Imagine you are driving down the road on your way to work when suddenly your car shuts off and coasts to a stop, just like it does after a nuclear attack. You make it to the side of the road, but you have no power.
The first person you phone is your son, who seems to know how to fix such things, and he tells you it’s time to update your car.
“If you don’t upgrade your software, it will not work on today’s roads,” he tells you with a tone that indicates he is trying his best to be patient.
You are reluctant to update your car because last time you did in 2005, the headlights stopped working, you had to buy a new key to start it and your middle initial changed. But the bottom line is your car won’t move and you have to get to work.
So you decide to do the deed, and 30 minutes later, after 92 updates, your car starts right up. At first all seems normal until you get to your first stop sign and roll right through it. That’s when you find out that what used to be your turn signal now functions as your brakes and your turn signal is only activated by calling out to “Slurpee,” a clueless robotic woman who is hard of hearing. You, of course, don’t figure this out until your son comes to help you get your car pushed back from the tree that you nearly ran over.
He tells you that he’s never had such problems with his car and that, as far as he can remember, turn signals have always activated his brakes. He tells you that it must be a “generational thing,” which means he thinks you are too stupid to change channels with a TV remote control.
I made up this car analogy to help you understand how I feel about my laptop and “smart” phone. Every time I am forced to update my computer or “smart” phone, it takes me weeks to recover and pull my devices away from the proverbial electronic trees they start crashing into again.
I know the problems I have are not imagined, and it is not a “generational” thing.
It’s true that when my computer stops working, I have no idea how to fix it. It’s also true that when I’m flying somewhere and it is announced that there will be a delay due to mechanical problems, I do not offer to fix the broken 737. I never know how to get those things running and I do not know how to defragmentate my hard drive.
The last time my computer crashed, which was just recently, I decided to carefully read helpful things posted online and fix it myself. The problem with that is that usually the first line of instruction includes a directive I could not execute even if someone was threatening my life. In my case, it told me that I might be able to fix my computer if I had Linus on a thumb drive. I did not, and the instructions didn’t say if it had to be the whole Charlie Brown Christmas special or just a few pictures of the kid with the blanket. It just made no sense to me.
Computer problems seem to be a permanent part of life now for me. My son would probably roll his eyes and ask me, “What do you expect?” It’s true, I purchased the laptop, which I naively try to use every day now, back in July of this year. It’s almost 5 months old. It’s probably way outdated by his standards.
When I was in college, I do remember having to purchase new notebooks when my pad would run out, but after I did, the paper in the new notebook worked the same way it did on the outdated pad. Things were simpler back then on Walton’s Mountain.
It’s all so complicated now. I wonder why I don’t have Linus on a thumb drive. He seemed to understand the true meaning of not only Christmas but also everything else. “And that’s what it’s all about, Steve,” he would tell me with that simple Linus intonation I now hear whenever I read the Christmas story from the Bible. Thank goodness old Linus has never been updated.
Some things should never be updated. And yes, I know that makes no sense to people who have never empathized with the plight of Gilligan and the professor, too.
Maybe it’s a generational thing.
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