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Techno-delights: neither my old phone nor the new one is working

One afternoon last week, I decided to take a short nap, so, I set the alarm of my cell phone at a certain time. Precisely at that time, the alarm went off, waking me up. I did the obvious thing: I pushed the proper button in my phone to silence the alarm, but nothing happened. The annoying alarm kept ringing and ringing. It seems that during my nap, the keyboard of my old phone died.

I pushed every single key and nothing happened. Finally, I took the battery out of the phone, followed the steps to reset the phone to correct the problem, and reinstalled the battery. The alarm went off again.

I was looking for a big hammer to solve the issue when my wife suggested that a better option would be to buy a new phone. She was right. My old phone was so old that have an external keyboard and it was useful mostly to place and receive calls and not much else.

I went to the store and bought a new phone. I was fully aware technology snared me, but I could not find a way out of the dilemma. My only goal in buying a new phone was to be able to talk on the phone. After the battery of the new phone was charged and the phone turned on, I discover a screen with so many colors and animations that I felt a little dizzy.

The new phone is incredible. You can do many things, except, of course, talk on the phone. To place a call, the phone company needs to have my home address, just in case I need to call 911, but it seems they did not have the right address. I tried to solve the issue using the web site of the phone company and calling them (from a different phone), but I was unsuccessful.

It is quite a paradox to have in my hand a device that allows me to check the weather in Beijing, to find stars and constellations, to listen to radio stations from Argentina, and many more things, except placing and receiving calls.

Two days later, after four calls and after a couple of visits on to the store where I bought the device, I was able to register my new phone, update the information, and finally use my phone as a phone. Now I just need to learn what icons to push and what movement to make to place o make a call.

The experience of having two phones, the old one and the new one, and not being able to use either of them, was frustrating. At the same time, it is also frustrating to see how pre-planned technological obsolescence forces us to accept new technologies, even if we do not want to.

I wonder if other technologies, more controversial than just a simple Smartphone, will also be imposed on us. Perhaps in the near future we could be replaced by quantum computers after all.

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