Hi Tech vs old school

[karlinann]

Do you prefer the modern techy stuff or the old school stuff? That is a question that I ask myself almost daily. No I'm not tech savvy and I don't keep up with all the modern conveniences, but I do appreciate some of the new inventions. For instance the SmartPhone. You can unlock your door from work if you need to. You can buy things, get things answered immediately, get food delivered, make payments, post checks to your account, and do so many things with a touch of a button. And the new auto's are almost robotic. They can think faster than you and stop on a dime, they can have eyes in the back of their head when you can't see back there, they can stop car theft by stopping, Oh wait that's OnStar, but you get the picture. It's marvelous and exciting for all those who prefer the bells and whistles, but I've never been that person.

One thing that does concern me is that I'm afraid they will do away with paper forms completely in the future and everything will be electronically handled. What will the elder generation do if they don't have access to a computer?

After reading those books by Ken Follet it opened my mind to the way things are repeated through the centuries, like WWI, and WWII, the mistakes that were made to cost millions of people their lives, the waste, the devastation, and the human cruelty. I pray that that never happens again.

I do think it's wonderful that we, as a nation are exploring space, but by the same token I'm overwhelmed about the number of people on this earth who cannot function without a cell phone in their hands all day long. So I have mixed feelings about the way technology is moving us into the next century, but at the same time it scares me. I know my tired brain cannot keep abreast of the tech world and I'm not even going to berate myself about it, but I will be forced to keep up with it at a moderate level no matter what.

[maxie]

Yesterday at Olive Garden the waitress said she was forced to encourage us to pay our bill at the table on their machine. She said she would come back and do it but she was penalized in some way if she had to run our cards in the back. I didn't understand that but anyway three of us looked at each other and wondered if we were going to have to ask the people at the next table to help us! Finally my niece grabbed the machine and said she was shocked that three of us had no intention of figuring out how to pay the bill at the table. That is my problem with the modern world Karlinann .. I have no desire to learn how to grow with modern technology. When I started work we keypunched on cards and fed them into the computers. The results came out on huge rolls of paper that we then had to find any errors on. We/me has come a long way but I am done. Now I let my grands do the learning...they were born smarter than I ever could learn.

[JoGee]

I am not techy either. E was super-techy. He seemed to know every single component in every electronic device we had.
Our youngest daughter is just like him!
Even so, the other kids have a better grasp of using the smart phones, tablets, and computers, far more than I do.
i think the restaurants should give you a choice of using than table top device, or not. We had one that went totally whacky on us, the paper roll fell out and wouldn’t go back in.....the machine apparently was broken by a previous customer.
The waiter/waitress could run the thing for you....but watch closely when they add the tip. Most are honest, but there are still some who add in extra.

[karlinann]

The paper has fallen out on us and everything else that could go wrong. Once it kept the last customers bill in the machine and we had to get the wait staff to fix it. Quirky! I didn't know to check the tip. Good idea in this day and age.