Keeping up with the technos

I belong to the Blackberry generation. Not really. I belong to the pen and ink generation. I was brought up to write handwritten thank you notes, not send an email. My parents’ notion of consumerism was expressed by my great grandmother ‘s dictum “We can only afford the best” – her thinking, as passed to my mother, was to buy quality goods on the basis they lasted for ever.  She had the practice and usage of special crockery and silver service “for best”. Thus it’s difficult for me to understand modern technology when things rapidly go out of date and no more so than mobile phones. Having mastered my Blackberry and then an iPad.  I thought “That’s me set for the rest of my days”. However, the Blackberry began to operate erratically and it became apparent that it needed replacement.

So I went to the big Vodafone store in Oxford Street and upgraded to the latest smart phone the iPhone 4. I heard a business affairs broadcaster talking about the invasiveness of mobile  phones on other industries. The latest have advanced medical instruments and more pixels that the average camera. I probably won’t use more than 10% of its functions. It’s probably already out of date by the time I left the store.

One aspect of the experience pleased me. The young assistant could not have been more helpful. She carefully took me through the functions and transferred the contact list and photos to the new phone. She was so friendly and approachable that I was almost tempted to invite her to my club for supper.