Tales of Technology: The First Shall Be Last
Mom was the first in our family to use a computer . Her 1970s library technician job required it. She came home every day tearing out her hair from the frustration of learning something so unlike anything she had ever encountered. But Mom soon mastered the highest technology of the time and spent the rest of her career using it. Image by Sergei Tokmakov, Esq. from Pixabay Then she retired . . . and technology moved on. Years of innovation passed her happily by and she entered her 80s without email, the Internet, or a cell phone. And then she had to conquer a whole new technology: the Mac. It came complete with a granddaughter to show her how to use it. But the hair tearing resumed. Mom had been a computer-use pioneer, but that skill was now irrelevant. I wish, like my mother, that I could have merrily ignored advancing technology. But there is no stopping the inevitable. Like the rest of the planet, I eventually got a cell phone. One day, a text message...