15. You refuse to upgrade your Mac operating system because you are terrified it will have bugs and screw up your computer. You only do it when you find out important apps cannot run without the upgrade.
14. Your most sophisticated and used tech questions are: “Honey! Please call my phone” and “Is your internet down.”
13. You freak out when turning the power “Off” and “On” does not immediately solve your tech problem, and when your printer is not working, you hit it with your fist.
12. You can’t remember the new “easy-to-remember” password you were forced to create because you cannot remember your other 20 passwords.
11. When a ticket purchase website includes an obnoxious countdown timer, it feels like you’re in a tense action movie, and a bomb will go off if you do not complete the transaction before the timer hits 0000.
10. You long too much for your first Blackberry, a flip phone, or a landline.
9. You fear a ransomware attack more than an actual home invasion and are waiting for Netflix’s and other services password-sharing police to find you.
8. You spend too much time on social media, talking to Alexa and Siri, and when you go to dinner with friends, you have a rule to limit Google searches to fill in memory blanks in your conversation.
7. It is a horrible and expensive day when Apple announces it is changing all its power cord connector standards (i.e., USBC), making all the chargers and older connectors obsolete.
6. Speaking of obsolete equipment, you have boxes of old chargers, and you don’t know what they are for. Back in medieval times, I used to have this problem with keys.
5. Your home tech equipment has achieved special closet space status. It’s the home for your router, switch, and possibly a sound system and alarm equipment. I label the equipment due to my fading memory and have a yellow ribbon around the plug I must pull frequently when my Breezeline broadband service goes down.
4. When you call your adult children for help fixing a computer problem, they ghost you.
3. Finding excellent and reliable tech support is as essential to you as finding and keeping good childcare is for young parents. Remote tech support is excellent but I am always a little creeped out when they take control of my screen and fix problems in seconds I have labored over for hours.
2. You constantly fail the “I am not a Robot” test when asked to identify all the photos with a traffic light in the picture. You feel like an idiot.
1. When you were younger, you got excited about the introduction of new or upgraded tech devices (e.g., Walkman, iPod, iPhone, etc.) and raced to get one. Now, you just want everything to stay the same.
The indicators selected above were based on extensive research and do not depict me in any way. Yeah, Right! Please email me or comment with your indicator suggestions.
Hugh Panero, a tech & media entrepreneur was the founder & former CEO of XM Satellite Radio. He has worked with leading tech venture capital firms and was an adjunct media professor at George Washington University. He writes about Tech and Media for the Spy.
Tomlin says
absolutely correct!
Chris Whitney says
So, so, true!