Do you find it hard to keep up with technology?

mengele

Beginning to hate technology as of late. Just as I get to know how to use something it wants to update and work completely different.
I just find all these new apps and technology really boring. I don't need an alexa to tell me a joke or any of these mod cons.

Dravokivich

Most apps on phones are either games, fancy calculators, or websites who wanted an app for their website. You aren't missing anything.

Sky King

God be with the days when all they needed to do to bring something up to date was put a digital clock in it.

Beasty

Don't bother trying. Just let those wanting to embrace it get on with it, but I live in a more "analogue" world. In fact I find it a little re-assuring when I analyse stuff in my head when others look for technological shortcuts that often deliver similar solutions in a similar timescale:)

Church on Tuesday

I'm fairly low tech tbh

Android phone, basic enough laptop, smart TV.

That's it really, just can't be bothered keeping up with the latest games console or Apple product.

Rather read a book or put on a record.

freshpopcorn

Not really but I hate when they update websites and change the layout of them.

Laois_Man

If you think keeping up with technology as a consumer is hard, try do high tech for a living!

A lot of it is extremely over-rated!

NIMAN

I find it hard to believe they can be making mobile phones any better nowadays.

About 5 years ago they had everything you'd ever need on them, what are they doing to make them better?

I would doubt very little, but I still see my work colleagues paying the new contracts to get the new phones. All at silly money.

I'll be sticking with my Z3 Compact until it dies.

Ubbquittious

Don't find it hard, just lost interest in a lot of the consumer stuff. Alexa and the latest google privacy eating doohickey do feck all for me. Also designing some of your own stuff is way more interesting than being a passive consumer. I'd get more excited now about a discrete power transistor some crowd are after coming out with than the latest rectangular slab from Samsung

It seems as well that most of the mainstream tech coming out now has some tie-back to the megacorp that made it. Something cloud or some proprietary consumable. Hard to feel much enthusiasm for a thing if their plans to further milk your wallet are that obvious

Outlaw Pete

No, on the contrary, I find viagra great.

rizzodun

Those robots can run pretty fast alright..

Greyfox

No as I realise I can ignore a lot of new tech. I've a very old laptop, good phone, good tv, playstation 4, Netflix and would consider these essential. Dont need anything else.

Wibbs

Not really M. Since the cradle I've always loved gadgets and new things coming along. Plus I have a near visceral need to have a working knowledge of everything in my environment, at least to to the point where I'll know any putative "expert" may be bullshitting me.

On the utility of ever moving tech? Most of it is either a copy of something else, or a solution to a nonexistent problem, or the same oul crap in a shinier case/UI. But among the majority of dross there are always small nuggets of innovation and utility that will win out over time. And it's always been like that with tech and well before the interwebs too. Today that stuff is many times amplified and faster moving.

Zimmerframe

Keeping up with technology is easy, paying to keep up with it is the difficult part.

KungPao

I enjoy keeping up to date with web technology and gaming hardware. I don't care about most tech, but I am generally good at it.

In the last few years, I've noticed myself falling behind my students in knowledge about apps or things like Instagram or Snapchat. Apps are nearly dead, and when Apple finally allows PWAs to display the Add to Home screen prompt like Android does, the only apps left will be games.

Lucy8080

Send me a Stamped addressed envelope if you wish to know the secret of how to write BooBs on a calculator.

If you wish to have tennis instruction on pong... b/w t.v. only...include a 2 punt postal order.

Otherwise,you are on your own.

bodhrandude

NIMAN wrote: »

I find it hard to believe they can be making mobile phones any better nowadays.

About 5 years ago they had everything you'd ever need on them, what are they doing to make them better?

I would doubt very little, but I still see my work colleagues paying the new contracts to get the new phones. All at silly money.

I'll be sticking with my Z3 Compact until it dies.

Perhaps they will create an new app that does the toilet for you. :pac:

xi5yvm0owc1s2b

Can figure out any gadget or app if I need to, but believe in keeping it simple. Nobody needs dozens of apps on their phone, pinging and notifying all day long. Couldn't give a toss about stuff like Snapchat or Instagram or any other app whose function is to show me pictures of people's dinner.

cmac2009

Don't understand why you would want Amazon Echo/Google home? To me it's a classic example of a solution to a non existant problem to enable more data gathering. Just great marketing as is the norm with these companies

ToddyDoody

I think I'm actually happy enough with technology at the moment. The latest app I downloaded was audible, the audio book app from amazon and that works well. Being pretentious, I think I'm getting good use out of subscribing to arty newsfeeds and there is some good quality tumblr porn sites.

jimgoose

I have a couple of digital feeds to the TVs - Roku stick, Chromecast, some media hub thing on a fairly decent Sony BluRay player - and I keep a good, powerful smartphone mainly so I can cover the basics without having to prick around with a laptop when I'm not in the office. I drive a 20-year-old Jaaag and tend not to take much notice of the latest propeller-headery.

