So, Do You Like ... Stuff?

I’m not an alarmist when it comes to generational trends. If we were to travel back in time, I would bet the first generation of cavemen lamented that their children just didn’t slay wildebeests with the same skill and youthful passion they themselves had once exhibited. And so on and so forth throughout history, proving that everything we’ve lamented along the way was either insignificant or progression itself. But I have to admit I’m disconcerted with the increasing influence of phones, and that’s coming from someone who’s written approximately 17 columns about his phone and/or Verizon . Not that I think this is a generational trend as much as a cultural one. For example, my mother-in-law, who until recently was still going about life boasting a flip phone, is now regularly interrupted during conversations by alerts she can’t seem to turn off from a game app called Crossy Road . Lest this humble opinion give ammunition to those decrying phones is general, please. No. Th...

I’m pretty open to advances in technology, even if I’m often relatively late to the game. I think I’m part of that niche generation that was young enough to witness and accept the tech boom, but old enough to still be confounded by it. I am caught in the middle. If something weird happens to our laptop, I will literally just hand it to my 25-year-old brother-in-law and say, “Fix it.” Yet I am often the troubleshooter for my parents. (The troubleshooting is usually me telling them to just click “yes” on a pop-up box or telling them to call my brother-in-law.) I embrace technology, so much so that it becomes for me a source of embarrassment to do something the old way. In fact, I will often blame outside factors for my inability to do something rather than just admit I have no idea what’s going on. Last week during some correspondence with a customer, I received an email that was like, “Please confirm via E-tear or scan and attach E-confirm form from web hoster.” I responded something ...

My mom joined facebook. She did not do so in order to seek out old childhood friends, keep tabs on current ones, or have another avenue by which to monitor the growth of her granddaughter. No, she joined facebook so that she could register for a swimming event in preparation for a triathlon. Obviously. To that extent, she joined facebook reluctantly. I have been trying to recruit my mom to facebook for a while, but she has always refused to do so. I’m pretty sure my dad has convinced her the site will cause the ultimate fall of Babylon and she best not be on the wrong side when it does. My in-laws also refuse to join. My mother-in-law saw one negative story about facebook on The Today Show and she now believes someone called “Marks Zuttenburg” invented adultery. It’s not even that I think facebook is all that great. It can be annoying and redundant. It does, however, provide a convenient and consistent means of staying in touch. The fact that my parents and in-laws steadfastly r...

Note: This column appears in the 3/10 issue of The Glendale Star and the 3/11 issue of the Peoria Times My brother-in-law, God bless him, gave my wife an iPad. I was actually going to buy her one for her birthday, and was about to approach her with the awkward question of, “Can you help me pay for it?” when we got the news. I was very relieved at being off the hook, and am hoping a $25 iPad accessory will knock her socks off just the same. My brother-in-law was able to give his sister the best new tech device on the market because he won an iPad at work. My brother-in-law has the type of job where you can win an iPad at work. I bring a sandwich to work every day, so I can’t say I felt too bad, although the gesture remains amazingly kind. It wasn’t as if he didn’t want one for himself, but he a) recognized that she could utilize it more for professional purposes, and b) he preferred to get the latest version when it arrives at a later date—that date being Friday when the iPad 2 arrives....

Note: This column appears in the 2/25 issue of The Glendale Star and the 2/26 issue of the Peoria Times The evolution of our family –- namely of our parents –- as it relates to technology has been an adventure. She’s going to kill me when she reads this, but the first time my mother-in-law used email, she sat at the keyboard, typed her message, and then walked away. Having never hit “send,” she had just assumed that the email had reached its destination, like a prayer. Now, after a lot of hard work and admirable dedication, she has a Gmail account and texts us using modern shorthand that even we don’t understand. My father-in-law, on the other hand, has always embraced technology. It is rumored that he owned the first car phone in Brooklyn, which was actually just a phone booth in the passenger seat of his car. Because of his business and hectic lifestyle, he currently owns approximately eight cell phones – two of which are Blackberries (!) -- several of which he will frequently mispl...