Essays, Chapbooks, Contests...Etcetera
MARGARITA MEYENDORFF:
Author, Actress & Musician
Author, Actress & Musician
TECHNOPHOBIA
By Margarita Meyendorff
I am at war with my “smart” devices. It starts with my cellphone. I panic when it rings – did I actually choose that idiotic ring tone? Where is it ringing? I frantically dig for it in my purse. Then I can never slide my fingers over to the green button fast enough to answer. I don’t have the reflexes for it and I’m sure my cell phone hates me – perhaps because I have stepped on it and thrown it out of the car window too many times.
Once, Miky, my husband and I got lost at the Tennis Open in Queens because we couldn’t navigate our new “smart” phones. I was beginning to freak-out when I looked up from my cell and there he was, standing 20 feet away, staring down at his smartphone.
I didn’t grow up with a cell phone – it’s not something I’m accustomed to relying on. It’s never charged enough. Who remembers? I don’t need people to know where I am at every moment. I don’t need instant gratification of information, and I will die before I speak on the cell phone at a dinner table at home or in a restaurant.
Texting is an insult to the English language.
Next came the “Smart tv.” My Smart tv is not user friendly. It has five remotes and I know how to use two of them. The other three have gone airborne when I tried something more complicated. Recording programs, for example, is a skill I have not mastered.
“Please cue the recording of the tennis match up to the beginning and not to the end,” I call from the kitchen to Miky, who is sitting in front of the TV in the living room.
There is nothing worse than knowing who won a tennis match in advance and having to skip 3-4 hours of enjoyable watching time. With Covid threatening and having to stay home, I need as much filler time as possible to make it through the day.
Bureaucracy is bad enough without the robot phone answering services. God forbid you say something wrong to the robot or press the wrong number on the dial – round and round you go for what seems an eternity: the incessant robot questions, the pushing of buttons, the waiting, the dreadful music. By the time a human answers, I’m in hysterics and can no longer articulate the problem.
When my husband introduced me to “Julie,” our GPS girl, I nearly fell out of the car. Julie, really? Of course, I took it personally. Julie’s voice grates; that annoying impersonal techno voice. At least give her an accent! What’s wrong with asking for directions? Isn’t getting lost part of the trip? Who’s rushing? It’s not the destination, it’s the open road. Don’t look down at the cell phone, look up at the scenery! And, by the way, I don’t need an internet to navigate!
A few years ago, Miky and I bought a Toyota plug-in hybrid electric car and named it Foxy Lady because of its sleek steel-gray look. Foxy is not a car, it’s a computer on wheels. I have no idea how it works. I push a button; the dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree and the car moves forward.
And what about the scams – a technological disease which preys on naïve older people like me? I have four pages of passwords. “Hacked.” Even the word gives me the chills.
I resent being forced into a techno learning curve. As soon as I learn to navigate a techie gadget, the gadget technology changes. I can’t keep up. I’m forced to speed through life when all I want is to slow it down.
I admit it. I’m a dinosaur. I’m afraid that technology is taking the human out of the human and destroying spontaneity and intuition. At my age, I’m a hopeless romantic; an artist type. Someday, will someone come to me and ask me what life was like without computers or cell phones?
If they have time to listen, I will tell them.
I am at war with my “smart” devices. It starts with my cellphone. I panic when it rings – did I actually choose that idiotic ring tone? Where is it ringing? I frantically dig for it in my purse. Then I can never slide my fingers over to the green button fast enough to answer. I don’t have the reflexes for it and I’m sure my cell phone hates me – perhaps because I have stepped on it and thrown it out of the car window too many times.
Once, Miky, my husband and I got lost at the Tennis Open in Queens because we couldn’t navigate our new “smart” phones. I was beginning to freak-out when I looked up from my cell and there he was, standing 20 feet away, staring down at his smartphone.
I didn’t grow up with a cell phone – it’s not something I’m accustomed to relying on. It’s never charged enough. Who remembers? I don’t need people to know where I am at every moment. I don’t need instant gratification of information, and I will die before I speak on the cell phone at a dinner table at home or in a restaurant.
Texting is an insult to the English language.
Next came the “Smart tv.” My Smart tv is not user friendly. It has five remotes and I know how to use two of them. The other three have gone airborne when I tried something more complicated. Recording programs, for example, is a skill I have not mastered.
“Please cue the recording of the tennis match up to the beginning and not to the end,” I call from the kitchen to Miky, who is sitting in front of the TV in the living room.
There is nothing worse than knowing who won a tennis match in advance and having to skip 3-4 hours of enjoyable watching time. With Covid threatening and having to stay home, I need as much filler time as possible to make it through the day.
Bureaucracy is bad enough without the robot phone answering services. God forbid you say something wrong to the robot or press the wrong number on the dial – round and round you go for what seems an eternity: the incessant robot questions, the pushing of buttons, the waiting, the dreadful music. By the time a human answers, I’m in hysterics and can no longer articulate the problem.
When my husband introduced me to “Julie,” our GPS girl, I nearly fell out of the car. Julie, really? Of course, I took it personally. Julie’s voice grates; that annoying impersonal techno voice. At least give her an accent! What’s wrong with asking for directions? Isn’t getting lost part of the trip? Who’s rushing? It’s not the destination, it’s the open road. Don’t look down at the cell phone, look up at the scenery! And, by the way, I don’t need an internet to navigate!
A few years ago, Miky and I bought a Toyota plug-in hybrid electric car and named it Foxy Lady because of its sleek steel-gray look. Foxy is not a car, it’s a computer on wheels. I have no idea how it works. I push a button; the dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree and the car moves forward.
And what about the scams – a technological disease which preys on naïve older people like me? I have four pages of passwords. “Hacked.” Even the word gives me the chills.
I resent being forced into a techno learning curve. As soon as I learn to navigate a techie gadget, the gadget technology changes. I can’t keep up. I’m forced to speed through life when all I want is to slow it down.
I admit it. I’m a dinosaur. I’m afraid that technology is taking the human out of the human and destroying spontaneity and intuition. At my age, I’m a hopeless romantic; an artist type. Someday, will someone come to me and ask me what life was like without computers or cell phones?
If they have time to listen, I will tell them.
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Margarita Meyendorff is the author of Flipping the Bird and the published memoir DP: Displaced Person. The daughter of a Russian Baron, she was born displaced in a refugee camp in Germany, far from the opulence of Imperial Russia that was her birthright. A series of wars destroyed this privileged existence, and Margarita’s life became a series of extraordinary moves.
She has performed as an actress, dancer, musician, and storyteller at venues throughout the United States and in Europe. Her memoir, DP Displaced Person is being translated into Russian. Her recent book titled Flipping the Bird is an anthology of short stories based on her numerous life adventures. Follow Margarita on:
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Margarita Meyendorff
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