Am I a Luddite?

[intrepidity]

I want a phone that I can use for 5+ years, without the internal memory running out ---*not because I use more apps, but because the constant updates to the few I use chews up memory, but somehow never releases any memory from older updates---* I don't care to have the latest and greatest, just content with what works.

I want a computer that doesn't *demand* an internet connection at all times, or even once a day. I want the software running on it to be under my control. I do *not* want the software "phoning home* to it's corporate masters what my computer is doing.

Seriously, is that too much to ask? We consumers have really given away too much (everything, really) in order to play with their toys---except that it is no longer "play" or even optional to not engage with this new technology. Every aspect of life now requires it, so unless you're an off-grid survivalist, you must engage.

It could have gone differently. I'm glad I won't be around much longer. :sigh:

[fierywoman]

1. I'm completely with you!

[FuzzyRabbit]

2. Yes, you are a Luddite. So am I.

Cell phones and computers will bring the end of civilization as we know it.

[walkingman]

3. You should be able to....

Disable your network adapter for a hard-wired ethernet connection and also disable your wifi - it should stay like that until you change the setting (after you reboot). This is for a PC not Mac.

Can't help you on the phone - I am a luddite on that. I refuse to get a smartphone simply I view it as a distraction (I do have one that I use as a camera )

[old guy]

4. Luddite here!

Glad to know there are others out there.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. I'm not really a Luddite myself,

but while I have a smart phone, I don't use a lot of apps on it. I use it to make phone calls, send and receive texts. Oh, and use it as an alarm clock. I do, on rare occasions, look something up on Google. That's it.

Here's the thing. I was a very early computer user. In January, 1969, I went to work for Mohawk Airlines, which was the second airline in this country to have a computerized reservations system. Yes, it was very simple and basic, but it was light years ahead of the airlines that didn't yet have a computerized reservations system. I got very good at figuring out various work-arounds, and how to use it to get more information.

Clearly, things are very different these days. I always and only am on DU from either my desktop computer (as I am right now) or my laptop, which is mostly used when I'm travelling somewhere. While I do text, what I hate about it is how slow it is for me. I'm an excellent touch typist, and I'm awed and dismayed when I watch young people use two thumbs to text rapidly.

But here's something else to keep in mind. As we get older (I'm 74) we are more and more resistant to change. And that happens at a fairly young age. When I worked at the airport I was in my 20s. Most of my co-workers were equally young. And every time there was some kind of a change to our reservations system, we all pissed and moaned and resisted it at first. We'd get used to one way of doing things and didn't want to change.

[hunter]

6. I have a flip phone and a computer I diverted from the e-waste stream.

Yeah, I'm some kind of Luddite.

The first real operating system I ever used regularly was BSD, a flavor of Unix, starting in the 'seventies.

When I quit Windows 98SE for Linux it was like going home again.

I've still got files and programs from the 'seventies that "just work," thank you very much.

Mostly I use my phone as a phone. Sometimes I use it for texts, but not every day.

I'm a great fan of the KISS principle because I'm frequently stupid and quite easily irritated, especially when something that used to work stops working for arbitrary or commercially capricious reasons.

Some people live on the bleeding edge of new technologies, I live on the long tails.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

7. Take it from a systems engineer...

...engineers, left to themselves, will continue to improve things until they no longer work at all.