Machinka

In the process of my house cleaning today, I suddenly realized that there are a lot of errant remote controls in this place. Specifically, there are 13 remotes in this apartment. It's bad enough that I don't know what half of them actually do; worse, I barely know how to use them. To operate them requires a level of expertise clearly lost on me.

There are three remotes alone to control the air conditioner and/or fan in three rooms (the other two units are controlled--gasp--manually). I can mange the one in the bedroom which has only five buttons on it--I only usually utilize the on/off function which is colored green for identification by novices such as myself. There is a remote to the Bose clock radio. There are a multitude of remotes for the four television sets in this place. There are two remotes for the two DVD players. There's a remote to an old VCR player. Then there are two remotes for the uber Bose stereo system and home theater surround sound. To operate the remote for the massive new LCD flat screen on the wall requires an engineering degree. I admit it--I still can't figure out how to turn the damned thing on without an intricate choreography of button compression before I have power.

I think technology is great--honestly, I embrace it. Like everyone else, I lust for an iPhone and value the convenience of shopping online. It took me awhile, but I came around to the new innovations that make our lives so simple. But I have to draw the line at having everything accessible by fingertip compression--closing curtains, turning on sound systems, adjusting lighting...we're slowly evolving into a Jetson generation and in doing so, get a little lazy.

When I was growing up, we had one TV with four channels and if you wanted to watch something else, you actually had to get up off your ass and manually switch the channel. If you wanted to listen to music, you had to manually operate a turntable. We also never spent our days inside watching television or shopping online, which is perhaps my point here. Technology certainly eases certain aspects of life but it also makes it easy to isolate ourselves from the outside world and interaction with people face to face. Technology has it benefits, absolutely--I just worry how its conveniences will create higher walls around us as a society.

I'd ponder that heady question further but I have more pressing issues--I have to sort out how to play back a recorded episode of "Top Chef" and this could take all night.