I’m embarrassed to admit, I still have to type out my texts and emails while the cool kids merely whisper commands into theirs. The developmental rate of digital devices has reached warp speed. It seems each week a more intuitive personal electronic device is presented to the public. It’s exciting in one way but frustrating in another. Just recently, I purchased a smart phone only to discover that it and its new owner had become dumber over night. Apparently my phone’s IQ dropped by several hundred dollars when the manufacturer released a new and improved version the day after my acquisition. In the school of digital devices I was ushered from the gifted class down the hall to remedial texting.
I remember the bright, sunny day I walked out of that telecommunication store caressing my brand new smart phone. I was in awe of its incredible features, its user-friendly intelligence. But on the dark morning when the new and improved replacement was released, I lost respect for my new smart phone. It was yesterday’s technology.
I’m beginning to make a strange but logical connection between our newly developed disdain for old technology and our ever-increasing tendency to discount the importance of anything that isn’t “brand new.” The exponential curve of new technological improvements has created an immediate devaluation of existing technology—and this is affecting how we view people as well.
It used to be a given that an item was held in high esteem when it had proven itself effective and durable. We valued established things and established people… we looked up to them and worked to be near them. Age and experience once equaled dependability and wisdom, earned only through time and effort.
When I was a kid, Dad would have never have purchased the newest model of anything. He warned us, “Let someone else be the research and development department, the newest model always has problems built in. It’ll take several years for them to iron out the kinks.” And for the most part he was right (read that “wise”).
Today, that just isn’t true. The majority of the electronic devices manufactured now are astonishingly dependable and incredibly innovative. But it wasn’t always that way.
The problem attached to our newfound respect for the latest and greatest gadgets is, in my opinion, that we unwittingly discount older people as obsolete just as we do older technology.
Generally speaking, up until a hundred years ago, American children were raised up by their elders to carry on the heritage of that family’s skills. Farm kids farmed and merchant kids became the next generation of merchants. Mom, Dad, Grandpa and Grandma, having been trained by their ancestors in the family trade, passed their expertise onto the next generation. . This linage resulted in each younger generation holding the older generations in very high regard. Older equaled wiser. Seniors were esteemed as the key-holders of wisdom and knowledge.
It’s easy to understand how an aging generation might be mystified by today’s new technologies. I want to encourage us all to not dismiss our elders but to honor and esteem our elders. It’s significant that of the Ten Commandments, there’s only one with a promise attached.
“Honor your father and mother. Then you will live a long time in the land the LORD your God is giving you.” Exodus 20:12
I’m purposing to not make the same mistake with yesterday’s heroes as I make with yesterday’s phone.
Read Ron’s column, Simple Faith, each Saturday on the Faith Page (page 3) of the Lancaster Eagle Gazette, or visit www.lancastereaglegazette.com.