Touch Tech Will Kill Us All!
This morning: I hate my phone.
Come to think of it I hate my phone most mornings but particularly when it gets me up from bed for things...
I have a love hate relationship with technology. For many years I would avoid all the new fangled gadgets simply for the fact that I couldn’t be bothered with them. Why would I want a little digi box that will contain all my music when a walkman would do just fine. Why would I want an information super-highway when I can pop into the library for no cost; and why oh why would I want to jump into a V.R. machine when I can get as much fun out of a cardboard box?!
V.R. Machines... remember them? A slightly clunkier version of World of Warcraft, where you were not just sucked into an unreal world, but with those headsets you became a complete fashion victim.
I have recently however fallen victim to the gadget bug and I put this down to one overriding defect in my personality. I am a boy. Not only that I am a very immature boy. I am now dazzled by shiny new gadgets in the same a magpie goes googly-eyed over a piece of tinsel.
What has happened to me?!
My Amazon wish lists now resemble the contents of Stuff magazine. I want a DV camera, the new ipod nano, hell even an ipod touch. I find myself wandering into Apple Stores to peruse Mac computers and I secretly dream of owning an iphone! I mean come on! I’m the chap that didn’t get an mp3 player until 3 years ago and my first and only ipod was bought refurbished for God’s sake!
I put this new hunger for technology down to my new phone. Until recently I have had the same phone since my first year at University; an old Samsung about the size of a matchbox. It has done me well over the years, even with an almighty crack in the screen. It sent texts and received and made calls. That is all I needed. The only reason I upgraded was to lower the cost of my bill. One of the free phones on offer for upgrading was another Samsung phone. But this one had a touch screen.
Ooooh...!
I still cannot remember what type of Samsung it is. I’m going to google it now. Here we go... a Samsung S5600. Normally I wouldn’t have gone for it, but the opportunity to get a touch screen phone as part of a free upgrade? I wass old. I could be part of the cool gang finally!
It was a pain in the arse to get used to typing on a screen instead of the tried and tested, and let’s face it, reliable formula of keys but I have to admit it, I got hooked! I loved the camera, the video capabilities and the mp3 player all wrapped into one neat little package. The thing even has a button which can make it do a fake call to your phone! Perfect when you want to get out of talking to anyone you don’t want to, which in my case means the whole human race.
Then I discovered the dark side of this phone; not just a dark side but a fucking evil side.
I used my old phone as an alarm clock for getting up to work as I’m sure most of you did and still do. I saw no harm in doing the same thing with this swanky new model, making me extra cool in the mornings as it did whenever I whipped it out during the day. Now most phone alarms can be turned off with a simple whack of a button.
Not so the Samsung S5600! Oh no!
When the alarm goes off on this phone, it pulls up a pretty animate display picture with a little line across it that you have to drag your finger over to switch it off. But not only that, it doesn’t just stick to one display; it likes to alternate making the line either an upturned semi-circle or a full one; meaning that you have to wake yourself up enough to follow the lines to switch the little shit off.
Now when I’ve just woken up, mostly to go to work the last thing I want to do in the haze of sleep is to solve puzzles from the Krypton Factor! But I see a fiendish plan developing here instigated by THEM (come on we all know who THEY are!) to make us feel guilty about using the snooze button.
Each time we want to press it the puzzle on the phone screen gets even more complicated to the point we will be playing ten rounds of Tetris in order to stop the alarm tone from constantly ringing. Its either that or lose the phone that makes you so cool by flinging it against the wall, making it unlikely you’ll get a free replacement due to self-inflicted damage.
Bastards!
Eventually the alarm puzzles will be so complex that sleep will be eliminated altogether, making us vulnerable to a fascist takeover of Britain or a Zombie plague. And as the living dead munch on our entrails we will be ok; for as we die, we will use our brand new Smartphones to text our loved ones goodbye, and look fucking hip and with it in the process.
But I’ll still take my phone out with me today, nestled gently in my inside coat pocket. But today will be different as I will plaster a sign to my forehead with the words “Walking Lunch” in big red letters.
