Do any of you just feel like completely retreating from the 21st century? (grandparents, moving)
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I'm 66 and I love new electronics. Getting a new smart phone or tablet is like Christmas for me. I don't like, however, how technology has led to anonymity based hostility. People are mean these days, hiding behind their screen names.
I'm also in agreement with the OP. The technology advances focus on allowing people to bury their noses in their personal devices and order junk online. God forbid you should miss a phone call or text message even though you talk to that person several times a day. Job productivity may have increased with email, internet, etc. but at a cost to the overwhelmed worker. And your employer can now contact you anytime - it used to me that weekends and vacations were off limits. No more. Medical advances are aimed at prolonging life which is already becoming too long without necessarily improving the quality of life. No one needs to live to 100. Equal rights have advanced but the ADA accommodations have often gone to the extreme and interfere with the rights of others (e.g., growing number of emotional support animals on planes, in small apartments, etc.). And agree with SoCal that the whole popular culture, entertainment, relationships thing is very disturbing. I have about 25 years left on this planet and hope to be gone before society implodes.
I went shopping to every store I could think of to buy some simple parts. I spent $7 and found that the items did not work. I shopped on line and found exactly what I needed for way less than half the cost including shipping. I love internet shopping. I can find the exactly what I want without visiting store and store and spending a day in the process.
My work productivity went through the roof using computers and emails. There was nothing as frustrating as trying to play phone tag. With emails, the issues are resolved and there is written confirmation. My overall work productivity went through the roof using computers and robotics. When I started in my field lots of work was done manually. When I reached retirement age it was automated and could produce literally tens of thousands of times the output. Prices dropped, demand soared and all of us who worked in the field benefited with better paying, more advanced jobs.
I worked in a medical field and am still amazed at how advanced medical procedures have improved the quality of life. I had to have prostate surgery and it was done laproscopically with robotic surgery. I was not cut from stem to stern and healed quickly with a good outcome. My sister is younger by several years. This year her life was saved with complicated replacements for a shot ascending and descending aorta. She will heal and potentially have decades more of enjoyable and productive life ahead of her.
I am especially impressed with the changes in our society. We old boomers started out as flower children and hippies and ended up chasing materialism. The younger generations seem much better balanced and are more interested in social issues and maintaining friendships. Facebook and the internet are great tools. I have lost track of most of my old friends, schoolmates and workmates. My daughters keep tract of their old friends. And I understand. I have a whole new group of friends from Facebook and my hobby forums. I constantly learn from them and from their experiences. I compare it with the good old days when a great many people lived rurally miles from others and with almost no means of communication.
I am especially excited about the access to knowledge and information. You can read almost every book or scientific publication on the internet with instantaneous access. You can search and organize and analyze data. I find I use Microsoft Excel as a tool frequently even though I am retired and don't need to use it for work.
I love online banking and bill paying. By coincidence I bought a packet of envelops today. The last pack of 40 I bought about 6 years ago. I used most of them to organize paperwork. I am happy that I rarely need to write a check or send out or receive payments by mail. I love my direct deposits. I don't need to wait for a check in the mail and then take it to the bank and wait 10 days for it to clear.
I could spent hours talking about all the things that have improved. I suppose it would do no good. Those who are negative will look at each change and find something that is less than perfect.
Sure there are changes that are hard to get used to and there are new issues and problems to be solved. Those are minimal. My conclusion is that the good old days just plain sucked by comparison.
Finally I am just amazed at what happens to some people as they get older. Rather than get wiser and look at the world with the perspective of knowledge and experience, many people seem to become sour and angry and outright pessimistic. A great many also encounter clinical depression and unfortunately don't understand it and don't seek or accept treatment.
I'm 66 and I love new electronics. Getting a new smart phone or tablet is like Christmas for me. I don't like, however, how technology has led to anonymity based hostility. People are mean these days, hiding behind their screen names.
I am with you about loving the new electronic tools. I am a photographer and love what I can do with digital rather than the old analog film technology.
Not all forums are like City Data. I belong to a number which work very well and I have even met several of the participants in person. The characteristics of a forum are often set by how it is moderated. Moderating is typically an unpaid, unrewarded task that is rarely attractive. Many of the City Data forums seem to encourage what I can only describe as crackpots.
It never stops. While we I was replying to you, seeriously, I got an email and made another internet friend. He invited me to meet and join him and his friends in 3D archery shoots. That happened because I was watching and learning from his You Tube videos and mentioned something important that he overlooked.
Jaminhealth wrote (in part): "[W]e have so so many out of work due to technology, robots etc. And service forget it. Calling for service with a company, forget it. And people wonder why they are so in debt, every new change, a new iphone or app. I'm sure if I were YOUNG, I'd be caught up in it. That's all the YOUNG people know. Being OLDER, we've seen it all."
