Some tech talk

One of my favorite storytellers, Sean Dietrich a/k/a “Sean of the South,” who posts something almost every day (which kind of makes me mad, as I whine about trying to come up with something once a week), has recently written about giving up his smartphone in favor of one of the old flip phones.

He went from a handheld device that serves as a phone, calendar, camera, flashlight, measuring tape, payment agent, map, music service, etc., etc., etc., to, well, a phone. He can make and receive calls, as the early models of mobile phones were designed to do. And that’s it. He recently wrote he also has texting capability, but the letters are so small he decided it’s not worth it.

What the smartphone has wrought

As we all know, the mobile phone morphed into what has become a lifeline of sorts, perhaps too much of one.

Sean decided to make the switch for the reason many of us might — because he thought he had become too attached. As he wrote March 25th, “I’m doing all this for my own mental health. I’ve given up my device to regain focus. I want real conversations again, unpunctuated by glances at my screen.”

Others have written about some of the dangers of modern technology including, if not especially, the smartphone. Although I read Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism several years ago, I have not read more recent books by other writers. I have, however, read excerpts and/or listened to author interviews.

One of the most popular is Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation in which he offers all kinds of facts and statistics about what social media, which is taking place largely on phones, is doing to young people.

Andy Crouch, author of The Tech Wise Family and The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationships in a Technological World, has said the phone screen is neither good nor bad but is, rather, a tool, one that should be used wisely and with great discretion. Screens are here to stay, he contends, and they provide many conveniences and benefits, but parents will be wise to keep a close watch on the use of screens by their children.

Mobile phones were becoming a thing as I was in the throes of raising children. My oldest got one when he was 16. By the time my youngest, seven years behind my oldest, graduated from high school, he had a smartphone. Things were moving fast, and they have continued to do so.

My child-rearing days are done, but I think about my grandchildren and how they — and their parents — will navigate all this. To say it is a different world is an understatement.

As I have read Sean’s accounts of life without his smartphone, I have wondered how I would do without my device. While I think of myself as not being overly attached, I have a recurring dream about losing my phone or, somehow, all of a sudden having a different model that I don’t know how to use.

Just last night as I write this, I had a dream I was lost (also a dream recurrence) and needed to use the maps app, or at least call for help.

I had a phone, but it was not mine. It was black and it was shaped rectangularly but had the consistency of glass. It had all the apps and I could see them, but they would not respond to my tapping. It was useless to me.

(When I finally spring for therapy, there will undoubtedly be sessions about my dreams.)

I woke with a sense of panic, but then relief fell over me as I realized my dream was just that and not reality. My trusty smartphone was recharging on my nightstand as usual.

I have many of the same concerns as Sean. I know it is none of my business, but I cringe seeing a couple in a restaurant and both individuals are on their phones. I roll my eyes (internally if not externally) when I’m in the grocery store and see a person walking toward me and think he/she is talking to me, only to realize tiny little buds are in that person’s ears and a phone conversation is taking place.

As for me, the device for which I will often show disdain has become such a part of my own everyday life that it has seared itself into my subconscious to the point that I dream about it. And phone calls come to me through “tiny little buds” with Bluetooth technology. They are called hearing aids!

I offer no solutions today but will continue to ponder. Reader input is welcome.

Language barriers

Along those lines, our language is affected by what we learn and hear through technology. Fifteen years ago, maybe only ten, would I have written a column with the word “app” or “Bluetooth?”

I am a big podcast fan (which, of course, I access through my smartphone and hear through my hearing aids). Two of my local friends, Jeff Helton and Steve Pierce, recently started one called “Rearview Mirror” in which they engage in “looking back on all that we don’t know and a few things that we do,” as Steve says in the opening.

These two guys, one in his 50s and one in his 60s, look back on their lives as husbands, dads, friends and workforce members, talking about successes but also boldly talking about failures or missteps.

They also talk about what life is like for them these days, with the benefit of what is behind them. They are about ten episodes in, and I highly recommend.

A couple weeks ago, Jeff said he would love to hear from listeners about a topic he and Steve had addressed. He suggested they “DM me on the socials.”

I sent him a text message complimenting them on a great episode. I also told him, with perhaps the slightest bit of sarcasm, I would “DM him on his socials” if I had the slightest idea what he was talking about.

He responded with the confession he did not really know either, but his daughter, who is helping with production duties, had told him to say that.

I suppose in a future episode Jeff might discuss that stage of life when the parent becomes the child, and the child becomes the parent.

One more thing

Unrelated to any of the foregoing, I lost a subscriber last week. I received the sad email message from Substack telling me such-and-such email address had been disabled from my subscriber list.

I should not take such things personally and I should not, as I am prone to do, overthink it. But since it was a subscriber who had not only been a faithful reader going back to the Home Page days, but one who had taken time to comment and engage in back-and-forth with me, I have had a hard time getting it off my mind.

I cannot help but believe the unsubscribing took place due to the comments I made about the Trump administration.

I sent him an email, not asking why he had unsubscribed, but thanking him for reading and commenting and telling him I had enjoyed our exchanges. No reply was received.

Of course I never mean to offend anyone, and I hope, if you disagree with an opinion I offer, you will not hesitate to offer yours in return. In 14 years of writing “What I Know,” I have learned a great deal from readers who have been kind enough to offer an alternative point of view to one I might have presented.

Because if I know anything, I know I don’t know everything.