LAST WORD TechnOLOgy BAh humBug! By miRiAm SiLveRBeRg
I hate all modern technology - computers and the like. I’m convinced that in a number of years we will have realized the full horror Jobs and Zuckerberg and their like have wrought. Computers have made our society even cruder than it was. There is no graciousness or sensitivity anymore. Computers are a boon to pedophiles and people with huge egos. There are people who think the whole world is breathlessly waiting to hear what they had for breakfast. I’m not one of them. A number of years ago, I was invited to lunch by a younger woman. Walking into the restaurant, she said, “I forgot to write on Facebook that we were meeting for lunch.” When I asked why she would think to write about it, she said, “Well, people might be interested.” I kept asking why they would be
interested, and she had no answer except to repeat, “They might be interested.”
authoritarian, totalitarian governments to keep their people in the dark. I honestly
I think social networking is a misnomer. It should be called unsocial networking. What is social about it? There are some people who want to be able to say they have 9,387 “friends” on Facebook and Linked In. In my book, these are not friends. I hate walking on the street and getting stuck behind someone busily thumbing away on their blackberries... strawberries... blueberries? I don’t have a cell phone or Smart phone. I have a dumb old-fashioned land line and it
you can Google any information you need
no matter how much I hate it, I do need it for my business. technology. It’s made it much harder for
Future generations will think, “Why bother I need on Google?” People are already forgetting how to carry on a conversation, spell and write. As a person who loves newspapers, I think computers are one of the worst things to befall society. Even bloggers admit no one does investigative reporting as well as newspaper reporters. I wonder whether, if we follow the laws of evolution, future generations will be born without ears. After all, people don’t speak anymore so why do
Miriam Silverberg is a freelance journalist and owner of Miriam Silverberg Associates, a boutique publicity agency in Manhattan. She may be reached at silverbergm@mindspring.com
Resident June 2013