Fr_Dougal

cmac2009 wrote: »

Don't understand why you would want Amazon Echo/Google home? To me it's a classic example of a solution to a non existant problem to enable more data gathering. Just great marketing as is the norm with these companies

I can sit in my chair and turn on/up the heating. I can enter the sitting room and have lights, tv, amp, Virgin Media box, all turn on and off by voice commands. No need to fumble around with various remote controls.

Irish Guitarist

I'm 42 and I've owned two mobile phones in my life. Neither of them were smartphones. I have absolutely no interest in them.

Those advertisements saying you can watch films on your phone on the bus baffle me. Why the fuck would anyone want to watch a film on a screen the size of their hand instead of waiting until they get home and watch it on a normal screen?

And what the fuck is up with Instagram? People paying a fortune for a mobile phone then using some filter to make their photos look like a thirty year old Polaroid covered in dirt. Then there's Snapchat. Those filters that make you look like a dog might be a bit of a laugh to use once or twice but some people seem to have decided they're never going to take a normal photo ever again.

Capt'n Midnight

Lyons tea shops build their own computer back in 1951.

And they got the software right because they understood the business and requirements and technology and the people.



When it comes to on time , on budget, fit for purpose, business software it's been downhill since then.

Twenty Grand

cmac2009 wrote: »

Don't understand why you would want Amazon Echo/Google home? To me it's a classic example of a solution to a non existant problem to enable more data gathering. Just great marketing as is the norm with these companies

Can control the music in my bathroom when I'm in the shower.
Handy when I'm belting out the hits!

Graces7

No as I use and have what I need.

murpho999

NIMAN wrote: »

I find it hard to believe they can be making mobile phones any better nowadays.

About 5 years ago they had everything you'd ever need on them, what are they doing to make them better?

I would doubt very little, but I still see my work colleagues paying the new contracts to get the new phones. All at silly money.

I'll be sticking with my Z3 Compact until it dies.

Plopsu

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

No, on the contrary, I find viagra great.

Really, I find it very hard! :pac:

topper75

Laois_Man wrote: »

If you think keeping up with technology as a consumer is hard, try do high tech for a living!

A lot of it is extremely over-rated!

I'm in the game too, somewhat reluctantly.

I am often aghast at my coworkers enthusiasm for minuscule improvements in some software that probably not that useful to begin with. I see it as a fetish. They get a dopamine rush from the prospect of adding to something for adding's sake. They never zoom out and question where is this ****ing thing actually heading for ultimately. They also fetishise other tech generally and have homes full of gadgets. I think some would happily live as brains in jars with no bodies.

Ultimately no app is going to give you the same sense of well being as going out into the fresh air for a walk with the dog.

xi5yvm0owc1s2b

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

I'm 42 and I've owned two mobile phones in my life. Neither of them were smartphones. I have absolutely no interest in them.

A smartphone, being a computer that fits in a pocket, can come in useful in numerous ways. I regularly use mine as a map, camera, flashlight, voice recorder, calendar, and payment device. I use it to check in and board flights, sign legal documents, transfer money between accounts, and replace a laptop while travelling. You won't write a 10,000-word report on a smartphone unless you're some kind of masochist, but you can make emergency edits to documents and spreadsheets on the go, keep up with email, and the like.

A smartphone also gives you access to secure encrypted messaging through apps like Whatsapp. Whereas SMS text messaging is not secure.

Smartphones aren't all about Instagram and Snapchat. There are many reasons I find it genuinely useful to carry one.

Apiarist

No, I like new technologies. I do not use Snapchat because I have nobody who would be interested in regularly getting "funny" pics of me, but I can login to my linux miniserver at home from my smartphone, and this is great. And I do prefer to fill tax forms and such like online rather that fill them on paper and having to send them.

