Progress, Or Is It?

Larry Magid Looks At The Changes Wrought By Past 50 Years

(CBS)  I'm not exactly sure who "they" are but I seem to remember that they told us technology would make our lives easier and more efficient. I'm not so sure.

Let's start with our TVs. I'm old enough to remember when TV had two main dials -- a volume control and a channel changer that let you go from channel 2 to 13.

The high-definition TV in my living room is connected to a satellite receiver/personal video recorder with hundreds of channels and several levels of menus. The TV itself has infinitely more controls than the old ones and scores of optional inputs.

But there's more. To hear the TV, you have to turn on the audio system, and because I also have a DVD player and an Apple TV but only one optical audio input, I sometimes have to unplug one device and plug in another.

Then there is the gaggle of remote controls. In theory, I could consolidate them with a universal remote. But with new types of equipment coming out all the time from companies that barely existed a couple of years ago, it's hard for universal remote makers to keep up.

Of course there are always the super-universal programmable remotes like Logitech's Harmony 1000, but do I really want to spend $499 on a remote and invest the time to program it from a PC or a Mac?

Several years ago, I conducted a family training session to teach everyone how to use our new AV system, prompting my daughter to complain: "Daddy, all I want to do is watch TV."

Then there is the telephone. When I grew up, most families had one phone line and maybe a couple of extensions and paid about $12 a month for local service.

Today, it's not uncommon for a family of four to have four cell phones that collectively cost more than $200 a month. And back when I was a kid, you could actually hear each other nearly 100 percent of the time. We didn't have to worry whether we had enough "bars" for a decent signal.

My college-age kids don't even have landlines, and cell phone service at my son's apartment is totally unreliable. Of course, back when I was his age, there was only one phone company: AT&T. It was broken up, never to raise its monopolistic head again. Or so we were told.

I love computers and, yes, I think they've made me more productive. But I don't think they've made life easier.

When I went off to college, I had a Smith Corona typewriter. Sure, I had to buy Wite-Out by the gallon to correct my mistakes. But I didn't have to read a manual to figure it out, it never broke and it never bogged down because of spyware or viruses. I remember the frustration of crumpling up sheets of paper and starting again if I made too many mistakes but we typewriter users didn't kill nearly as many trees as PC users do today.

What happened to the "paperless office?" The authors of "The Myth of the Paperless Office," published on paper by MIT Press in 2003, found the use of e-mail increases paper consumption by 40 percent. Go figure. And typewriter ribbons were a lot cheaper than printer ink which -- I did the math -- can cost as much as $13,000 a gallon.

My first camera, a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye, was primitive and expensive to use with the cost of film, developing and flash bulbs. But it took good pictures and was easy to use. When you got back from vacation, you dropped your film at the store and picked up your prints a few days later.

You didn't have to connect the camera to a PC to transfer photos, use complicated software and worry about whether the printer is going to jam on you. And if you went on a long vacation, you could always bring or buy lots of film.

Today, if you fill up your camera's memory card, you're "out of film" until you can offload the pictures to a PC.

Video is also a bit more complicated. I still marvel at the films my dad took with his 8mm movie camera. They were expensive to process, and it was a major project when we would break out the projector, set up the screen, dim the lights and start the show.

But at least he didn't have to master Windows Movie Maker or iMovie. And somehow the experience felt more fulfilling than just watching a few minutes of video on a PC screen.

I could go on by comparing glorious albeit sometimes scratchy sound from vinyl records and large speakers to that of highly compressed MP3s coming out of tiny earbuds. But enough already -- I'm starting to sound like a Luddite.

Besides, this column is due in a matter of minutes so it's time to save my file, crank up my e-mail program and zap it to my editor via high-speed broadband so that you can read it online.

Or maybe I should get out that Smith Corona, type it up, mail it in, have it typeset so they can burn it to a plate, print it and have the "paperboy" deliver it.

I guess progress isn't so bad after all.

---

A syndicated technology columnist for over two decades, Larry Magid serves as on air Technology Analyst for CBS Radio News. His technology reports can be heard several times a week on the CBS Radio Network. Magid is the author of several books including "The Little PC Book."

[michellem99-2009]

Gramma..
My late Grammum lived a simple life .Loved her. We had to pump water and bring it indoors. I used use an outhouse. It was cold in the winter. It just was. I do miss so much. We are poor hillbillies. I think about then and today. Are we better today than yesturyear. Yes and no.
GrammaWhamma ye memind me of my late Grammum who died back in Maine.

[grammawhamma]

I loved this article...best one I ever read on CBS. Thanks.

