I was born at the end of 1950—60 years ago. I remember our family getting our first little television set. We children no longer needed to go to the neighbor’s house every day for the excitement of watching the evening news in black and white. I grew up in the days when one had to walk clear across the living room to change the channel, of which there were maybe two or three.

I have in my possession a 1949 set of The Book of Knowledge encyclopedias, just like the ones I loved to look through as a child. Now I see a picture with the caption: “All the instruments in this room are part of a single electronics machine which can make the most difficult calculations with lightning speed. It is called the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer—ENIAC for short. In its 18,000 vacuum tubes and several miles of wire, nothing moves except electrons.” The picture showed a monstrous piece of equipment, filling the entire space of a large room. Now computer capabilities are found in teeny tiny gadgets that fit in the palm of one’s hand.

Through college and as a secretary and a writer, I thought that the IBM Selectric typewriter was the ultimate in office machines. Later, I remember hearing in near disbelief that the trusty typewriter was being replaced by a “computer,” its best feature being that one could add, delete, and move type on a screen before printing a “hard copy.” Magical. That was enough for me.

The trickle of new technology gradually became a flood, and even more quickly, it seems to me, a tsunami. But I was left high and dry. Technological advances happen with such dizzying speed that I feel totally disoriented. It took radio 38 years to reach an audience of 50 million, and TV only 13 years. The Internet attained that many users in just five years. And both the iPod and YouTube—one year!

The technological blitz is not slowing down. Clear back in 2006, 183 billion e-mails were sent worldwide each day. That’s two million per second. By November of 2007, an estimated 3.3 billion Earthlings owned cell phones. In 2004, half a trillion text messages were sent. Think how many there must be now!

In an unsolicited e-mail came a list of “25 Things about to Become Extinct.” The list included things like dial-up Internet access, phone land lines, VCRs, answering machines, cameras that use film, analog TVs, and hand-written letters. 

Just yesterday I sat in a congregation and listened as L.Tom Perry mentioned keeping up with today’s technology. He told of how, in just a short period of time, he had gone from a PalmPilot to a Blackberry to an iPhone and now an iPad. “That’s hard on an old man, nearly 90!” he said. Then he added, “I’ve lost my memory, but I have it all here, in my iPad.”

My husband and I held off as long as we could. We resisted getting the Internet until we were told that our children absolutely, positively, could not make it through high school without Internet access in our home. And so we had succumbed. Our home and our family life were invaded, because Internet for educational purposes and e-mail led to YouTube and Facebook and other isolating and time-squandering amusements. With a feeling of helplessness and dismay, I observe this high-speed, nonstop entertainment so readily available today.

These newfangled technological inventions and their accompanying jargon have turned my vocabulary on its ear. I thought a “hard drive” meant a difficult road trip—or maybe a solid golf swing. Spam was canned meat. Blackberry was my favorite pie (with vanilla ice cream, of course). And CDs were Certificates of Deposit.

I remember when virus and plasma were medical terms, when web sites were in the corners of Windows, and having a mouse in the house was not something to be proud of.

I do, however, know what a laptop is. Obviously, it’s supposed to fit on your lap. I have a cartoon of a little boy standing at his father’s knee, saying, “I liked it better when it was just me on your lap top.”

Another cartoon shows a little girl sitting on her father’s lap as he works at his desktop computer. She is saying, “In kindergarten we’re learning to cut and paste without even using a computer.”

Call me behind the times or whatever you want, but I will cling to what I know. Like VCRs. I read somewhere, “For the better part of three decades, the VCR was a best-seller and staple in every American household until being completely decimated by the DVD, and now the Digital Video Recorder (DVR). Videos are largely gone and VHS decks are practically nowhere to be found. They served us so well.” Ha! Foreseeing their demise, I purchased an extra VCR to have on hand—to play our two video cabinets and one chest of drawers full of videos, many purchased for 50 cents each at the thrift store. I am prepared.

I could handle the simple terms like TV, CD, VCR, and even DVD. But I have no idea what LCD, and HDMI, or DLP mean. And what’s this about Blu-ray? Read this outrageous description from the store ad that came today for a Blu-ray player: “Features Ethernet, USB, WiFi ready, instant Netflix and Pandora streaming, BD-Live, DTS-HD, and Dolby True HD.” Yikes! If I knew what it was talking about, I’m sure I should want one.

My husband still has to set things up and seat me at the computer so I can reply to e-mails that may have magically shown up addressed to me. Yesterday a gentleman heard me refer to myself as a “technological moron.” He suggested that I was a “luddite—someone who resists technology.” But just now I looked up the word in my treasured, unabridged dictionary, published in 1973 and purchased for $1 at a yard sale. “Luddite: a member of any of various bands of workmen in England (1811-16) organized to destroy manufacturing machinery, under the belief that its use diminished employment.” Could that be me?

Call me old-fashioned and out-of-step, but I’ll just happily keep going on with my life—with my hand-written letters and reading my real books with pages you can turn, and watching our old videos—providing there’s someone in the house who can get them going for me.