Mastering the Digital Age

A 1973 graduate of the University of Mississippi Law School, Bill currently practices with Luckett Tyner Law Firm, P.A. which has offices in Clarksdale and Sumner, Mississippi.  His major practice areas are civil litigation and entertainment law.  He was an officer in the Mississippi National Guard and was a candidate for Governor of Mississippi in 2011.
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Okay, I am the first to admit it.  I was born in the wrong generation to have the built-in brainwave-digital connections.  Just look at a four-year old working an iPhone!   Every time I try to perform an above basic level function on my smartphone or on my computer and I get frustrated, I remind myself that I am a dean’s list graduate from the University of Virginia and have a law degree, not to mention that I was in the Beta Club in high school!
But these technology devices are challenging.  I have overcome the challenge partially.  I can actually search through Google on my phone and on my computers.  I can send text messages.  I can conduct multi-calls, etc.  There are still many techniques I have yet to master, and doubt if I will ever learn how to cut and paste or other routine functions for the under 40 age group.
But nightmares!  Whoever would have thought I would be having nightmares about losing my cell phone or having it fall apart in my hands.  However, they are becoming a rather recurrent theme in my nocturnal activity.  Several mornings in the last few months, I have awakened from such an experience only to realize “it was just a dream.”
How have we become so attached to these modern marvels?  On the good side, I do find that they are highly useful, even simple things like remembering a spouse’s name or an occupation, or to answer a question on where or how did we meet – I am putting it in my “contacts” in my phone.  Why I even know how many children some people have and what their names are.
A friend of mine from South Carolina just posted a blog about her experience in the Chicago airport.  She lost her phone, but was very fortunate to have found it on a ticket agent’s counter.  It sent her into the depths of depression while she frantically searched for it.
I am still trying to size up and decide whether all of this technology is ultimately a good thing or not.