Tag computers

48 Hour Technology Strike

Heather Christena Schmidt 4 Comments

Keep track of my strike time at http://countingdownto.com/countdown/223092

I’m going on strike. Not from a job because – I think we all know – I don’t work. I mean I work at the most thankless job on the planet (housewife and SAHM), but there is no monetary compensation for that.

Yet.

No, I’m going on strike from technology. For the next 48 hours I’m ditching my cellphone, laptop, and iPad, and I think you should too. Here’s why:

#1 There Is A World Outside Your Cellphone

I just have had it up to about my eyebrows with sitting at dinner with people that spend the entire time texting and BSing on their cellphones. My husband is notorious for doing this; and the most egregious part is that he’s just scrolling through his apps doing mundane updates that are entirely unnecessary. It’s so rude, and reeks of the implication that the only world that exists to the people committing this etiquette faux pas is within their cellphone and computer. That the world in which I am – sitting across from them at the table – does not exist when the world of technology is around.

There is a world outside your cellphone. And your computer. Not getting Facebook updates is manageable, dare I say – not a big deal.

Just today I read an article about the growing problem of Facebook addiction, in which it was reported that as many as 1/3rd of people that were interviewed admitted to experiencing feelings of envy when viewing photographs and other updates of others on Facebook. This implies a number of things, but as for this point I think this has a lot to do with the fact that some of us think there is no world outside of Facebook.

1313897240072_6858395Do you faithful blog followers actually believe that life is as wonderful and exciting as it appears to be for some people on Facebook? Every photo is from a party; therefore life is a party? Every update is positive, fun, and full of excitement; therefore nothing bad ever happens to the people on your Facebook page? Nonsense! The only reason why people post on the social networks great and wonderful and awe-inspiring news is because it’s looked down upon to report anything real that happens. People call reality “bad” and “negative” – two words that have been demonized by our terribly childish social network culture.

There is a world outside of your computer. A real world. A world where you are not alone.

#2 Capturing Photographs Is Not the Point

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Recently I realized that I spend more time capturing some moments than actually experiencing them. A blogger, I’m constantly trying to shoot things that can be used for my blogs; but now it’s leaked into every aspect of my life. Yesterday I snapped over twenty photographs of my car being towed. The experience from beginning to end was captured on photograph, and yet when it came time to recall the tow truck driver’s name today when AAA called to survey the experience, I had no idea. The guy really went the extra mile in taking care of us and I was so focused on my own photographic evidence that I couldn’t even take the time to learn his name.

The point of having a good meal is not to capture a photograph of the food. The reason for going on a hike is to get exercise, fresh air, and experience the outdoors. I have friends that have so many photographs of their experiences that I wonder if they even would remember what happened if it weren’t for the photographs, much like I can’t recall the tow truck driver’s name.

And is a memory not sufficient anymore to prove that something happened? Take a picture of your kid at this park, then that park, then this other park, then another. We get it! You take your kid to the park. We would have believed you if you just said it once. 7,000 shots a day of the kid running in the grass gets old. Really old. This isn’t to say that the kid isn’t cute, or the food doesn’t look as tasty as you describe it.

It’s just that technology is replacing even our most intimate moments and experiences.

#3 Technology Really Makes Me Hate People

And lose respect for them. This person didn’t respond to an email I sent in due time. A text message got ignored. People didn’t “like” or comment on my blog.

How many times have you Tweeted someone for them to never respond? How many times have you followed a blogger only for them to ignore you, as if they are too “big” to follow back?

The list of Internet etiquette grievances is a long one – not just mine, but the conglomerate list of all the billions of people using the Internet regularly. Sometimes it makes you hate people to be connected all the time. It makes you hate how not everyone operates by the same standards you do. And it makes you loathe the ways in which they think and act – from political posters on Facebook, to people that use their cellphones and computers as a way to bully; technology has just made it easier for the whole of humanity to act like assholes.

While I am definitely a fan of general misanthropy, I get too angry when I’m online too much.

#4 I Need a Break From Web MD

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I need a break from Web MD. And the news. And Google flu trends. And Sickweather.com. I’m such a hypochondriac, with a glaringly unhealthy level of OCD, that I am obsessed with what’s going on around, who has which diseases, and whether or not I have [insert obscure, unlikely disease here].

I need a break from all that nonsense – I wash my hands; cover my cough; and avoid sick people. How exactly does checking up on where people are sick in my area every day make us any more safe? Am I going to avoid running errands because a few people Tweeted that they had the stomach flu in my area? No. No – we still need milk, eggs, and bread.

But it’s also a matter of not just health, but of the news. This is another thing my husband is horrible with – he is obsessed with the news, and occasionally I am too. It isn’t just one article on something that happened, or a study that was done; it’s all of them that show up in the Google News Aggregate. While I don’t think it’s good to stick our heads in the sand, sometimes shutting it all off is for the best. There is nothing I can do about the fact that North Korea issued another threat to the United States. The fact that emergency room visits from energy drinks have increased by 47% bears absolutely no effect on me.

