TECH-LESS HOW did we survive before the era of high-tech gadgets? Well, for those born in my generation, it is amazing to look back and realize how we survived quite well without a mobile phone. We came to appointments on time. We memorized phone numbers. We learned how to plan and how not to make last-minute changes to plans. We were a more organized generation and when we said something, we stood by it. We didn’t have the luxury of choices because we didn’t have the capacity to make eleventh-hour changes. We were a more disciplined lot. We thought, spoke and wrote carefully because we could not readily change our minds. We listened carefully because we could not readily ask again what we had not paid attention to. We were also a calmer lot not taken to impulse to text or post whatever we felt. We did not have the capacity to send a message to millions in seconds but we had the luxury of reflection and contemplation before sending out a message. We didn’t have speed. But we had a better grip on our impulses and as a result, sent more sober and thoughtful messages. How did we survive without a computer? Word processing was a challenge. The same thoughtful process of reflection occurred before putting words into paper because even changing a word was a tedious process with a typewriter. I cannot forget my Senior year English teacher, Sr. Rosario Justiniani F. I. Her notorious reputation preceded her. Sitting through her class was a challenge. Surviving it was an even bigger challenge. She demanded that home reading reports be typed in prescribed forms with all lines completely filled up from left to right, top to bottom. Can you imagine looking for a particular word to fill up a line? Or frantically looking for a statement that would fill up the page? But after surviving her class, every other professor was a breeze. Can you imagine how easy life in high school would have been with a computer? How on Earth could we have survived without wifi? Two months ago, I went deep into the bush in Botswana and nearly died not from a lion attack but from a week without wifi. I realized what a slave I had become to technology. Despite my addiction to technology, there are days when I actually welcome travelling to a place without cable tv, a mobile phone signal and Internet access. For a moment there, you only have yourselves to contend with and once more, we are compelled to practice the art of conversation, the original way of “chatting.” Face to face communication seems anathema to many of generations after me. Has the art of original conversation faded into the light? I hope not. I hope we never lose the art of hand-writing or turning the pages of a book. Forgive me. In many ways, I am still an old-fashioned girl at heart. I treasure what is rare, what is slowly being phased out, what we might soon lose forever. Are we never going to read hard copy ever again? Are we never going to talk to people face-to-face? Are we never going to make plans that no longer need confirmation by Facebook, mobile phone or email? When I want to say, “I love you,” do I really need to post it? ~ Melanie Lim
Posted on: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 05:11:40 +0000
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