Tag: iPad

Pulling the Plug

Thirty years ago, the S. C. Johnson Company introduced a new member of their Glade line of fragrance products called the “PlugIn”. Maybe you have one in your bathroom. The PlugIn uses a small amount of electricity to warm up scented oil, which slowly diffuses into the nearby air. You can even get one that lights up. Ironically, the Glade PlugIn was my first thought when I read about this week’s National Day of Unplugging.

So this is what we’ve come to in the year 2021.  As a counter to our undying affection for our electronic devices, a portion of the next couple of days has been designated “National Day of Unplugging” (NDoU) by a non-profit organization called Unplug Collaborative.  The Collaborative started its membership early last year and is determined to “spread awareness about how to maintain a healthy life/tech balance”.  Theirs is a noble, if not impossible effort.

Should you choose to participate in the NDoU “24-hour respite from technology from sundown to sundown, March 5-6”, I ask, will your life necessarily change for the better?

It’s just an awareness campaign, I get it.  Unplugging phones, tablets, laptops, and whatever else you consider “tech” for one whole day is essentially raising the white flag on what each of us already admit: we spend too much time with our screens.  But let’s be honest – what exactly defines “healthy life/tech balance”?  I think the answer is highly personal, depending on your job, disposable income, place of residence, and the ways you choose to spend your downtime.

My wife is a wonderful example of “wired” (er, “wireless”); someone who twenty years ago tentatively navigated texting, apps, and what little else her basic cell phone had to offer.  Today, she sports the latest model Apple Watch, two iPads, and a MacBook, all of which seamlessly share information with each other and then with her.  She even sports a protective wristband to reduce her exposure to electromagnetic radiation.

I can’t imagine my wife “unplugging” for four hours, let alone twenty-four.  My conversation with her would go something like this:

NDoU wants you to put your cell phone to bed – literally.

“Hey honey, so there’s this thing called ‘National Day of Unplugging’ where we get to shut down all of our electronic devices and work on making our life/tech balance better.  Just give me your watch and your tablets and your laptop and I’ll lock them in the closet until tomorrow night.  Sound good?” 

The response I’d get (if I did get a response from her) would be something like,

“Wait, WHAT???  National Day of WHAT?  Are you freaking kidding me?  Hahahahahahaha, good one, honey.  Yeah, let me think on that for just a second… um, NO WAY.  And keep your hands off my screens!”

I get it.  Not only does my wife fiercely track her 10,000 steps and her circles on her watch, she monitors a dozen or more daily feeds on her tablets, and countless emails and websites on her laptop.  It would be just as soul-sucking as taking my Amazon Kindle e-reader away from me (and let’s not even discuss that possibility).

This NDoU supporter doesn’t need screens… ever.

Unplug our gadgets and then what do we do… watch TV?  Sorry, if I’m really gonna play this game the TV also has to go.  The point of NDoU no doubt, is to reestablish face-to-face communication, prepare meals together, get outdoors, read books (what’s a “book”?), and so on.  Unplug Collaborative’s website lists fully one hundred ways to spend your time devoid of tech.  You can’t unlock the full list without signing up for their membership so I’m just speculating on examples.  [Hey, if you join, let me know if one of the hundred is “fool around in the bedroom”.  That one doesn’t take anything plugged in.  At least, nothing I have any experience with.]

If the NDoU campaign really gets momentum, I could see the unplugging moving beyond tech.  Perhaps next year we’ll give the washer and dryer a day’s rest too, as well as the home exercise equipment, the stereo speakers, and the kitchen appliances.  Now there’s a frightening image.  Imagine twenty-four hours in dirty clothes, with no workout, singing just to make a little music, and sandwiches and pretzels for dinner.  Okay, skipping the workout wouldn’t be so bad.

For the record, I’m a proponent of a healthy life/tech balance.  Taking away my screens for a day isn’t such a bad thing.  After all, we could be talking about my coffeemaker here.  Now don’t be talking about unplugging my coffeemaker.  You’re gonna have a fight on your hands and you don’t want to see me without my morning coffee.  Do that and I might have to think about unplugging you.

Knight Watchman

This week’s headlines are full of speculation about Apple’s soon-to-debut iPhone X. We’re still a month away from pre-orders, yet iPhone X headlines carry the weight of those for the hurricanes and North Korea.

          Images courtesy of www.apple.com

iPhone X’s new/improved features sound impressive: “”It’s all screen”, facial recognition, surgical-grade stainless-steel, water resistance, wireless charging, superior camera functionality, and an “A11 Bionic” smartphone chip capable of 600 billion operations per second.  Sounds like a noticeable upgrade from the iPhone 7.

Despite this fanfare, my eye is still drawn to the iPhone’s most basic app: those numbers at the top of the “elegantly-rounded screen” silently telling the time-of-day.

I wear a watch.  Always have.  I wake up every morning, get dressed, pocket my wallet, handkerchief, and keys, and “wrist” my watch.  It’s a habit I’ve had since college days.  Granted, my wallet gets slimmer by the year, as the need for cash and physical cards dwindles.  My key chain is no longer a chain; not even a set of keys (rather, a small fob controlling my car without ever leaving my pocket).  Mercifully, my handkerchief hasn’t changed whatsoever (other than the purchase of a new one every couple of months).

My analog watch – though threatened by technology – remains steadfastly on my wrist.  I started wearing watches when I was a kid, and several decades later I still have the first two I ever owned.  My Snoopy watch was the wind-up type, telling time with its hours and minutes “paws”.  My gold (colored) Pulsar was one of the earliest of its brand, and seemed to say, “time to grow up”.

Several years after my Pulsar I purchased (or received) another wristwatch, followed by another and another and another.  At some point in the process my watches became too nice to part with, and “replace” became “collect”.  Today, I choose from half a dozen.

Recently, I gave smartwatches a try.  I figured, why not get my time and all those other time-saving applications on my wrist?  But it just didn’t take.  Like digital-display watches, I missed the elegant mechanics of a real analog watch.  For a short time, I tried wearing an analog on one wrist and a smartwatch on the other.  Also didn’t take (and probably drew a few curious looks in the process).

On yesterday’s commute talk-radio, the discussion was the iPhone X, and the host said, “anyone 40-and-older probably still wears a watch”.  That statement applies to me (both age range and habit).  I simply cannot forego my wristwatch for a smartphone.  No knock to smartphones, mind you.  In fact, with its $1,000 price tag, the radio host asked callers to predict whether the iPhone X would sell.  All ten callers I heard said people would buy, just as they did at the $500 threshold.  To anyone who thinks $1,000 is excessive, consider this: the smartphone has become a cultural necessity; a here-to-stay personal computer appendage (gather dust, ye laptops and desktops).  And $1,000 is a reasonable price for a personal computer these days.

Here’s a more concrete argument for the $1,000 price tag.  Make a list of the iPhone’s basic apps, and consider the cost of say, five years of physical materials to replace those apps.  Note pads, address books, calendars, paper maps, wallets, cameras, telephones, stereos, calculators, newspapers, and postage stamps (a wholly incomplete list).  Watches.  Well, what do you know; you just spent a lot more than $1,000!  Any further arguments?

No arguments from me either: the X will be a good and popular buy.  But you’ll still find a watch on my wrist.