Life without a computer
I have decided to try and lead a simpler life. The first step is to remove all items of complicated mechanistic characteristics from my presence—this includes my laptop.The first day of attempting to exist this way, I walk outside in my robe, pajamas, pink fuzzy slippers, and messy hair and pick up the newspaper lying at the end of the driveway. After waving to the neighbors across the street, I come back inside and move all of the clutter off of my table to make room for the newspaper, which, when opened fully, spreads out and takes over most of the available space. Bothered, I struggle to find a safe place to put my mug of coffee. How much easier and space efficient it was to simply open the laptop, click on the proper icon, and read the news!
Later in the day, I sit down to work on a research paper for my Rhetorical Theory class. Books are spread out everywhere; I had a good deal of trouble finding all of these books, for there was no easy way to tell which of the local libraries had what. I had to make endless phone calls and drive to several different locations before I found exactly what I needed. How much easier it was to just open the laptop, go the local library’s website, use their search engine, and have a stack of books waiting for me to go and pick them up! Better yet, how much easier it would have been to simply use documents from online journals!
I become miffed and irritated as I attempt to put my many books in order so that I can start writing out my first point (by hand, mind you). This takes up space, for I need room for my elbows and notebook.
Things go swimmingly for the first few minutes, but several minutes, until I realize that the paragraph is not developing as well as I had planned. I will have to start over. There is no ‘delete’ button here, there is no ‘copy’ and ‘paste’; there is only a stack of blank lined paper, waiting for my pen to grace it with its presence. I sigh as I crumble the present sheet of paper up and reach for another.
Several hours later, I have wasted more trees, more time, and more energy than I had ever imagined possible. My right hand is cramped from writing page after page, and as I look at the sentence I left off at, I notice that it looks a good deal sloppier than the first sentence I had written. I must have been running out of steam!
I decide that there is absolutely nothing that compares to the efficiency of the modern computer, and promptly decide that I will never try to live life ‘simply’ again.
posted by Lindsey Charlton @ 7:15 PM
2 Comments:
Heh, I wrote this as a scholarship essay. They wanted to know what life would be like without a computer, so I created a hypothetical situation and typed it out in about 10 minutes.
Believe me, I would never actually try this ;)
I sometimes wonder, though, if computers end up creating as much trouble as NOT havng them would be. I only wonder that when I am having problems with mine, though
I'm afraid I may agree with Dr. Muzzo, who firmly believes that we got as much or more done in the days of telephones and typewriters as we do now with our computers, when we spend half of our time trying to get the bloody things to work.
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