{"id":3737,"date":"2017-03-16T12:46:42","date_gmt":"2017-03-16T11:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=3737"},"modified":"2019-02-18T07:58:17","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T06:58:17","slug":"tech-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=3737","title":{"rendered":"Tech Issues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>My laptop is running high (emitting a loud machine sound, not jogging after smoking a spliff) so I carry it into the office and embark upon my original plan, which involves sitting on the couch with a good book.<\/p>\n

As I sink into Remains of the Day<\/em> (read it!), my tablet blings. Like you, I have become an interpreter of the blings, beeps, bongs, and buzzes that come from my devices. This one means a Facebook message.<\/p>\n

For a few moments, I am successful at ignoring its lusty call and remain in the story of Stevens and Miss Kenton. However, I eventually do what we all knew I\u2019d do and check it. Before I can, my phone buzzes, delivering the same message.<\/p>\n

The message is from a friend who wants to know if I can come to an event she is putting on. At once, I realize I have forgotten to respond and wince under this new, acute pressure to be socially responsible. And then I groan, for I have made the classic (in this case, ‘classic’ is defined as going back as far as four years) mistake of clicking on her message rather than previewing it. Subsequently, I have rendered her message as seen<\/em>, which means she now knows I have seen the message, in turn I now have to deal with this sooner rather than later. I kick myself. I could have just gone back to my book, but now I have to craft a response, one that not only says ‘no,’ but one that conveys an element of sadness or frustration with my inability to attend.<\/p>\n

I cast a forlorn look at my book.<\/p>\n

Were I one for philosophical reflection, (I\u2019m not, I prefer blissful ignorance and cartoon sitcoms) it might dawn on me that a load of my daily stresses are brought about by technology. In the first place, a tech problem can spark a (frankly psychopathic) tantrum and ruin a day spent dwelling on it. Of course this points to a fear of severed communications and an underlying terror of alienation. So, while it may start as a pragmatic concern, it crashes into existential implosion. I don\u2019t need that shit.<\/p>\n

Besides the reminders or stress of putting off writing to someone, there is also the other shoe. Namely, wondering why someone who has seen a message from you hasn\u2019t yet gotten back to you. Heaven forbid the situation involves your embroilment in a flirtation, the resulting continuance of hypothetical possibilities and subtextual meaning are enough to drive one to drink. And by ‘one,’ I mean me.<\/p>\n

While I often intend to respond to someone, I find that having three devices (laptop, phone, tablet) results in more forgetfulness. Surely the ostensible goal of these devices is to introduce convenience to and facilitate communications; however, at times they complicate things. I used to sit and both check and write emails. Now, I get emails all day long and might not be in a position to answer (i.e. walking to class) so I make a note to answer later. Then I forget. So despite the fact that I receive the communique on three devices, I don\u2019t answer.<\/p>\n

I am surely not the first person to point out the slew of new aggravations technology brings on, nor am I unaware of the fact that these \u2018problems\u2019 are of the First World Category. But I wonder if putting these things down for a while or setting specific times to check them might do a world of good.<\/p>\n

At the very least, today, I decide to worry about my friend later, and get back to the tale of Stevens and Miss Kenton. Maybe I’ll have a drink.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My laptop is running high (emitting a loud machine sound, not jogging after smoking a spliff) so I carry it into the office and embark upon my original plan, which involves sitting on the couch with a good book. As I sink into Remains of the Day (read it!), my tablet blings. Like you, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3738,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/lucy-psy.jpg?fit=316%2C350&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-Yh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3737"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4642,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3737\/revisions\/4642"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}