What I do no like about new technologies is the missing stuff. Where is my flying car? Where are my holidays on the Moon?

murpho999

Everlee Limited Fizz wrote: »

A smartphone, being a computer that fits in a pocket, can come in useful in numerous ways. I regularly use mine as a map, camera, flashlight, voice recorder, calendar, and payment device. I use it to check in and board flights, sign legal documents, transfer money between accounts, and replace a laptop while travelling. You won't write a 10,000-word report on a smartphone unless you're some kind of masochist, but you can make emergency edits to documents and spreadsheets on the go, keep up with email, and the like.

A smartphone also gives you access to secure encrypted messaging through apps like Whatsapp. Whereas SMS text messaging is not secure.

Smartphones aren't all about Instagram and Snapchat. There are many reasons I find it genuinely useful to carry one.

Agree with everything you say. Smartphones are about so much more than social media stuff.

This week myself and my wife have used smartphones for the following:

Checked in for a flight and have boarding card on phone. No annoying paper to carry around.

Payments: Wife has travelled to London, and will use Revolut app and card to save on sterling costs. I had a balance on my card and was able to transfer money to her in an instant and she could use it immediately.

Banking: Checked balance.

Music: Listen to it all the time and I’ve basically got almost the whole history of music accessible on my phone for €9.99 a month.

You Tube: watch it all the time on my commute

Netflix: Download shows via wifi and enjoy them on my phone. Prefer films on TV but for 30 minute shows, the phone screen is fine.

Sold items on Ebay, and communicated with buyers.

Medicine: I’m on tablets at the moment and keep forgetting them. Use a handy “Pill Reminder” app to remind me at correct time. It really helps

News and sports: Get constant alerts and newsflashes for news, football matches etc.

Maps: Ideal for looking up restaurants/bars, sat nav etc. Literally would be lost with it.

Cinema: No more queueing for me. Always book tickets on app and collect or have ticket on app, depends on the cinema.

Could simply not live without the phone now, it’s made so many things that much easier and faster.

Age is not a factor in this either,in late 40s.

Amirani

I work in a tech-related field and have a general interest, so don't find it too difficult.

That said, what a lot of people consider to be "technology" can be somewhat tenuous. The latest social media craze for example isn't really my idea of technological advancement.

Twenty Grand

It's a bit silly to pick one aspect of technology you can't relate to and complain that keeping up with it is tiresome.

The Tetrarch

Yesterday I used the vacuum cleaner to suck dog hair off the PC.
I can use two devices.

xi5yvm0owc1s2b

murpho999 wrote: »

Could simply not live without the phone now, it’s made so many things that much easier and faster.

Age is not a factor in this either,in late 40s.

Completely agreed. I suppose it's technically possible to get by without a smartphone, but you'll spend a lot more time queuing, asking for directions, printing stuff out, etc. Why deal with the inconvenience?

Graces7

Everlee Limited Fizz wrote: »

A smartphone, being a computer that fits in a pocket, can come in useful in numerous ways. I regularly use mine as a map, camera, flashlight, voice recorder, calendar, and payment device. I use it to check in and board flights, sign legal documents, transfer money between accounts, and replace a laptop while travelling. You won't write a 10,000-word report on a smartphone unless you're some kind of masochist, but you can make emergency edits to documents and spreadsheets on the go, keep up with email, and the like.

A smartphone also gives you access to secure encrypted messaging through apps like Whatsapp. Whereas SMS text messaging is not secure.

Smartphones aren't all about Instagram and Snapchat. There are many reasons I find it genuinely useful to carry one.

But the cost? Shudders. I have 2 mobile phones. tesco mobile. one cost e10, the other e15. Had to get the second when I had no electricity as a neighbour kindly recharged it.

Depends of course on your lifestyle. I have no need of the technology you have.

tomplate

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

I can sit in my chair and turn on/up the heating. I can enter the sitting room and have lights, tv, amp, Virgin Media box, all turn on and off by voice commands. No need to fumble around with various remote controls.

I'd prefer to just use the remote

Greyfox

Graces7 wrote: »

Everlee Limited Fizz wrote: »

A smartphone, being a computer that fits in a pocket, can come in useful in numerous ways. I regularly use mine as a map, camera, flashlight, voice recorder, calendar, and payment device. I use it to check in and board flights, sign legal documents, transfer money between accounts, and replace a laptop while travelling. You won't write a 10,000-word report on a smartphone unless you're some kind of masochist, but you can make emergency edits to documents and spreadsheets on the go, keep up with email, and the like.

