E-Mail Or Road To Hell? Technology Is Fine, But We All Need A Time And Place That’s Ours, And Ours Alone

The technology explosion has allowed us to keep in closer, faster touch with one another. Is this deepening our bonds with fellow human beings or destroying our privacy and leisure time? Two Spokesman-Review writers share their very different views.

Technology is a tool, and tools are supposed to make life easier. So why is technology so stressful?

One reason: You can’t escape it.

A friend just returned from a week of rock climbing in a remote Utah wilderness area. It wasn’t remote enough, however.

One of his climbing partners carried a cellular phone, and called his office for messages several times a day. He also called home every evening to say good night to his wife and kids.

Cell phones are popular with mountain climbers, too. Not only can you call from the summit to brag (“Yo Mom! You’ll never guess where I’m calling from!”) but you can call for help, too.

But even the capability of technology as an emergency tool is getting out of hand.

Earlier this spring, a group of experienced climbers were stranded in a snowstorm for three days on Mount Hood. When the storm relented and they hiked out, they were scolded publicly for not carrying a cell phone or locater beacon.

Excuse me, but I deal with computers, cell phones and faxes every day. The wilderness is the only place to get away from it all.

Technology also is stressful because it speeds up the pace of life.

Corporate executives are gleeful about ever-more-powerful computers increasing worker productivity. Often, though, what that means for the workers is the treadmill just goes faster and faster.

Stress, lots of stress.

The solution? Go home, pop open a cold one, sit in front of an IBM-compatible PC-clone megawatt hard-drive and allow your brain synapses to be fried to a crisp while you surf the Internet.

Hobbies are supposed to relieve stress. I don’t find computers to be particularly soothing.

And if technology is such a wonderful, time-saving tool, how come we seem to have less time for leisure?

After attending my first computer class for boneheads, I think I know why. It takes a lot of time, energy and skill to avoid being road-kill on the infobahn.

A book touted as an “introduction” to Word for Windows is 111 pages long.

All of this worries me because I’m now shopping for my first home computer.

What worries me even more is that I might actually like using it.

Will I spend all winter playing computer golf and sending goofy messages to my brothers and sisters in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Tucson?

Will I spend the month of March doing my own taxes because it’s so much fun?

Will my eyes evolve into dark, oversized orbs as I sit in my basement staring into a computer monitor?

Please excuse me. I think I need to go for a walk. , DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Staff illustration by A. Heitner

MEMO: See the accompanying story by Julie Titone under the headline: E-Mail or Road to Hell?/ Computers allow us to keep in touch even when we have no way to touch