The Price we Pay for Conveniences

Back in the 1960's I remember the hair dryer consisted of a huge canister thing on rollers where a coiled hose came out and hooked up to a shower cap that covers your head of hair. I know some of you youngsters out there do not remember this contraption but there was a minature size version of this on an episode of "Get Smart" (don't ask...). Now we have hand-size portable hair dryers with muffler attachments that concentrate the heat to the part of your head you want to dry.

Polaroid cameras all of a sudden were such a rage for pictures instead of waiting for film to develop. However the quality is less than desirable. 1998 was the first time I purchased a 1.3 Megapixel digital camera and everyone was puzzled on why I was holding the camera the way I did when I was taking photos....now I am behind the technical times with my old 5.0 megapixel Olympus. Instant gratification without the hassle and expense of developing the film!

I challenged myself to see how long I could live without a microwave oven when I first moved to California from Chicago. That lasted 6 years and now I cannot see myself going back to the conventional oven for making food fast.

Tape recorders was the means of recording music and playing back when I was young....now they have those I-Pods where consumers download music from websites and get riduculed for such piracy from musical artists.

America compared to Europe: we are notorious for having everything "super-sized" and with paper disposability. Bigger cars (SUV's), bigger food portions, plastic cutlery (silverware) and over-abundance of paper products. The only paper abundance that I see in Europe is their profuse reading materials that I see all generations read in public; no mass quantities of hand-held video games.

Relationships in America seem to be under the influence of conveniences also. There is a toy being advertised now that tells children's stories to kids instead of the busy parents - where is the human contact anymore? Television has always been the parent's babysitter - that's a given. Kids that act out in public are either quickly shushed by their parents or continue their tantrums based on the manner of the convenience to ignore the situation.

I question online dating at times since there is no direct person interaction when trying to meeting people for dating. The convenience of the internet has allowed us adults to place that barrier in between instead of facing each other for the real interaction.

Now there is the communication technology. It cracks me up when people in the same household email each other when they want to communicate something to each other. What ever happened to face-to-face conversations? Seeing four people walking down the street together tells me they are out together. However what tickles me is that all four of them are on their own mobile phones talking to other people instead of visiting with each other - wassup with that? A pet peeve of mine is when I visit someone and they answer the phone then give it to me to speak to the other party on the line. Why would I want to speak to a person on the phone when I am there visiting one in person? Why do they do that; should I leave for their phone calls?

The bottom line is I wonder what will happen to my life if I am retired, old and unable to enjoy such conveniences that technology has given us in this lifetime so far. We are victims of our own technology where we get penalized for piracy, air-time hours on the mobile phones, and the good old electronic identity thieves. If this is America, land of the free and brave - we are not that free compared to other countries. We are trapped with our conveniences of technology and the escape is the disposability in all aspects of our society. We are not brave enough to confront uncomfortable situations anymore. I believe that slogan came from the Independence and Civil War days where this country was starting out. Believe me, I am used to this lifestyle and it frightens me that I cannot live in another country for a long period of time; I tried that when I was in London. We are now America, land of the abundance and the greed.