A love/hate relationship

It’s official. My phone and I are now frenemies.

For those who don’t already know, a  frenemy is “an enemy disguised as a friend.” In my opinion, my phone, laptop, TV, car, etc. should all be my friends — basically anything that requires a power outlet or a battery. All of these modern conveniences should be around to help us out, like a friend. So why is it they always seem to be a great source of irritation?!

Frenemies. On the outside, my phone masquerades as a useful communication tool. Meanwhile, my laptop acts as the world’s fastest librarian, my TV provides an endless source of entertainment and my car takes me anywhere I want to go (within reason). How could one possibly complain about any of these luxuries? If this were Twitter, this paragraph would end #firstworldproblems.But alas, this is my online stream of consciousness, and right now my conclusion that technology is the frenemy provided to us all by evil geniuses. It’s the friend we give all our money and the enemy who slowly drives us insane.

So how does technology have this power over us? Put simply — we let it. In this day and age, we’ve come to rely on these things that our ancestors would see as the result of aliens or mad sorcerers, the work of the devil. I’m starting to get on board with that idea, and seeing as E.T. and Harry Potter certainly didn’t magically create Best Buy, I’m going with Satan. Phones drop calls, laptops get viruses, TVs are never big enough or hi-def enough and don’t even get me started on how quickly the newest gadgets in our cars become obsolete. We pour money into these things because we envy those who have the newer, faster, sleeker models only to watch them fail or become as outdated as poodle skirts and bell bottoms.

Right now, my phone is on the top of that foully named list we all keep in our heads. I recently discovered I’m not receiving various calls and quite a few text messages. My phone, that I love to hate so much, is not only causing me to miss who knows what but making my real friends think I’m ignoring them. In the words of Stephanie Tanner, “How rude!” What else have I missed? Family emergencies? Job opportunities? I don’t even want to know how far this problem could extend…

With all these thoughts going through my head, you’d think I’d want to boycott anything with an on switch and curse Ben Franklin and his stupid kite for discovering electricity. But no. This is where the evil geniuses really get you. That reliance we have turns us into addicts looking for our next fix. I’d be lost without all these wonderful/awful inventions, quite literally without my GPS (even if it never seems to actually know where I’m at … ughh).

I’m probably not saying anything anyone hasn’t already thought at one point or another, but this blog is just another example of my point. The beauty of WordPress is I can vent to the world, and the downfall is the time you likely think you wasted having gotten this far in this post.

So here is my admission: My name’s Hillary, and it’s been zero seconds since I last used technology. I’m an addict, posting my rant from my years-old laptop with a broken Blu-ray player and cluster of dead screen cells. But the sad truth is so are you if you’re reading this. You’re in the same boat as me whether you’re on your phone, laptop, desktop, tablet or even viewing this on your TV because you got an AppleTV and synced your screen. Speaking of, I want one of those so much! The torturous cycle continues…