Being old has its perks

 There are times when I'm glad I'm as old as I am and raised my children in the era before mobile phones, let alone smart phones and social media. Internet technology and communications has changed our lives in extraordinary, unimaginable ways since I made my first phonecall at the age of seven on my parents' one black rotary phone, that sat in the kitchen attached to a long, easily tangled cord. And since I used a slide rule to make calculations and my mother's old typewriter with its two-coloured ribbon to type the most important university papers.

I thought I'd been adapting and keeping up with the times quite well for a pre-IT dinosaur; I managed to analyze my PhD research data using an interactive statistical program (albeit on the university's computer, not my own PC), I have grown to love writing on the computer, although I still write first drafts long-hand, and I tolerate spellcheck, but not grammar check (which doesn't understand fiction writing). In 2009, when social media became a force, I joined Facebook and later Twitter (since deleted) and Instagram, recognizing their value for keeping up with friends and connecting with readers and book lovers. I created a website which I can update myself, I joined this blog. When the pandemic hit, I learned about the new frontiers of video chats, which vastly opened up our world to places and people far away. During this time, I launched two books using Zoom and still use it for the occasional remote book event. I've even learned to give Powerpoint slideshows over Zoom, which is much easier than trying to show them to a live audience.

But although the Internet and social media have enriched my life, they are not my primary contact with the world. I still love being out in nature, getting together with friends, and connecting with readers and other writers in person. I shop online for some things but still prefer to see and touch potential purchases in person. I still like to roam through stores. 

For some, though, especially the younger generation (anyone under 35, LOL), there has never been a world with screens and digital connections. My own children did not have cellphones, nor did any of their friends. There was no such thing as social media. In their vulnerable teen years, there were rudimentary chat forums as well as email and video games that allowed them to interact online, but because this was limited to a desktop computer (a single computer for all of us, only later did they get their own), the digital world did not follow them around and invade every moment of their lives. No online bullying or unwanted photo sharing, no instant group communications of the latest parties or transgressions. Bullying and social exclusion have always been with us, especially in the pre-teen to early teen years, but social media has amplified it to horrifying heights. Even adults can be destroyed by a negative post gone viral. 

This destructive force is bad enough but our over-reliance on the digital world has even worse consequences. The brain is growing and changing constantly over the first twenty years of life and needs the right stimulation at critical times for optimal development. I remember worrying , as a psychologist, about the effects on young brains of researching material using website-hopping and cut-and-paste answers. I feared young people would not develop the concentration and in-depth analytical thinking needed to see the big picture and synthesize ideas abstractly. And in the younger, developing brain, the loss of creative, unstructured play and hand-on exploration, of sustained attention, and managing time, frustration, and challenge can never be recovered.

I could go on and on, but that's not the purpose of this blog. I started off by saying I was glad I'm as old as I am. My children avoided the pitfalls of modern technology, although I worry about my grandchildren, aged 4 and 5. I have mostly learned to use technology as a tool and an assistive device, but also know how to do many things the old-fashioned way. I am glad that that I've managed to write twenty books without using ChatGPT and will not be one of the millions of hopeful writers trying to be noticed over the flood of fake writing. I think Thomas's point that AI produced a mediocre novel at best and mediocre marks on law exams is heartening, suggesting the power of a truly brilliant mind will still shine through, but it may be only a matter of time before the AI programmers figure that out too. By that time, with any luck I will be beyond the need of lawyers, or intelligence of any sort. 

Your hologram awaits

"I'm getting too old for this s**t," I muttered to the dogs recently. I'd been trying to wrestle Instagram to the ground so that I could post about an upcoming book signing. My millennial daughter had snatched the phone from my hand and flipped through my Instagram account with horror. Where are your stories? she asked. You have no hashtags. With this post you should include #barbarafradkin, #inspectorgreen ("Look, Inspector Green has his own hashtag already!"), and #Torontobooklaunch. People will find you with those hashtags.

