I have become obsolete. I used to consider myself to be really quite clever, particularly with regard to obscure facts. I could sometimes identify which area a car came from by its registration number. I could reel off the home telephone numbers of most of my friends and family, and the dialling code for most major cities. If you gave me the name of a town or city, I could usually name the county. Now all of this information is available to everyone at the click of a button. My only hope is that the internet will explode and we will have to go back to the old ways of looking through books and asking older and wiser people. And then my genius will once again be recognised.
The demise of the internet is something I wish for daily. I would like it to be available only for purposes such as education, solving crime, historical research and medical advancement. I am truly disturbed by the impact it has on the everyday lives of my children, family and the world in general. What is the benefit of my 14 year old daughter being able to look at hours of videos showing anonymous hands cutting tiny cubes off a bar of soap with a Stanley knife? The only thing that will come from this is that she will want to try it herself, and with this in mind I have hidden all bars of soap and Stanley knives, and told her that if she ever tries cutting soap, which I strongly advise against, she must always cut away from herself, rather than towards as those bodiless hands seem to advocate. Maybe that is why they are bodiless - so badly mutilated or amputated by Stanley knife mishaps.
Mr C came home from work last week declaring that all mobile phones and devices would henceforth be banned from bedrooms and switched off by 10pm at the latest, having listened to a piece on Radio 4 about their impact on mental health and wellbeing. The last time he attempted such measures, the potential danger was that the house might burn down from mobile phones/laptops being used at bedtime, and even that didn't trouble them enough to stop putting them under their pillows. It did me however, and is another reason why they should all be banned or used just for essentials.
I rarely know the exact location of my mobile phone, and consequently it hardly ever makes it to bed with me. I have a Kindle which will only sync to upload new books if there are no other devices switched on in the house, and I am sitting on top of the modem. And I only ever remember this when I am in bed, and it is too much trouble to get out of bed and go downstairs and sit on the modem for ten minutes. There is only have one electric socket in our bedroom, with no room for a charger, so the Kindle does not often make it up to the bedroom anyway. I tend to keep a book next to my bed, which is far less problematic.
Mr C, with the best of intentions, was setting himself up to fail, as he himself is the biggest culprit when it comes to screens in the bedroom. For what it's worth, I think he was right, and their use should be restricted, but he uses them the same as the kids do, and it is a hard habit for them all to break. I am old fashioned in this way - and see them as a tool to be used only when necessary. They don't hold enough interest for me. I would rather lose myself in a book, or a project. Don't get me wrong, I can waste hours online, but it's rare. I lost several months to a computer when I discovered Ancestry.com and Genes Reunited, but once I had gone back a few generations and found what I wanted to find, that was enough for me. Mr C on the other hand, is on a lifelong quest for knowledge and spends much of his evenings and weekends researching people who can do things very quickly or who have the longest nose. L's thing is hacks and makeup, and I think H and T just search for memes, although I can't be sure as they have blocked me from their social media accounts because I dared to comment on their posts.
I just want my family back. I want to share in their lives (although not if it involves hours watching screamers pranking each other or doctor pimple popper). I want to meet their friends, and listen to the radio with them, watch the same TV programmes - not everyone watching different things on Netflix. Too much choice, everyone flicking between one thing and another and no focus or concentration.
I remember the days of having to listen to every track on an album, even those I didn't like because I couldn't risk scratching the record or damaging the needle. It is all instant gratification, everything on fast forward (although even fast forward is now obsolete as we discover on demand). Please tell me - am I the odd one here? Or have I just turned into my Dad, who used to take great pleasure in telling me to turn the wireless on, and the gramophone off?
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