[michellem99-2009]

sevenveils, There are those who are blind in their mind. Yet they learn nothing tho their eyes work. Would you as a sighted lass/lad be able cope as a newly blind. I was born legally blind. I know you could not. If you choose to belittle me, yer Mum taught ye no manners. I care to share what you can only read in books and that is dumbed down. Yes America has changed and so has the young who stay in a make believe world. Who can''t see the truth if it stared them in the face. My dad raised his paw as other vets did so I could have my say in word and verse. I helpay for children''s public schooling as does others. What are they teaching today''s children and their parents when they went. This is the thanks. They used teach the basics,love of nation. I am a poor person as well.

[sevenveils]

If
you
bothered
to read
the
last
two
posts,
you
really
wasted
your
time

[michellem99-2009]

Today As A Grown Up
By Barbara Ann
It became a different world
and that of my childhood.
Went to the city.
It was learning
the life of a life long blind.
In the sticks it was so easy.
City not so.
I lived at a blind centre.
Learning new things.
Tapping about with my
white cane.
While being read to
By talking books.
Had to flip the
recording over.
I said it would be
nice if the book be
on one side.
They felt that was
a crazy idea.
Later in life
things changed.
For me the better.
Yes. I feared each one
as I could not understand it.
The microwave oven.
It made it so I could
heat a meal in safety.
The CD to listen to music.
The mobile phone so a friend
and I keep in touch.
Yet it is over used.
There are times I
wish for please switch it off.
A person on a lap top is cool.
That user is quiet,
Now with the mp3 player.
That is where they are in
their own world.
The daily greeting and
talking to each other seen
to be dying out.
The TV is different as well.
A good thing for me.
Now will change.
The computer once only
business use.
Now moved into the home.
It does help me in many ways.
A world I could not see in my
childhood.
Some good and bad.
The bad to many cars
today running senior roads.
The mass transit I must
use with a friend is best.
Walking is still good
for the body.
What was a dream
is here today.

[michellem99-2009]

Love the story..A walk thru childhood.
My childhood In The Sticks
By Barbara Ann
I remember the quiet as
We went about our day.
We greeted eash with Hi
and talked as well.
The TV was so simple
just 2 controls and
the rabbit ears.
It was not the centre
of our day.
The phone was Ma Bell.
One pnone.
We learnt to not yak
it was in use.
We had an AM/FM small radio.
The 45s and 33s records.
The cassette tape.
The car was so few.
We could walk and
and be the kids we were.
They grew food in the garden
then home canned for winder.
They made home made bread.
Every Sat night
Baked Beans that
were baked in the home.
Yes we are Maine hillbillies.
Wore hand me downs.
We were low tech.
We learnt hands on.
We talked about the
world of the adult.
We had pretty blue skies.
We cared then for each other.

[the_quietman]

Changing plugs is not necessary if you buy the right equipment. My set has multiple inputs and a "softswitch" on the remote that allows switching inputs to the receiver as well as how they are displayed (std screen, widescreen, cinema) and can be used as an SVGA computer monitor or display HGTV. I find it simpler to use than an old TV combo console (TV, Tape deck and multiplatter record player that required changing hardware for each media type). Yes tech did make things simpler IF you are willing to pay the price.

[siena1river]

thank you for an interesting article about technology and how it molds our behavior. a writer from another generation who might interest you who was well ahead of his time about how tv will mold all of us is marshal mcluhan (spelling) the book "the medium is the message" a brilliant piece. michael filipovich

[luvcomments]

Yep, we''ve come a long way from carbon paper, typewriter erasers, mimeograph machines and making photocopies by dunking the original in first one tray of liquid and then another, and those multiple columned calculating machines :) Technology has provided so much ease in our lives. Also a lot of headaches. I''ve always asked: "progress" towards what? Certainly not the old $11 phone bill, $14 cable bill, nor more peace of mind. In fact, back when the tv was for watching only a handful of channels at least there was something really worth watching. We have become willing and unthinking fodder for the money-making gristmill. And somebody''s laughing all the way to the bank because they have brainwashed us into actually believing we need all these modern toys - there''s absolutely nothing like Marketing; unbelievable what people will swallow. And do we know, for all these gadgets, where we are headed? Have all these gadgets improved our selves in any way?

Great piece, Larry Magid.

[rational_1]

Nice piece - I''ve thought about some of the same things. I guess I''m also a Luddite to some extent. I despise cell phones (especially when drivers use them) and have no interest in being ''available'' 24 hours a day. My wife has one in case her car breaks down or the kids get sick at school but otherwise we rarely use it. I prefer my Muvo MP3 player with it''s simple drag and drop file transfers to my wife''s iPod and it''s reliance on Apple''s proprietary software. I remember using Wordstar on an Apple II+ and it worked just fine without that irritating paperclip assistant found in Word (which I hate with a passion).

I think some people just hit an age where they just can''t be bothered learning the new devices/software. Bah humbug - better get back to churning my butter by hand!