there is remains a mild degree of comfort and familiarity as I, myself, continue to age.

Even after the tech folks diagnosed the problem(s?) and did the best they could to fix them, I still got a blue screen a few days later. They strongly suggested I purchase a new desktop, and so I did, last month. I ended up with the "house brand" from Micro Center, got talked into their supplementary security software, and off I went. I did manage to upgrade to Windows 11, so I feel set for awhile, but still dreading some pop-up window that I don't understand, or am leery of accommodating.

I transferred some files to my documents and pictures, but soon filled up the One Drive that was syncing with the PC. I had forgotten that abomination of "The Cloud" that Microsoft insists you subscribe to, demanding you to pay for extra storage. I thought I had managed to unlink, and then uninstall, One Drive, but yesterday I created a new Word document that I accidentally saved to One Drive instead of my desktop, so could not immediately locate after closing it. Now it is saved to "My PC" with a slightly different file name.

The laptop seems to be doing ok, but it is refurbished and I already know it will not be compatible with Windows 11. I am not good about backing things up regularly, and when I do, I end up scattering things in different external hard drives and flash drives. I no longer re-use SD cards from my camera, in case every hard drive fails. That is how paranoid I have become.

I was dragged kicking and screaming into buying a smart phone because the last time I tried to add minutes through my pay-as-you-go carrier, the service disallowed the transaction. My basic, reliable flip phone was at last obsolete, incompatible with 5G or whatever. I had to have my spouse set up the beast, which is an android. She has an iPhone, so she was a bit frustrated, too. I remain steadfast in having as few apps as possible, and I still managed to fill up my phone with only a handful of pictures. Nobody told me that I need a micro SD card for more storage.

Having enrolled in a self-paced wildlife conservation photography course, I learned that Instagram is a good place to showcase your best images. Consequently, I resurrected my dormant Instagram account, and started posting. I was initially getting prompts that Insta was not recognizing me, so I had to change passwords several times before agreeing to have a two-step authentication process that included my phone. I was doing Instagram through my laptop, and progressing ok, with a whopping fourteen posts. Then, when I logged in a couple days later, I got a message that Instagram had permanently disabled my account for a "violation of community standards," and I had no way to appeal. I can guarantee that I committed no violation, unless posting a photo of the cover of my book Wasps: The Astonishing Diversity of a Misunderstood Insect was somehow copyright infringement. I have no plans to try making a new Instagram account. I'll continue relying on Flickr as a way to attract the attention of publishers. Pity, though, as there are some friends I can follow only on Instagram. I do hope they will forgive me.

My overriding existential fear, naturally, is that my voice will become increasingly irrelevant as the next generation of digital technologies leaves me ever farther behind. No Tik-tok for me. I have a few things on my "Bug Eric" Youtube channel, but that is about it. I have been posting all my edited images to iNaturalist, but am terribly behind in uploading to Flickr. Both are my way of saving things to "the cloud," but only Flickr lets me save images at their highest resolution. I may need to find additional solutions.

Too much screen time, too little exercise here in the winter months, and the trepidation I feel every time I push a power button, is taking its toll. It is highly tempting to return to pen, paper, and typewriter, but that would be self-inflicted irrelevance. I feel compelled to keep my social media friends entertained and informed, but get less and less satisfaction from Facebook and Twitter all the time. In-person interactions are not only problematic from the standpoint of the pandemic, but unappealing given the highly religious and conservative community I now find myself living in.

How do you cope? What comforts, and cures for anxiety and frustration am I unaware of? Please share your thoughts in the comments. Thank you.

I'm on the Edge....of Irrelevance

I happened upon a recent Wired article chronicling the writer's self-imposed demotion from a smart phone to a flip phone, and it got me revisiting my own philosophy of technology, which is a product of both intent and financial hardship, with a dose of reluctance for good measure.

I wrote about some aspects of technology in this post, but let me speak more personally as to why I draw the lines where I do. My first reaction to the Wired piece was that it was a flawed experiment in that the writer was regressing from a smart phone to a "dumb phone" as opposed to never having had a smart phone in the first place, which is my situation.

I had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the cell phone era. The breaking point came the nth time my flight was delayed or cancelled and I had no way to reach my party on the receiving end to tell them I would not be arriving in a timely manner. I was still reluctant to make the expenditure for a phone, battery, and calling plan, but it was getting embarrassing and impolite to beg the use of a stranger's device. Consequently, I purchased the cheapest phone, and a pay-as-you-go service.

To this day, I run out of "service days" far more regularly than I run out of minutes. Our household still has a land line, with unlimited long distance (no "roaming" fees), that I rely on for the overwhelming majority of telecommunication aside from e-mails. I briefly flirted with an upgraded phone that had an uncovered keyboard, but after I accidentally pocket-dialed a friend in Massachusetts, I went back to a flip phone and here I am.

One Christmas my wife got me a tablet as a gift. After the futility and frustration of trying to scroll and accidentally connecting to unwanted website after unwanted advertisement, and the aggravation of automatic word suggestions while texting or posting, I gave up. That was about three days in. I am all thumbs when it comes to anything smaller than a full-sized keyboard.

