Technology Is Wonderful. Until It Isn’t.

Technology is supposed to make our lives easier. That's what they keep telling us, anyway.  I'm beginning to suspect that the people who design these marvelous time-saving inventions have never actually tried using them.

Take today, for example.

I volunteer for an organization that helps older adults remain independent in their homes (WLLO Village). We have a wonderful little technology system that monitors activity in the homes of members who live alone. Every day at precisely 12:15 p.m., our office receives an email telling us who has been active and who might need a welfare check.

It's a terrific idea. And today we had TWO alerts. And it was my day at the Office.

The first was a woman whose cleaning person has a habit of accidentally unplugging the device. Apparently, the cleaning person and the technology have not yet established a satisfactory working relationship.

The second alert concerned a woman who is mostly blind and who has NEVER answered the telephone when I've called her.  Never. Not once.

Fortunately, we have a volunteer who calls her every Monday morning. So I called that volunteer. Wrong number. Not just unanswered. WRONG. I left a voicemail anyway, which presumably confused a perfectly innocent stranger who had no idea what I was talking about.

Fortunately, this kind person called me back. I then emailed our volunteer, who provided her correct number. And somewhere in the middle of all this, the woman we were actually concerned about answered her telephone!

Success! Everyone was accounted for, nobody needed rescuing, and I had only involved one innocent bystander in the process.

But wait. There's more.

I had been working on a calendar for WLLO Village in Google Docs. Somehow, some of the borders around the calendar squares had disappeared. All I wanted was to put the lines back. A simple request, wouldn't you think?

Max, my AI assistant and I spent an absurd amount of time hunting for menus, buttons, settings, and options that apparently existed in some alternate version of Google Docs.

Meanwhile, ChatGPT itself decided that our conversation should no longer be a conversation. Every time I tried to respond, it seemed determined to start a brand-new chat. This was particularly helpful when I needed to refer to the instructions it had just given me.

And a few weeks ago, the same AI assistant went through a phase in which it insisted on using something called Nano Banana when I wanted help creating graphics. Nano Banana.

I am 74 years old. I have lived through rotary telephones, party lines, typewriters, carbon paper, floppy disks, dial-up internet, and the invention of the smartphone.

And now I'm being defeated by something called Nano Banana.

I don't object to technology. I use it every day. I appreciate what it can do. I even enjoy it when it behaves.

But I do wonder how much time we're actually saving.

We have devices that tell us whether someone is moving around, computers that help us communicate, software that organizes our lives, and artificial intelligence that promises to answer practically any question.

And yet, today, the most effective piece of technology was a telephone call from a nice stranger who had received a message intended for somebody else.

Perhaps that's the lesson. Technology is wonderful. Until it isn’t. And when it isn't, thank goodness there are still actual human beings who answer the phone.

P.S And just when I thought the day's technological adventures were over, I reopened my Google Docs calendar. All the missing lines had magically returned. I hadn't fixed anything. Apparently, the computer had simply decided to cooperate.

Then came another email from Uber.

I've been trying to resolve a billing problem with Uber for months. My credit card company finally reimbursed me, but Uber's Priority Support team apparently hasn't received the memo. Today, yet another representative contacted me requesting the dates, amounts, and credit card information so they could investigate my complaint.

Investigate? NOW?

At this rate, I expect to receive a satisfactory resolution sometime around my 90th birthday.

Assuming, of course, that I'm still using the same credit card.