Do you remember card catalogs?
Research in them was slow and clunky, but you learned how to do it in elementary or middle school, and then you knew how to do it ever after. I was thinking about card catalogs recently because my university updated its online catalog over the winter break, and when I came back to teach spring classes, I had to learn how to use it all over again. It wasn’t a terrible process — I could, at least, learn to use it well enough to teach students, relatively quickly. But I had just gotten used to the last set of updates, and I’m sure there’s another set coming. Indeed, we seem to be in the midst of a continual set of updates, at this point . . . recently, a page was updated in the middle of the class I was teaching, and my students had to figure out how to get access to a document, trying different URLs in the middle of class. This is the sort of thing we seem to live with now, a world in which we are always trying to figure out how to find or do something, because it’s changed since the last time.
My computer and cell phone are the same way: they are continually updating, and sometimes the updates don’t make a difference, but sometimes I have to figure out how to do something all over again in the new system. One could argue that this is good for us, that we are learning to be nimble, to think on our feet. Except that most of the time these updates are pointless. They do not make the systems any better or easier to use. At this point, if I want to do academic research, I don’t start with my university’s library catalog because the algorithm isn’t very good. I can get better results from JStor or even Google Scholar.
I’m not nostalgic for card catalogs, but I am nostalgic for an earlier version of the university’s online catalog, which worked so well — so much better than the current system! It seems to me that the systems we had in the earlier days of technology were more intuitive, easier to use. They really did help simplify our daily lives. Remember when ATMs were genius? They still are. But somehow or other, so many things have gotten complicated beyond usefulness. I love my iPhone, but I barely ever type on it because the keyboard is not worthy of the name. I still miss the keyboard on my old Blackberry. Now that, you could type on. And speaking of typing, I certainly don’t miss the days of typewriters, but for writing, I still use WordPerfect, which no one else uses anymore. It’s the perfect system for a writer, or at least the type of writer I am. It allows me perfect control over the manuscript, whereas with MS Word, half the time I don’t know what a particular code is doing. I’m not convinced that my students, who use MS Word, do either.
I love technology, but I love technology that makes sense and does its job. And somehow, we’ve pushed so much of our technology past some invisible point of usefulness, where it’s more of a headache to use than not. I barely ever call customer service anymore, because I know that I’ll end up in a briar patch of computerized options. If I need information from my bank, I walk into a bank branch and talk to an actual person. I have a credit card I keep and use specifically because when I call, the voice that answers belongs to a person. It’s such a luxury, nowadays, not having to talk to a computer . . .
Perhaps I’m a modern Luddite. I have nothing against textile mills, but I hate, with cordial passion, the checkout machines at the drug store that always break down when I try to use them, or the reimbursement system all universities seem to use now — it can take longer uploading the information to be reimbursed for the doughnuts at a meeting than you spent in the meeting. Recently, a vendor asked me to use a new system to pay him, and while I wanted to accommodate his preferences, there I was entering my information into yet another new system. I would much rather have written him a check. Remember checks? They’re so easy, and they haven’t changed since I was a child . . .
Here’s what I would say, as a modern Luddite (emphasis on the modern). Some technology helps us. A lot of technology doesn’t. Take what you find useful and use it. What you don’t find useful, avoid as much as possible. It will simply clutter your life, and there’s no reason to upgrade unless you absolutely have to. Choose what serves your interests and passions, reject what doesn’t. Yes, our modern lives will force us into using technology we hate or that wastes time, like when you check into your flight on your home computer, but then at the airport you effectively have to check in again because you have a bag, and then you have to drop off the bag, which is actually a third check-in. But . . . control it as much as you can. Get off the hamster wheel. You are not an hamster.
Take it slow, or as slowly as you want to. I have an iPhone and a laptop. I do not have a smart anything else, except my daughter, who is very smart indeed. I don’t even have a television or microwave . . . But I do have a tea kettle, a sewing machine. I never got an e-reader. I have lots and lots of books. I type my novels, but before that, I write them out by hand. (Yes, really. My antique WordPerfect program is supplemented, and indeed preceded, by an even more antique pen.) I like writing in notebooks, and when it’s not convenient to pay online, I write a check. I still get my tax information on paper, because paper. It feels like something, as opposed to information humming across wires. I like to see things, touch things — even tax forms.
Choose the speed at which you want to live, is what I’m saying. Sometimes we innovate in ways that are not actually useful, and then it’s up to us individually to say, no, not that. That’s a waste of time. After all, if I wanted to learn something complicated and time-consuming, it would not be the university’s online reimbursement system. It would be playing the piano, or knitting lace, or painting in watercolors — something real, solid, slow, and worth my time.
