Technology will put a damper on romance - opinion

While Israel is heading into AI, I shudder to think what is coming next. Personally, I’m an anti-tech individual, or more accurately, I’m almost a no-tech individual.

It’s not an age thing. Even when I was a schoolgirl, I couldn’t cotton on to math and science. I could sometimes arrive at the correct answer, but was always failed on method.

Yet I could sail almost effortlessly through the humanities. It stands to reason that with such a background, I would have trouble with my cellphone and my personal computer, and I do – several times a month.

In the good old days of the typewriter, the worst that could happen was that the ribbon ran out of ink. Carbon paper was a convenient solution. Sandwiched between two sheets of typing paper, the carbon paper enabled a clear copy of a document. The disadvantage was that even touch typists had to keep checking to make sure that the text came out properly.

With the computer which is remotely controlled by Google and Microsoft, there are preemptive words and sentences which disturb my train of thought. Strange gremlins swallow type or change the order of letters; hide or destroy texts that have been saved but have somehow disappeared; block the ability to scan or print; but worst of all, allow bots, con merchants, and numerous uninvited entities from Israel and abroad access to my email. 

Scams abound on the internet

I spend an inordinate amount of time each day erasing messages from the US, the UK, UAE, Nigeria, Poland, Austria, Australia, and India, among others, which all seem to be immune to SPAM reports. But what I hate most are the fake lawyers who inform me of a legacy that I have supposedly inherited; and the so-called invoices for merchandise that I never ordered.

Fortunately, I know that these are scams, but what about people with poor memories, or who are simply naïve and who don’t know this? They may fall victim to these scams and fork out whatever sum is requested, but never see the goods that were supposedly ordered or the legacy that is supposedly being transferred for a certain fee by the bogus lawyer.

BUT GETTING back to technology. I’m not against technology per se. Electricity is extremely welcome. The vacuum cleaner is a valuable tool, as are the washing machine, the radio, and the television set. At least the television was a valuable tool when it was encased in a heavy, wooden, box-like frame. In those days, hardly anything went wrong with it. But today with the flat screen, streaming, and internet, something goes wrong with it every few days.

I keep getting a message that there is no internet connection, yet my cell phone and my PC are both reliant on that same internet connection which works for them, but not for the television which has been out of commission for two months.

Technology has made clerks less helpful. I have never been proficient at filling out forms. Trying to do so online is a nightmare. Recently, in a government office, a young haredi man who noticed my distress took my phone out of my hand, asked for my ID card, and in seconds completed the task. That was certainly his best good deed for the day. I had a similar problem at the airport when I tried to do a self-check-in with my passport. Even when an airport employee instructed me on what to do, I got it wrong and ended up standing in a very long line.

Then there’s phone technology, where a computerized voice gives instructions in one of several languages, but the instructions are not always clear, and if one opts to wait with an open receiver to hear a human voice, it can take up to an hour – and then that person is not always helpful.

There’s no point in going on. Any reader, especially one with similar problems will quickly grasp the message.

The more sophisticated the technology becomes, the more vulnerable the device to which it is applied.

Eventually, people will stop talking to each other because they are so immersed in their cell phones or their laptops, that when they communicate, they text each other.

What a damper that puts on romance.