Technology can drive you mad--just ask the apes!

So there I was— obviously dead, having fallen off my perch, severed my mortal coil, kicked the bucket and left to wonder what happens next.

“Sally,” said a comforting voice, “come right this way. You’re going to heaven now….”

Showing unaccustomed humility, I protested that someone obviously made a mistake and I must be in the wrong lineup. But suddenly I was standing before the Pearly Gates. A kindly soul who introduced himself as St. Peter explained that all the paperwork had been completed and I was good to go.

“Just one final detail,” said the heavenly host checking my documents on his electronic device.

“I need your password.” 

That’s when I suddenly awoke soaked in sweat, bug-eyed and determined never again to do battle with my computer over several hours just prior to bedtime. The computer always has the last word and by the time I raise the white flag I’m a wreck and in need of some nerdy kid to get me back on track.

Our grandkids regard computers as sources of endless information and entertainment. To me, they represent a major threat to my sanity, civility, privacy and independence.  

I would still be pumping out columns on my old Underwood and paying household bills via snail mail if I had my way. My technical and mechanical skills would fit into an eyedropper. 

Just when I get familiar with one program, it’s obsolete and replaced with a newer version.

As scammers grow more sophisticated in ways to cheat, misinform and rob consumers, security measures are on the increase to protect the public. With each of these the system becomes more complex and more frustrating for the unskilled such as myself.

Government offices and merchants assume that every person in Canada (now 40 million) has a password required for forms that provide everything from licenses to health care cards and payment of household bills.  

To confess that you don’t own a computer or that you are unskilled in its use is like admitting you live in a place without indoor plumbing and belong to the Ku Klux Klan.

I have more passwords than I can count. I have been ridiculed for a filing system that involves scribbled passwords on pieces of paper that disappear like socks that go into the laundry and are never seen again.

We’re told we can do just about everything---vote, buy a car, book a lobotomy or a trip around the world---without leaving our keyboard. But only if you have a password and can remember it.

The staggering increase in mental health cases is well documented and I believe much of this can be traced to technology that has taken over our lives and isolates us from much needed human contact.

The Toronto Zoo has outlawed visitors from sharing their cell phone videos with gorillas because the big primates become engrossed in the technology and start ignoring their caged peers. Well, hello! You can find kids still in diapers staring at screens and teenagers so caught up in their cell phones that they fail to see a red traffic light and depend on attentive drivers to save them.

If gorillas need protection, what about those of us on this side of the glass?

Artificial intelligence (AI) promises incredible advances in just about every field of human endeavour and is another giant step on the road to replacing humans with robots and algorithms and raising fears that it could be downright dangerous in the hands of despots and those of similar ilk.  

We’re already well along on that sanitized and laborsaving journey thanks to self-checkouts and ATM machines that replace friendly clerks, tellers and cashiers. For a fee, online medical services will generate diagnosis and treatment for the millions of Canadians without a family doctor.  Just about everything you want or need can be purchased online.   

Why struggle through gridlocked traffic to visit a store when a package will show up at your front door without you having seen or spoken with a human being? 

Turning into a recluse becomes easier with each passing day!

“Real people” we can talk to for information and assistance are going the way of the dinosaurs. You can grow old waiting to talk to someone about a product or service, lodge a complaint or correct an account.

If your call really is that important, why does it take so long to reach assistance? And why is it just your bad luck to always be calling when there is a higher than usual volume of calls?

Everyone, it seems, has a story to tell about ageing while waiting to speak to a “real person” in government, public and private operations.

How about a national inquiry into who is responsible for the so-called music that callers must endure while waiting for help. I’d rather hear finger nails on a blackboard.

There should be a special place in hell for those employees who answer calls, gush with enthusiasm, apologize for the long wait and then inform callers they have contacted the wrong department and will be seamlessly transferred. More often than not it seems that the poor stiff, whose nerves are already frayed, gets disconnected in the process.

No wonder there are so many people with mental health issues today and an increase in senseless acts of violence that cause fear and anger among the public and contribute to a lack of respect and confidence in our democratic institutions.

Having survived two years of pandemic isolation, many have emerged only to find the world has changed---and not for the better.

Family doctors have picked up their stethoscopes and gone home. Health care workers are burned out. Kids have had their lives turned upside down as schools and families struggled through closures, home schooling and the separation of playmates.

The cozy little restaurant on the corner where neighbours gather for coffee and gossip has probably closed or is open only part time because there’s a staff shortage. Did I miss something? Is work a dirty word these days?

Record numbers of immigrants are being recruited to fill job openings but someone forgot that they would need affordable housing and government services. 

Young people fear for their safety and their future. Old people are denied decent longterm care because the so-called experts failed to plan for a generation of baby boomers who would turn grey and sick all at the same time. 

The world cries out for leaders we can respect and trust. Where are the women and men with vision and courage to tell us the truth and help get us out of the mess we’re in?

If artificial intelligence (AI) with its creative potential for both good and evil helps to put Donald Trump back in the White House for another four years, God help us all !