Obsessing over all of these things is just another way that technology has a hold of our lives, just as in the case of cellphones leading us to believe there is no world outside, and photography applications robbing us of having actual experiences.

Realistically, 48 hours off technology is nothing. I still remember a day when I never used a cellphone or a computer. When I never used a computer – oh what I would give to say I still did that now. What I would give to be able to say that any of us could be successful at anything without all the advances computer and cellular technology can offer. Sure, my Klout score may go down about a point from being offline for 48 hours. I may offend someone much in the way I have been offended by not responding soon enough to an email or a text message. But think of all the things that can come of unbinding myself to the chains of my technology. I don’t even know what the next 48 hours holds. It’s kind of exciting to know that they won’t involve a cellphone or computer.

The real question isn’t “why should I do it?” though. It’s “can I do it?” Can you?

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The Hipster Apocalypse

Heather Christena Schmidt 2 Comments

Does anyone else remember the days when you went into a MAC store to get your computer fixed and you were able to talk to people who actually looked like they should be working on computers? Donning pocket protectors, tight pants, collared shirts, and always wearing bottle-rimmed glasses, a diagnosis of your coveted machine was given to you through the nasally tones of someone you actually trusted had gone to school to specialize in caring for your device. This seems to be a thing of the past, though. Now, when you go into your local Apple store to hit up the “Genius Bar,” you are confronted with something far from a cadre of geniuses and erudites in the field of computers. No, instead when you step foot into the store (each of which is far too modern, white, and rounded for its own good), you are confronted with the enemy: hipsters.

Don’t get me wrong: I will never use a computer that is not an Apple/Macintosh product. I truly believe that Apple products are far superior to Windows-based PCs. I’m one of those people. I covet my Macbook, iPad, and iPod; without them I am at an utter loss.

That said, I’m getting just a little tired of going into my local Apple store for a repair, an update, a question, or a new accessory, only to be assaulted by an onslaught of hipsters. As if this new trend were not on every corner of every street, every ad in every shop-window, I have to be confronted by them at a time when the stress of a broken computer, or the upsettedness of another required purchase, is at its height.  Something about this just seems wrong.

Mod glasses and excessive plaid be damned:  Apple is quite clearly the headquarters of The Hipster Apocalypse.  An average Apple visit goes something like this:

First, upon walking in the door, the hipster guards are all milling around waiting to check you in for your appointment.  There are (on average) at least fifteen of them, all standing around, carrying iPhones.  One time I had an appointment for technical support that was two hours before the store opened and twenty people (all with the obnoxious blue employee t-shirts and check-in iPhones) were hanging around the front, looking something like these guys:

After breaking through the army of hipster guards, I am finally checked in for my appointment.  A little known fact is that you actually need an appointment to do anything at the Apple store.  On one occasion, I went in to purchase a case for my new iPad and the employee showing them to me told me he had to schedule and check me in for an appointment before we could proceed with the purchase.  The reason for this unnecessary Apple beaurocracy remains to be seen.

While heading to the back of the store to wait by the Genius Bar until one of the “Geniuses” calls my name, I pass by a series of islands for various purposes.  At some of the islands, there are products.  It never fails that this chick is checking her email for free:

There’s almost always someone being taught how to use their Macbook (because it isn’t made as simple and self-explanatory as is humanly possible, right? . . .); the employees always in lounge pose:

And as if the contemporary beat-nick, no-showering hipster mentality hadn’t truly hit hard with the employees, there are always some yupster children running around the games section, conveniently placed right next to the Genius Bar so that people in for free help must know that hipsters really do rule at Apple.

Finally, my name is called and I head to the Genius Bar for a non-genius to fix my computer.  At the Genius Bar, the true effect of the hipster culture at the Apple store is at its worst.  Mundane conversations about bands and being emotional always extend the appointments well beyond the time needed to simply fix the actual computer.  People that think they are cool by virtue of their iPhone ownership are always milling around, tapping and honing in on the appointments to offer their superior knowledge of Apple products.  And the employees (whose New Hire Handbook must have come with a pair of thick, square glasses and focused on how to make your pants as tight as possible) are generally too busy pushing their Phil Spector-hair out of their eyes to actually listen to what is going on with the computers:

Usually when I leave the Apple store, I feel unsatisfied.  Yes, my computer is fixed.  Typically I find the accessory or help that I need.  On occasion, I even come away with something for free.  But the pangs of disappointment always grip me as I leave the store, each and every time.  Usually it’s because the hipsters were just so intolerable that I felt like I needed to punch something when I got in the car.  But every once in a while, it’s because I wish I were as cool as those really cool, emo hipsters.  I wish I could rock dirty, tight pants; overly wooly sweaters, plaid shoes and hot pink thick-rimmed glasses.  I wish I could slouch everywhere I went and fro my hair out.  And more than anything, I walk away from an Apple store dripping with jealousy, for as a non-hipster, an uncool “square,” I never get the hipsters fistbump at the end of my transaction:

While this blog does not condone or encourage violence, of course exceptions can be made when it comes to hipsters:  tomorrow is the first ever “Punch a Hipster Day.”  Join the revolution against The Hipster Apocalypse!  For more information, click here.