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I hope nobody takes this the wrong way, but there is something to be said for not having all the “stuff” that we have. Obviously I don’t wish for anybody to not have food in the shops. But I just think back to the life we had in the 60s and 70s. People were upwardly mobile, for sure, but we lived a lot more simply. Without the communications/computer revolution.
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I get it! My husband and I think about decluttering and downsizing. Not to one of the tiny homes. But enough to force us to simplify our lives.

Our electronics have stripped us of so much. I panic if I leave the house without my cell phone. And all our social media stuff. Wow. They are such terrible robbers of our precious time, harmful to our brains ability to process info and remember more than a sound bite, harmful to our eyes, our necks. Robs us of face-to-face time with family and friends. etc.

But I do love Sudoku. Been playing it for years. Enough to get somewhat tired of it. So I downloaded a different app. Now it seems fresher and I’m solving puzzles programmed differently. *grin*.

I’ve thought, though, that maybe I should find something else to while away the time. Never mind that goals are changed and some opportunities are lost.

Argh...

I agree with you. Life was so much simpler before ’puters were brought into every area of our lives. Better in many ways.

I worry about the future of the digital world. It seems like something that just keeps creeping closer and closer to owning and controlling our very soul. One day we’ll probably be offered the opportunity to plug in and charge our brain overnight. :-(

That’s when I quit. Just want my coffee in the morning and my dear family to know each other without the “benefit” of email. I mean, who needs spell check anyhow? Or, Siri. What an intrusive “thing” that is. I think she needs to go back on her meds. She interrupts at the strangest times.

Same with our GPS. That gal cannot say the street names correctly in our locale. Geeee whizz. She argues. She teases. She laments. She thinks the only thing to do is to turn around.

So, we do what any self-respecting human would do. We turn her off. We keep her around though and let her out of her room when she’s behaving (read: we’re lost, really lost).

We used to carry maps. And talk to ppl to find our way. It was a gentler world. We weren’t so afraid of each other.

Ok... thanks for helping me rant a little bit.

Yes, I agree with you!

>>Life was so much simpler before ’puters were brought into every area of our lives. Better in many ways.

NEVER! My luncheon conversation with my friend of 40 years was about how wondrous the changes that computers have brought to our lives have been. I’m still absolutely awed at living at this moment of time, and cry to the sky that my mother didn’t live during this revolution of knowledge. She would have gotten onto the Internet and never gotten off.

There is nothing that I did in the past that I can’t do better today - simpler and more naturally. Even calls to my brother! I record them and give them to his daughter.

Forty years ago I blinded myself reading thru the microfilms of my college newspaper, attempting to find my father’s poetry column. Twenty years ago I had microfilm delivered to my house and scanned it into a portable computer to discover poetry that could have been written by my 5th great grandfather. Today I do newspaper subscription searches once a year to see if any antique papers have been added to the newspaper archives to upgrade my poetry collection. I’m doing the same searches for knowledge, but without the massive eyestrain and blinding headaches.

Cooking is easier when I don’t have to go through recipe magazines and can search. Finding strange ingredients becomes trivial when Amazon will send them to me with free shipping. My car used to be filled with maps before the nav system, but I fear I used to get just as lost then as I do now. Even WITH the nav system. Of course, getting lost is half the fun of getting there. And as for asking for directions, yes, you meet a lot of lovely people. Several times as you circle the building where you stopped to ask for directions which made you keep circling.

Everything we learn now, we learn deeper because the computer gets us past first blockages and lets us ask better questions than we would have asked before. If knowledge is a major part of your reason for living, THIS is the time to live.