For young people, technology is their best friend, but for older people, it can be their worst enemy.
For young people, technology is their best friend, but for older people, it can be their worst enemy.
ONLY a few decades ago, my parents were driving cars that had no power steering, no power windows and no central locking. Today, cars come fully equipped with a gazillion features, which have become the norm. Keyless entry, pushbutton start/stop, automatic headlights, headup display, ventilated seats, blindspot monitoring, lane departure warning… the list goes on. Built-in satellite navigation systems have replaced dogeared copies of Singapore street directories, providing visual and audio directions that guide us to our destinations eff ortlessly. Bluetooth connectivity provides a seamless interface between our cars and smartphones.
However, the thing with technology is that it doesn’t matter how advanced it is. The extent to which technology benefits us hinges on how well we’re able to integrate those gadgets into our lives. Take the keyless entry system, for example. After all these years, I still cannot kick the habit of retrieving the car key from my handbag and pressing the unlock button on the key fob. And I doubt I can ever trust the car to auto-lock when I walk away from it. So, brilliant and useful these high-tech features may be, they do not benefit me as they should.
For the younger generation, though, clever technology is not something they have to learn – it is already in their DNA. Not only does my daughter take the LCD displays in cars for granted, she assumes every one of them is a touchscreen and instinctively reaches out to swipe them with her fingers. When I have diffi culty finding my way sometimes, she will suggest that I “ask the auntie”, with “auntie” referring to the navigation voice prompts.
Lynn knows that technological advancement won’t slow down, so she finds her own comfort spoke within the unstoppable wheel of progress.