She unearthed details from my Instagram presence that I didn't even know existed. There were likes and messages and reposts that I'd been blissfully ignorant of. Who knew what all those little icons meant? Facebook is all very well, my daughter said, but that only works for people who are already your friends. Instagram is where new readers discover you, where you build your audience. She started in on TikTok, but I drew the line. Because she'd set it up, I've had an Instagram account for a couple of years and Twitter even longer, but I could never see much point in either. There obviously is a point, but it feels like navigating a brazen new cityscape with speeding traffic, flashing lights, indecipherable signs, one-way streets, and a pace so hectic that I just feel like parking the car and walking. 

Perhaps that's when I decided I was getting too old for this s... Or it may have been a couple of weeks earlier, when I had a birthday after which my last quarter-century looms around the corner. I thought I'd been keeping up pretty well. After all, I had lots of friends on Facebook, I HAD a Twitter and Instagram account, although I had no idea what the use was. Sometimes I'd get a notification that so-and-so whom I'd never heard of was now following me, and my gut reaction was "Why? I'm not going anywhere." I had set up and successfully pulled off two virtual book launches using Eventbrite and Zoom Webinar. 

Not bad for someone who grew up with rotary phones and radio plays! I got this! 

But then Mark Zuckerberg's smiling face came on my TV last week to promote his brand new reimagining of social media. So long Facebook, say hello to the future: the Metaverse. With dizzying speed he talked us through the holograms, the virtual, holographic workplaces that you navigate wearing special googles, teleporting. The possibilities for human interaction are endless. What, real people? Oh, no need.

It did cross my mind as I watched "I wonder what plans he has for sex."

I suspect that as all these tech changes accelerate, there will be a whole generation of us left in the dust. You may find us weeping in fury over our three TV remotes, or possibly walking arm in arm down a country lane somewhere, talking about the good old days. Or something.

Writing in the Present and the Past

Rick's post on Tuesday about the digital age and new technology struck a chord with me. I agree that as writers of crime fiction, we end up looking fairly stupid -- or making our characters look that way -- if we don't know about and make use of current technology in our books. I have tried a twist in my two Hannah McCabe books. They are set in the near-future, but in an Albany, New York that exists in an alternate universe. The characters communicate with an all-purpose device called an ORB. I've incorporated some other real-life technology already available but not yet widely used.

On the other hand, my Lizzie Stuart series is set in the recent past. The challenge there is to remind readers that Lizzie is in 2004 right now. Only problem, my memory of early 2000 is becoming a bit blurry. I haven't written a book in the series in several years. When I return to it with the next book, I'm going to have to do some research -- read some newspapers, look at some ads, get back into the technology of 12 years ago.

I thought it would be easier to write a historical thriller set in 1939. Even with the future looming and on display at the World's Fair, no one was able to pick up a smartphone and find information.  But I do need to know what  technology was available. That's a fairly easy question to answer regarding the FBI and large city police departments. But I must dig deeper to know how readily a small town police chief in Georgia would have been able to obtain information about a suspect or verify someone's identity.

And there are other questions I need to answer about 1939. Recently, I came across a collection of letters online. Letters to a young woman who was in her first year of college. Most are from her mother, with an occasional letter from her father, a minister. The letters are fascinating because the parents are keeping their daughter informed about what is happening at home. What has struck me is how often someone is ill that winter. The mother has a toe that has become infected and she is at home with her foot up in the early letters, waiting for the toe to drain and the hole to close over. She later comes down with a horrible cold, as do several other people she mentions. One of those people is a radio personality. A family in the town suffers a double tragedy when a young man attending the funeral of his sister, fails to dress properly for the wet, chilly weather, catches pneumonia, and dies soon after. All of this illness has reminded me that I need to know more about the state of medicine in the 1930s. I had this on my radar as a concern for the people struggling to survive the Great Depression, but even in this middle-class, well-educated family and among their neighbors, the danger of an early demise seems to loom over their heads. So research on the state of medicine in the 1930s is in order.

But right now, I am waiting to receive my new computer. I have turned over my old equipment to my computer guy and he is transferring everything over. I'm going to keep my outdated desk top to use for writing when I don't want to be distracted. The new laptop will have all of the most recent bells and whistles, including touch screen. It should be interesting to see how long it takes me to adapt