COLUMN: Life at the speed of obsolescence
Every generation has stories about products and skills that have become obsolete. The only thing that has changed is the speed. It used to take a generation to become quaint, now it can happen in less than 10 years or less. I think a lot of what I know is composting into obsolescence even as I write this.
I used to be able to wow friends and relatives with my ability to program their VCRs. I know you had to pause a moment to remember what a VCR is or was, but that was only about 10 years ago. At least the disappearance of VHS tapes keeps me from getting all vexed about people not rewinding their rented movies. Remember, “Be kind, rewind?” It sounds sort of quaint now. Soon going to an actual store to rent movies will be like milking your own cow to get milk.
When did life become so remote? Consider what your life was like before remote controls. Consider that everything now has a remote control. My car CD player has a remote control. In what instance would I use this? Maybe in those bygone days of back seat romance, it would have come in handy to change the 8-track, but now it is just another dang thing that needs a battery one-tenth the size of a dime to work. I also have a window fan that came with a remote control, whether I wanted it or not. I have no idea how to manually change the channels on my TV should the remote run out of battery power.
Speaking of televisions, does anybody repair televisions anymore? Short of throwing a beer stein through one in an angry fit – and well, you can’t really throw a beer stein through a flat screen TV unless you have the steroid arm of Roger Clemens. Okay, I know he says he was only getting injected with B-12 but, really, who injects B-12 in their butt and admits it? But I digress; televisions have become more or less as disposable as shaving razors. You use them until they aren’t sharp and then you get a new one.
Eight track tapes were the go-to reference for the baby boomers when you wanted to make a joke about obsolete technology. But they were around for a relatively long period of time before being replaced by those sleek cassette tapes that lasted about half the time before being replaced by CDs, which are themselves stating to look like next year’s anachronism for the iPod generation.
Balancing a checkbook? Unless you mean on the tip of your finger, it is a lost skill. When I see someone in front of me in line at Smith’s I feel the same way as I did when I watched my grandmother darn socks as a child. You may have to look the word “darn” up because I’m not sure that anyone darns a darn thing anymore.
Here’s another historical moment brought to you by Slightly Off Center: Kids, remember the computer commands cut and paste harkens to a day when we actually cut and pasted with real paper, scissors and paste. It was a frighteningly barbaric time full of paper cuts and scissor accidents.
Dennis Hinkamp would also like to admit that he’s spell check dependent. He can’t write anything longhand that doesn’t come out looking like a drunken dyslexic cat wondered across the keyboard. Comments and questions can be sent to him at dennish@ext.usu.edu.