As I sit here waiting for the Time Warner technical support technician to arrive at our house (anywhere between 3 and 5pm) it strikes me just how dependent I've become on technology.
Scary dependent.
If I want to get in touch with my closest friends, I have to admit that I need my computer or cell phone to access most of their telephone numbers. As a kid I memorized all of the telephone numbers that were important to me, and for the calls I made less frequently I used an address book with each name and telephone number neatly recorded into the columns.
These days, I rely on distant servers, routers, functioning outside lines and a variety of other things which I typically choose not to try to understand (leaving them to my more tech-savvy husband) in order to keep me connected with my nearest and dearest.
Yet it seems so effortless. So easy.
99 times out of 100, the new system works so smoothly for me that I manage to conveniently forget that my information *isn't* MORE secure these days. (It may be more easily available, but it isn't more secure.)
I also frequently delude myself into believing that it is safer to put my documents on a google server, to store them 'remotely' in a facility thousands of miles away.
Private messages that might once have seen only two pairs of eyes - mine and those of the person I wrote them for - are now accessible with one click to (potentially) billions of eyes. Just as I was able to find the tweets that our trial babysitter had written about my children within hours of her leaving our home, my own online documents are really not that secure.
Worse, I rely on a functioning internet connection to do many of the most important things in my life:
-Wish my friends a happy birthday
-Share photos of our family activities
-Write hundreds of articles for my husband's company
-Keep my family journal in the form of this blog
-Access my stored telephone numbers and addresses
-Look up telephone numbers for local businesses, physicians, restaurants
-Do research ~ so much better and faster than a library!
-Shop for gifts, vitamins, books and music
-Make and follow up on appointments with tutoring clients
-Schedule babysitters
-IM with my husband when I don't want to interrupt him at work to ask simple questions
and much, much more.
At times like this, then, when our internet goes down it feels almost like my world has collapsed upon itself... which surely can't be a good thing.
Suddenly I'm left staring at a bookcase, wondering if I should re-read a book while the kids are sleeping because I can't work, exchange messages or research... and I can't talk on the phone because my voice would be too loud and wake the kids up.
Facing all of this squarely, I have to wonder sometimes... am I actually better off thanks to technology? Or have I essentially given away my personal power (yet again, in a different way) to a large corporation?
Do I belong to Google and Facebook now?
Could my life function as effectively without them?
Or am I shackled to them... addicted enough to my social networks and Google docs to the point that my life would be substantially less enjoyable, healthy and fulfilling without them?
Can I even function on a day-to-day basis without their assistance?
What would I do if I needed, say, information about the safety of a medication prescribed for one of my children and I couldn't check with Ask a Patient... or if I wanted to check out a new restaurant and didn't have Yelp! to let me know whether the food would be decent?
What if my city or state suddenly unplugged? Would I ever again speak with the wonderful rheumatic patient friends I've made in the last year who have been such an incredible support system for my autoimmune journey? Would I even be able to stay in close touch with my old high school and college friends who live in other cities, states and countries?
It's just something I've been meditating on, all these long 24 hours as I've wondered what Bachelorette spoilers may have been posted since the last time I was able to check... as I try to figure out if I will need to dial 411 to find out the individual telephone numbers for each movie theater where Harry Potter will be showing this evening, to find out movie times.
Where is the divide between mankind and our technology, I wonder. Is it even possible in this day and age for us to maintain a responsible distance between our actual "lives" and our software creations?
I wouldn't be surprised at all if during my lifetime scientists invent chips that can be implanted within our own brains or DNA... so that WE become the computers, the blackberries, the databases. We're so close to that already... somehow it doesn't even sound far-fetched.
Despite the gravity of these questions, I'm not going to lie. I've really missed my internet access today and cannot wait to get it back. I guess I'm simply a woman of my time.
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