THAT’S LIFE: When technology becomes your friend

Children are dangerous. Have you ever seen a four year-old with an Ipad? It doesn’t matter whether she is in the village or the city. She may drool over her bib, chew her toys, throw your keys but somehow she just knows what to do with an Ipad. I tell you, children cannot be trusted. They are like aliens. One day they may just rule the world, and put all of us grown ups in cages.

How did she figure out how to slide the screen open, and then use her fore-finger to choose whichever app holds her fancy at the moment? If that is not bad enough, she smoothly glides this way and that and opens you to a whole new world you were not aware existed on your tablet. You’ve only been using it to take notes, use Instagram and watch Youtube videos.

So you hunker down to her level, and say, “I didn’t know I could tell the world weather on my Ipad! What else can it do?’ You see, if you were born in that magical era where televisions were black and white, and programming begun at 5:00pm, and you remember things like Ambi and Dunia Wiki Hii, technology can make you feel, to put it nicely, a little stupid.

That’s why I’m that consumer who goes in to buy a smartphone or a tablet, and then spends hours interrogating the youthful sales representative on how to use it. “You can download the manual online,” they drop very unhelpful hints. I used to be very good at reading manuals, until they wrote them in Chinese and Greek, put in all that techno-lingo and then made you download it. Sometimes it feels like I need to enrol into an ICT class just to know how to switch between channels on the smart television. “So tell me again, does it have a tape recorder too?” They smile. They see people like me all the time. After-all when you are old enough to be able to buy any technology you crave, you will struggle to use it. Something like those men who buy sports cars in their seventies and then obey the traffic limit of 50 kmph.

I confess. I am one of those people who can buy a really cool phone that I only use to call, text, email and take pictures. My children roll their eyes in exasperation, “Let me show you what this thing is meant to do!” At which point I tell them, that if I am the one who bought it, then I can choose to do nothing else but take pictures and Whatsapp all day. Just my way of reminding them that they are not as smart as they think!

And so I take technology slowly. I figure out what to do, and then practice that until I get the hang of it before I venture all out there into the technological void. I mean, what if I never come back? 

Several months ago, a friend introduced me to a new app that really organises your life. It’s called Fabulous, and is a coach and personal assistant rolled into one. The best part is that it is,  easy to use! Probably created for clever people like myself who don’t have time to download manuals.

Fabulous came into my life at a time when I needed Zen and order, the kind you only get when you spend time taking a vow of silence in a monastery. Since I have no desire to be quiet for anything longer than a couple of hours, and monasteries do creep me out, this was perfect! Fabulous is a life organiser and helps me set great goals.

That’s not all, it keeps track of my progress and sends me daily motivations to keep me going. Now this is not a sales pitch to make you go out and get Fabulous. Rather, it is a splendid example, to me at least, of what happens when technology serves you. The good news is that this kind of technology is out there. Technology really should make us better humans and help us live more evolved lives. That’s when technology becomes a friend. 

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