I love technology for its shiny goodness; but know that one day it will fuck us all over!
Come to think of it I hate my phone most mornings but particularly when it gets me up from bed for things...
I have a love hate relationship with technology. For many years I would avoid all the new fangled gadgets simply for the fact that I couldn’t be bothered with them. Why would I want a little digi box that will contain all my music when a walkman would do just fine. Why would I want an information super-highway when I can pop into the library for no cost; and why oh why would I want to jump into a V.R. machine when I can get as much fun out of a cardboard box?!
V.R. Machines... remember them? A slightly clunkier version of World of Warcraft, where you were not just sucked into an unreal world, but with those headsets you became a complete fashion victim.
I have recently however fallen victim to the gadget bug and I put this down to one overriding defect in my personality. I am a boy. Not only that I am a very immature boy. I am now dazzled by shiny new gadgets in the same a magpie goes googly-eyed over a piece of tinsel.
What has happened to me?!
My Amazon wish lists now resemble the contents of Stuff magazine. I want a DV camera, the new ipod nano, hell even an ipod touch. I find myself wandering into Apple Stores to peruse Mac computers and I secretly dream of owning an iphone! I mean come on! I’m the chap that didn’t get an mp3 player until 3 years ago and my first and only ipod was bought refurbished for God’s sake!
I put this new hunger for technology down to my new phone. Until recently I have had the same phone since my first year at University; an old Samsung about the size of a matchbox. It has done me well over the years, even with an almighty crack in the screen. It sent texts and received and made calls. That is all I needed. The only reason I upgraded was to lower the cost of my bill. One of the free phones on offer for upgrading was another Samsung phone. But this one had a touch screen.
Ooooh...!
I still cannot remember what type of Samsung it is. I’m going to google it now. Here we go... a Samsung S5600. Normally I wouldn’t have gone for it, but the opportunity to get a touch screen phone as part of a free upgrade? I wass old. I could be part of the cool gang finally!
It was a pain in the arse to get used to typing on a screen instead of the tried and tested, and let’s face it, reliable formula of keys but I have to admit it, I got hooked! I loved the camera, the video capabilities and the mp3 player all wrapped into one neat little package. The thing even has a button which can make it do a fake call to your phone! Perfect when you want to get out of talking to anyone you don’t want to, which in my case means the whole human race.
Then I discovered the dark side of this phone; not just a dark side but a fucking evil side.
I used my old phone as an alarm clock for getting up to work as I’m sure most of you did and still do. I saw no harm in doing the same thing with this swanky new model, making me extra cool in the mornings as it did whenever I whipped it out during the day. Now most phone alarms can be turned off with a simple whack of a button.
Not so the Samsung S5600! Oh no!
When the alarm goes off on this phone, it pulls up a pretty animate display picture with a little line across it that you have to drag your finger over to switch it off. But not only that, it doesn’t just stick to one display; it likes to alternate making the line either an upturned semi-circle or a full one; meaning that you have to wake yourself up enough to follow the lines to switch the little shit off.
Now when I’ve just woken up, mostly to go to work the last thing I want to do in the haze of sleep is to solve puzzles from the Krypton Factor! But I see a fiendish plan developing here instigated by THEM (come on we all know who THEY are!) to make us feel guilty about using the snooze button.
Each time we want to press it the puzzle on the phone screen gets even more complicated to the point we will be playing ten rounds of Tetris in order to stop the alarm tone from constantly ringing. Its either that or lose the phone that makes you so cool by flinging it against the wall, making it unlikely you’ll get a free replacement due to self-inflicted damage.
Bastards!
Eventually the alarm puzzles will be so complex that sleep will be eliminated altogether, making us vulnerable to a fascist takeover of Britain or a Zombie plague. And as the living dead munch on our entrails we will be ok; for as we die, we will use our brand new Smartphones to text our loved ones goodbye, and look fucking hip and with it in the process.
But I’ll still take my phone out with me today, nestled gently in my inside coat pocket. But today will be different as I will plaster a sign to my forehead with the words “Walking Lunch” in big red letters.
I love technology for its shiny goodness; but know that one day it will fuck us all over!