TWEET ME NOT


I’m no technophobe, but please don’t tweet me, text me, or “friend” me. As far as I’m concerned those are all forms of cyber-bullying. I love my computer (that I mostly use as a fancy typewriter), am content with my basic e-mail, and obsessed with the occasional computer game, but I only have a dial-up connection to the internet.

The tweets of Twitter do not intrigue me. I do like epigrams, and the challenge of reducing one’s message to 127 characters has some appeal, but I suspect few tweets attain epigram status. Texting with its arcane abbreviations and acronyms just seems juvenile at best.

Facebook and its kin are mysteries I’m not interested in solving. I don’t need friends that badly. I ignore those requests that purport to be from friends or relatives. The one request I did respond to in a cursory way resulted in my e-mail mail list getting compromised.

I tried to set up a web page for myself, but even the sites that claimed to be user-friendly, quickly attained enemy status in my hands. I had to settle for doing an idiot-proof blog that lacks the bells and whistles of the web page I originally sought.

Computers, smart phones, and their apps have taken over the known universe. Google is now a verb, and, despite the recession, sales of I-phones, Kindles, and their ilk prosper. Newspapers are shrinking both in number, and in their physical dimensions. Libraries are short on actual books, and long on audio books, DVDs, computers, and e-books. I’m conflicted because, despite my antipathy for tech talk, I do love Google.

I’m beginning to think that the issue for me is not just the pervasiveness of technology in my life, but the change it demands from me, and, worst of all, the rapidity of that change. Just as I think I’ve got some computer thing mastered they change the format, the protocol, or the password. I’m often asked by my computer, or whatever is dictating terms, to authorize “updates.” I don’t want updates. I want down-dates; I want boring dates; I just want things the way they used to be.

Nevertheless, although I think movement for movement’s sake is what passes for some tech progress these days, the tsunami of change has already wreaked its havoc, and now some of us have to pick up the few pieces we understand and get used to it.

Until I do that, please do not tweet me, text me, or friend me. I’m not feeling all that friendly these days anyway.