Technophobia
2012; Wiley; Volume: 48; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1111/j.1440-1754.2012.02516.x
ISSN1440-1754
Autores Tópico(s)Child Development and Digital Technology
Resumo‘Why, this is so simple a five-year-old child could understand it! Go find me a five-year-old child; I can't make heads or tails of it.’ Groucho Marx (1890–1977) I am unashamedly technophobic. When I sat down to write this editorial on technophobia, my laptop refused to recognise my USB. Muttering about how even my own technological devices conspire to prevent me telling the truth about technology, I started writing this by hand. My technophobia is an inborn error, but escalated dramatically a couple of years ago when I came to order a simple blood test in the outpatient clinic and was told I could no longer write out a form (<30 s) but had to fill out a request on the computer, which took me several minutes and aged me several years. This is a classical and by no means isolated example of technology for technology's sake in the health system, where the innovation has no discernible advantage over the old system. Technophobia peaked in the Industrial Revolution. The Luddites were 19th century English textile workers who protested, by destroying mechanical looms, against machines that threatened their jobs. The movement was named after a mythical figure, General Ned Ludd or King Ludd, reputed like Robin Hood to live in Sherwood Forest. However, destruction of looms by English weavers was described as early as 1675. As a technophobe, I curse when my computer causes problems, although I have learned from my children the mysterious remedy of turning it off and switching it on again, which, contrary to any logic, seems to cure most computer ills. As all the mechanical devices in the house fail sequentially, as if in sympathy, I am reminded of the title of the musical, ‘Stop the World I want to get off’. I am appalled when I see youngsters use a calculator rather than doing the simplest calculation in their heads, and I fear humans will evolve who have no need for numeracy. In a recent high school classroom confessions session, a 15-year-old girl told how her mother gets her daughter to hand over her iPhone at 9:30 every night so she can't ring her friends, but does not realise that her daughter hands over her iPod instead. At least they are both happy. Another child admitted to using a hand-held game console called a PlayStation Portable to access the internet at night. Luddite parents do not stand a chance. Technophobes cherish stories of technological failure, such as when drivers rely too much on satellite navigation or global positioning system devices. An extreme recent example was the Syrian truck driver heading for Gibraltar, at the southern tip of Spain, who ended up at Gibraltar Point in Lincolnshire, England, a mere 2500 km off course. After a number of other similar, if less dramatic, examples, the police have pleaded with people not to throw away their old-fashioned maps. I admit that I have had to make some technological concessions, usually enforced ones. I love reading paper copies of journals, but find electronic searches invaluable for evidence-based clinical decision-making and for literature searches. An editor friend who is famously instrumental for introducing electronic versions of his journal told me that if the electronic version had come first and someone had introduced a paper version you could carry in your pocket or read in the bath, they would have been lauded to an equal degree. Mobile phones are a true advance and mean that parents can at least maintain the illusion that their teenagers are safe when they are out with friends. My teenage son borrowed my car recently to go out with friends. When he returned at midnight, the car had gone, either stolen or towed away wrongly (there was an International Summit in town, but he was parked legally). He rang me at home on his mobile phone. I looked up the police number, rang them and found out the car had accidentally been towed to a nearby pound. My son did not know the address, but told me how to look it up on a website, and I directed him over the phone as he walked there. Ten minutes after he called, he was driving the car home. I reflected that if the same thing had happened to me when I was his age, it would have taken days to find the car. Perhaps this technology is not all bad. But please, let us not introduce technology for technology's sake and please let us use common sense when using technology.
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