Yep. Although I am not one to criticize young people in general -- I generally like young people very much -- it seems that all the new technology is definitely having a bad effect on them. It seems as though "face to face" conversation in which actual talking occurs is becoming something of a lost art. (And don't even get me started on all the "sexting", complete with nudity! What are the people who do this thinking?!! Or maybe that just proves that I really am a curmudgeon.)
(And, btw, thanks, everyone, for contributing to what is, to me, a very good discussion!)
I have grandkids who are 19 and 17 soon and good thing I spent time with them when they were babies because now they don't have a minute for me. Gotta make an appt and when we go out for dinner the boy never puts his ipad down. geeeeeeeeeezzzzzzz
I'm also in agreement with the OP. The technology advances focus on allowing people to bury their noses in their personal devices and order junk online. God forbid you should miss a phone call or text message even though you talk to that person several times a day. Job productivity may have increased with email, internet, etc. but at a cost to the overwhelmed worker. And your employer can now contact you anytime - it used to me that weekends and vacations were off limits. No more. Medical advances are aimed at prolonging life which is already becoming too long without necessarily improving the quality of life. No one needs to live to 100. Equal rights have advanced but the ADA accommodations have often gone to the extreme and interfere with the rights of others (e.g., growing number of emotional support animals on planes, in small apartments, etc.). And agree with SoCal that the whole popular culture, entertainment, relationships thing is very disturbing. I have about 25 years left on this planet and hope to be gone before society implodes.
It is truly is amazing, don't miss that call. People even sleeping with their phones next to them, under pillow, I heard...yea gads. Not this lady. My answering machine on my portable phone on my desk takes anything I can't answer....many are solicitors too.
I personally see our current times as the best our western civilization has ever enjoyed. Technology has allowed us to stop doing many of the things, whether dangerous, tedious, or just plane under valued, we never wanted to do. It has allowed us to start ending poverty through economic development and has provided the ability to develop vaccines to eradicate certain diseases and treatments to cure many forms of illnesses and cancers. Social progress has given equal status to more classes of people, at least here in the West. War and crime is on the steep decline across the world. Education is freeing millions of men and women from poverty and virtual enslavement and will most likely help the world control it's population growth.
Are there still issues? Absolutely. Climate change and energy policy are 2 big issues that demand a great deal of work and provide an existential threat to our civilization. Religious extremism, having existed for the last 4,000 years, will not have a simple solution. Poverty, especially the further bifurcation of the haves and have nots, is an issue that one way or another must be solved. And over consumption of non-renewable natural resources are furthered by our consumer society. All tough problems but not unsolvable with enough will and focus.
It's easy to complain that things were better in the 'good old days'. Unless you were poor, uneducated, sick, hungry, homeless, living in a war torn country or where crime was out of control, etc.
Exciting times. I can't wait to see what's next.
What confuses me is years ago the climate changers said we were going to freeze over and now it's global warming. I think the sun got to their heads out in CA. Not everywhere is hot like CA. Obviously they're not aware of that.
What confuses me is years ago the climate changers said we were going to freeze over and now it's global warming. I think the sun got to their heads out in CA. Not everywhere is hot like CA. Obviously they're not aware of that.
Don't forget there is a whole research industry of people getting grants and producing publications about climate change. There is not much funding or support for those whose findings do not support climate change. I don't know how much our climate is changing and how much of the changes are related to airborne pollutants and carbon dioxide, but as a scientist I am skeptical about many of the findings. And, yes, I also remember the predictions that we were about to enter a new ice age.
And then we have the politicians entering the already dirty waters. Obama is trying to establish some sort of legacy aside from Obamacare and not much else after 8 years in office. He is trying to establish himself as a prophet for the climate change issue. I wonder if he really understands how little he understands. Does this match Bush being mislead about the weapons of mass destruction?
I have grandkids who are 19 and 17 soon and good thing I spent time with them when they were babies because now they don't have a minute for me. ......
Have you considered the problem is not with them, but with you? "Spending time" sounds like a slow, painful death. What do you have to offer that is important, interesting and exciting to 17 and 19 year olds? If nothing except your own issues comes to mind, then you have your explanation.
Don't forget there is a whole research industry of people getting grants and producing publications about climate change. There is not much funding or support for those whose findings do not support climate change. I don't know how much our climate is changing and how much of the changes are related to airborne pollutants and carbon dioxide, but as a scientist I am skeptical about many of the findings. And, yes, I also remember the predictions that we were about to enter a new ice age.
And then we have the politicians entering the already dirty waters. Obama is trying to establish some sort of legacy aside from Obamacare and not much else after 8 years in office. He is trying to establish himself as a prophet for the climate change issue. I wonder if he really understands how little he understands. Does this match Bush being mislead about the weapons of mass destruction?
I don't know but they both spend a lot of our tax money on it when people are hurting. I wonder what the next craze will be.
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