(The painting is Hilda by Carl Larsson.)
Theodora Goss 
I hear you–and I feel much the same way! Not all the new stuff is an improvement for the “user experience”…it is really there to make the tech people or the advertising algorithms smoother.
And actually, I do miss card catalogs sometimes. 🙂
In high school (a hundred years ago!), I read E.M. Forster’s story “The Machine Stops,” which I’ve never been able to forget, though I’m not a sci-fi reader. Published in 1909, it says a lot about the path our culture is giddily tripping along. We can still dig in our heels though, in ways that keep us connected to the Earth.
You hit the nail on the head! Give me a pen and paper anyday and I’m a happy camper!
I remember the card catalogue and getting my information out of Encyclopedias. I enjoy the convenience of computers and iphones sometimes, but I miss the simplicity of the old days. In my younger years, research was actually going to the library and reading books. With the intro of technology, you simply turn on your computer and sit on the couch. Not sure that’s a good thing.
I love technology, and I wouldn’t want to live without it, but I agree about the unnecessary changes. A perpetual desire to outmaneuver the competition perpetuates a gushing flow of superfluous changes from technology companies. And yes, many of those changes are completely unnecessary and confounding. This only serves to further alienate the people who already feel overwhelmed by the modern world.
Yes, innovations can be both painful and harmful – take the elimination of people in favor of machines for example. I treasure human contact and I’m in no hurry. The internet has put me in touch with friends flung far -this is both pleasant and beneficial. I still write checks and letters, walk into my bank when there’s a problem and wouldn’t want the tellers there to evaporate entirely. I don’t shop or do financial transactions on line and I pray I don’t live long enough to have no other option. I do have a television, a very old small screen one that cost 99$ two decades ago and still has a functioning VHS player to accommodate my collection when I wish to share it. It gets the major regular channels with an inside antenna near the front window. I never gave up my real land line so consequently I was the only one with access when disaster struck and cell towers became mute. The only server attachment I have is for this laptop. Admittedly that’s a lot. But, if it all goes, I have candles, matches, battery run radio and extra batteries on hand. Nothing lasts forever anyway. For the time being what I have is plenty enough….sight, breath, nominal mobility and memories.
I’ve totally not reimbursed things because the $2 I’ll get back is not worth the time sink. And that infuriates me. It doesn’t have to be as hard as it is especially with modern technology. The fault doesn’t lie in the technology. It can be done much easier and fluid than it is. Not all technology is equal.
I “unplug” now more than I ever did in the past. You might find this interesting: a lot of people in technology actually spend a lot of time outdoors, away from technology, and with the older models of devices. In my experience, it is the people who are not in technology using more of the new technology. My lab works on technology that the world won’t see for another ten years. We have some of the latest tech: fast internet, super computers. But at the end of the time, we enjoy talking to the bank teller, going on coffee breaks for the walk, buying magnets, and wasting paper (i.e. printing).
At the same time, I cannot wait until I have a personalized AI that knows me better than I do; schedules my flight to Alaska before I realize I’m burnt out and need to get out.
(Re: smartphone keyboards, look into text forwarding. I do most of my texting on my laptop actually . . . text forwarding is one the best modern smartphone features. And one could argue Google Scholar is better than the University search system because Google updates more frequently than the University does. But that’s besides the point.)
Ha! I love this post AND these comments. (I’m also happy to have a flip phone that isn’t smart and that is usually off…and three or more pens in every room of the house, and a rotary phone in my basement)
I see your point about not using a microwave but using a tea kettle (If my kitchen ever became a mini galley of a US naval ship — or a Star Fleet ship, take your pick of ship name), I would still use my non-stick pan for my morning egg. I am using an Android smartphone (from the Lifeline program) but rarely text, don’t use its widgets and never play music on it. I am still using a seven year old Mac laptop (a bit outdated) which I do not yet have the discetionary income to replace (refurbished Macs are $200 less than regular stock but still eligle for Apple Care — the three year extended warranty and tech support). I still have my 35mm. SLR camera (in addition to an outdated digital SLR – both using the same flash and autofocus lenses) and still shoot 35mm. film because I will not dispose of film since no one will trade memory cards for my film and usually know what ends up on it. Finally, Apple just stopped producing the iPod Nano. Though my iPod Nano has a few non-classical works on it, it has an FM radio which does not need a Wi-Fi connection (I am able to listen to public radio programs on it). My point is that my taking it slow is due to financial circumstances as well as having one foot in the newer tech boat and the other in the older tech boat.