There are many benefits to having sub-forefront technology. The greatest of these might be the deterrent to theft. If a burglar had ever entered my prior residences, he or she would have taken a look around and screamed something to the effect of "Are you KIDDING me?!" and maybe an expletive, before storming out. Had they managed to haul off the television, recovering the unit would be a simple matter of calling around to hospitals to see if anyone had come in with a severe back injury. My laptop is so outdated that even I no longer use it. My desktop is over seven years old, and the various cords too tangled for a hurried criminal to untangle. I am still running Windows 7. This is all exactly how I like it: Technology that gets me through, is still supported and serviced, and not new enough to be attractive to thieves.

Another benefit to not carrying a smart phone or tablet or notebook or whatever they are calling the latest thing is that I am forced to unplug when I am out of my home. I am compelled to interact with other people in the flesh, pay attention to my surroundings, and experience the unadulterated reality of the here-and-now. Yes, sometimes it is boring. So what? If you have to be entertained all the time or, increasingly, feel obligated to entertain others via social media, then you might want to re-examine your life. Take a breath. Smell the flowers. People-watch. Wildlife watch.

I can assure you I do not relate any of this to paint myself as superior, or inferior, or out of touch with the realities of the digital universe. Indeed, I find this Age to be a wonder, but I also wonder whether we are losing sight of things that truly matter, whether we are still engaging one another in meaningful relationships, and whether we are losing touch with the natural world. I am fortunate enough to know people who balance flesh-and-blood and digital worlds perfectly, so I have hope. Meanwhile, if you need to reach me on my travels, good luck. I use Tracfone, and isn't that everyone's punchline for any joke about irrelevance?

Alone Like Never Before

My wife just got us an ECHO™ device. I was not consulted, at least not while I was paying attention, but it got me thinking about the deepening and darkening trend toward the total isolation of the American household, the individual U.S. citizen. Freedom has come to mean freedom from others, and social media aside, that should be disturbing to you.

Advertisers don't frame it this way, of course. They paint these newer technologies as the latest in "convenience." I suppose so, but they conveniently omit the loss of labor from the self-checkout at the supermarket, the fresh air you aren't breathing and the exercise you aren't getting when you call Grubhub or DoorDash, your lack of daily education that comes from interacting with other people face to face, in person.

Can't be bothered conversing with an Uber or Lyft driver? No problem, driverless taxicabs are on the horizon. Where will this end? At what point do we say no, I can do that myself? It is all I can do to tolerate hotel personnel waiting on me hand and foot when I am at one of the fancier establishments. I am not helpless, and I didn't get where I am as a writer by asking Alexa or Google for everything. Back in the day I had to go to a library. I still do, but not as often as I should, and so I miss out on local happenings because I fail to go up the street regularly and see what community announcements they have posted. Shame on me.

I can see where this is going, and it is very clever. Eventually there will be Republican Alexa, Fox News Alexa, Gangsta Alexa, Zionist Alexa....and maybe their counterparts of Democrat, CNN, Folk Alexa, and Agnostic Alexa. Why be unduly inconvenienced by different opinions, religions, cultures, and whatnot? Who needs that baggage? The answer, of course, is that we all do.

While we are talking to our home devices, our Senators and Representatives are talking to lobbyists and corporate interests and making deals that further undermine our rights as workers, consumers, voters, and taxpaying citizens. Alexa is not going to remind you of that. You eventually won't know the rules until you unwittingly break one. Right now, Blacks and Hispanics are all too familiar with this scenario, but sooner or later so will you unless you leave your comfort zone, at least periodically.

People fear the wrong thing from the in-home devices. They think these are stealth machines, surveillance products we have been duped into buying ourselves! Don't you know they are listening to our every word, recording our every action if you have one of those portal thingies, and otherwise invading our privacy? Not likely, though I trust that the manufacturers are listening to find out what else they can sell us.

The real fear we should have in our constant isolation is the erosion of empathy. You cannot relate to others if you don't share experiences. You cannot acknowledge wrongs to others, or validate their trauma, if you do not bear witness firsthand. That was the power of the Civil Rights movement. Comfortable people finally opened their eyes and what they saw shook them.

We need another breakthrough like that, and something sustainable that rejects not technology but the agenda behind it. The future of products and services, as the corporate world sees it, is in cutting us off from each other, automating marketing based on our prior consumer choices. No other input necessary, but thank you for the Yelp review, and "checking in" on Facebook so that we can start a marketing campaign for other individuals. Oooh, look at this bright and shiny new gizmo while we beg Congress for more tax breaks and subsidies that will go to our CEOs and shareholders rather than into properly compensating our employees, providing healthcare and other benefits, testing our products for safety, and making our factories safer, cleaner, and less impactful on the environment. Don't look behind the curtain at our lobbyists arguing for relaxed industrial emissions, looser labor laws, and reduced consumer safety standards.

One day soon I may toss our ECHO into the trash, or at least take it to a thrift store, though I hate to encourage the proliferation of these gadgets. Meanwhile, Alexa? Tell my wife I love her and that I forgive her for the error of your purchase.