A smartphone also gives you access to secure encrypted messaging through apps like Whatsapp. Whereas SMS text messaging is not secure.

Smartphones aren't all about Instagram and Snapchat. There are many reasons I find it genuinely useful to carry one.

But the cost? Shudders. I have 2 mobile phones. tesco mobile. one cost e10, the other e15. Had to get the second when I had no electricity as a neighbour kindly recharged it.

Depends of course on your lifestyle. I have no need of the technology you have.

You can get an ok smartphone on the cheap 2nd hand. Only idiots by the latest model on release. I couldn't live without a smartphone and having one means I don't need a laptop

harr

I would have always taught of myself as fairly good with tech up till a few years ago but since I hit my mid 40,s I am starting to feel a little lost up to point where I am holding off updating stuff.
For a simple life I stick to apple products and probably would be lost on a windows pc at this stage.
I find looking for solutions on YouTube helps with most things.... I would agree with having a good smart phone handy..so much more than a phone and I could probably could go without most other tech once I had my iPhone.

Capt'n Midnight

Everlee Limited Fizz wrote: »

A smartphone, being a computer that fits in a pocket, can come in useful in numerous ways. I regularly use mine as a map, camera, flashlight, voice recorder, calendar, and payment device. I use it to check in and board flights, sign legal documents, transfer money between accounts, and replace a laptop while travelling. You won't write a 10,000-word report on a smartphone unless you're some kind of masochist, but you can make emergency edits to documents and spreadsheets on the go, keep up with email, and the like.

A smartphone also gives you access to secure encrypted messaging through apps like Whatsapp. Whereas SMS text messaging is not secure.

Smartphones aren't all about Instagram and Snapchat. There are many reasons I find it genuinely useful to carry one.

We have in our pockets a device that can be used to view the entire sum of human knowledge or directly contact three billion people.


We use them to look at cat videos and argue with strangers.

murpho999

Greyfox wrote: »

You can get an ok smartphone on the cheap 2nd hand. Only idiots by the latest model on release. I couldn't live without a smartphone and having one means I don't need a laptop

Nice sweeping statement there.

People buy them for the new features and may also be upgrading from older models.

Also, think about it, if these idiots didn't buy them then there'd be no second hand market for all those clever people to pick up their phones.

murpho999

murpho999 wrote: »

Nice sweeping statement there.

People buy them for the new features and may also be upgrading from older models.

Also, think about it, if these idiots didn't buy them then there'd be no second hand market for all those clever people to pick up their phones.

It makes sense for people who are into the features. But too many waste their money not taking advantage of the differences between a phone now and five years ago.

xi5yvm0owc1s2b

Greyfox wrote: »

You can get an ok smartphone on the cheap 2nd hand. Only idiots by the latest model on release.

Depending on its age, a cheap second-hand phone may not get system updates or security updates, which leaves it open to an array of known hacking techniques. So the idiots with their new phones running the latest software may have the last laugh.

neris

not finding it hard to keep up but have a pain in my arse with the constant update notifications of apps on phone, tablets and Itunes.

I'm fine with it mostly and work in IT. Though I have very little interest in VR and absolutely no interest in Alexa/smart lighting/putting every last thing about my life in a neat bundle to be stored in a company's server. So I'll probably start falling behind soon.

harr

harr wrote: »

I would have always taught of myself as fairly good with tech up till a few years ago but since I hit my mid 40,s I am starting to feel a little lost up to point where I am holding off updating stuff.
For a simple life I stick to apple products and probably would be lost on a windows pc at this stage.
I find looking for solutions on YouTube helps with most things.... I would agree with having a good smart phone handy..so much more than a phone and I could probably could go without most other tech once I had my iPhone.

They're exactly the same except you can right-click for context menus (neat!) and open windows are shown at the bottom and not hidden behind some gesture that has to be learned.

.......

Deleted User wrote: »

Apps are nearly dead, and when Apple finally allows PWAs to display the Add to Home screen prompt like Android does, the only apps left will be games.

I dont know what a tracker mortgage is.

murpho999

neris wrote: »

not finding it hard to keep up but have a pain in my arse with the constant update notifications of apps on phone, tablets and Itunes.

But you can control all that yourself as to what indidual notifications you want to receive or not.

BeerWolf

Computers will be outdated, hail the biotech symbiote era where we'll communicate via telepathy with a fleshy "device" attached to the base of our spine.