I am writing this blog entry with a techno-gizmo. My simple Amish brain has a love/hate relationship with this techno-gizmo. The hate part comes from my love of simplicity and the love part comes from my aversion to cluttered, chaotic writing. I like things simple, clear, sensible, and neat. I have yet to use a techno-gizmo that meets my expectations.

Yes, pushing buttons is simple enough but how am I to make sense of the infinitesimal outer markings as well as comprehend its inner functions?

Although I am not genetically predisposed to ever comprehend techno-gizmos of any kind, I have finally mastered the basics of using a keyboard to make words appear on the screen but the inexplicable things that sometimes happen to those words leave me utterly baffled. For example, my recently acquired desktop PC with its colorful menu-page is very pretty and I’ve learned that the medium-sized gray square with the almost-white geometric shape in it is the button that’ll get me to the larger geometric shape that gets me to the Word versions of my blog entries.

So far so good. I locate the one with the correct title and settle in to transcribe thoughts. I am on a roll and really want to get it done when the words suddenly disappear and the screen changes back to white with the larger geometric shapes on it. I blink and panic, what happened to the words? How do I get them back? I eventually I click on the proper shape that gets me back to where I started. I sigh, feeling as I’ve been assaulted by this techno-gizmo, and begin again.

At the same time, l love the ease and neatness with which this techno-gizmo puts words on the screen. The words are not going to run off down the hill or venture up to the sky; they’ll stay in a nice straight line and jump down to the next equidistant line all by themselves. The pencil never needs sharpening and the pen never runs out of ink. If I want to erase something, I know the proper movement of the little finger of my right hand to make this happen. Editing, rewording, and rephrasing are easily done without the clutter of paper balls.

By choice, there are only a few other techno-gizmos in my house.

I am, however, bothered by the onslaught of techno-gizmos with which I am assaulted whenever I leave my house. Regardless of where I go or the setting of the event, I hear the sounds of techno-gizmos; jingles, jangles, mechanical laughs, chortles, shrieks, whistles, and one-sided conversations all point to those ubiquitous hand-grown techno-gizmos. Tinny voices and musical instruments emanating from the heads of people whom I pass on the street are also common. I wonder if their ears work in reverse but I am told they have earbuds. I feel sorry for them because if their ears are still buds, they must not be fully developed yet. I touch my own fully blossomed ears and sigh with relief.

I have also observed a generational distinction at work here. It seems that techno-gizmos are more commonly found among those younger than fifty, and especially among those who are not yet twenty. Take my grandchildren for example, they are still in elementary school and although I assume they have some of my DNA, they were seemingly born with the genes to know exactly which button to touch to get what they want to see on the screen.

My grandchildren are still too young to understand their grandma’s baffled confusion at this strange phenomenon. For them, there is no confusion and they do not feel assaulted. They cannot imagine life without them.

I sigh again and wonder if I will ever stop feeling assaulted by techno-gizmos.