So, did you get hit? This week a good many Verizon customers across our great state and beyond, (but who cares about anything beyond New Jersey) experienced a phone service failure. And boy did things get icky.
Landlineless as most of us are, the great unwashed mainly only have phone service through their cellies. But better minds than mine (and most minds are better than mine) have asked the same question: What the hell do we do when an app doesn’t work, those self-checkout corrals at a supermarket give up the ghost or yes, our cell phone’s die? I know you’ve seen it or experienced it yourself; a local business completely shuts down when their credit card machine ceases operating, an ‘influencer’ melts down because they can’t get online for an hour to post on Instagram. This or that technology doesn’t serve us in the time we demand.
Really, what the hell happens to any of us in these instances?
But there is more to it than a temporary phone inconvenience or Netflix being offline for a night. Our reliance (slavery) to technology and the bubble of inclusivity it has built around us has destroyed our civility and culture more than it has aided it. Family members can’t sit down to Thanksgiving because they might meet someone with a different opinion than the one they get blown back at them on their daily Twitter/X feed. Post some weekend binge watching a right depression sets in when we finish a series. An employer implements a new policy where at-home-workers need to come to the office one day a week, and there is a worker mutiny. In the bespoked (yes, I know it’s not a word, just like landlines above, but stay with me, ok?) existence we have fashioned around us, we don’t learn anything beyond what we search for.
Time and again I am reminded of the silly naked apes we are. Knuckle-dragging our way to the bright and shiniest object, choosing convenience over consideration, bending our knees up to our chest and letting our gizmos create a womb around us, we succumb. You think we would ever have gotten to AI had we not wanted to be taken over? But dude, when those gizmos go, or a service fails or God forbid you have to wait even a minute for that coffee you just apped for (yes, I know, another non word…sue me) when you speed into the Starbucks, not even aware that there is anybody around you, what are you going to do?
