Dear Google, Yahoo, Facebook & OutLook.Com: Your War for My Email is Driving Me CRAZY!

I am what you would call techno-resistant. I accept that I live in an age when technology is literally exploding with new advances aimed, or so they say, to make my life run easier. However it feels more like a continual vomiting of complicated changes to devices and, frankly, areas of my life that were working pretty well, thank you very much. All of these intrusions have forced me to change the way I organize my life and time and I am getting annoyed.

Will this madness ever end or will I eventually develop the new neural pathways that don't make all these intrusions feel like a pain in my ass?

I have been cruising along quite nicely with one email for Facebook notices, registering for things, getting email subscriptions etc, another for family and friends, another for business and my newest one for my blog.
But have you noticed everyone once you to make their place your one site to do everything? I liked the old format for yahoo, Outlook wants to profile me, Facebook wants to know every minute detail of my life, and Google just confuses the hell out of me. I am in "circles" and I have no idea how I got there or how to invite someone into a "circle". I have to take a tutorial just to figure out what is going on from one site to the next.

On-line Relationships

I am a generally private person. I don''t want to have to work this hard to communicate with for the most part...strangers.  Am I no longer allowed to ease into knowing someone before I call them a "friend" on-line? I believe they are trying to overwhelm you with so much stuff you will: 

1. only do this for one site and phase out the other from sheer exhaustion
2. You will be so confused you will give out more information for them to sell to advertisers than commonsense would ever allow you to do in your right state of mind.

Am I exaggerating? I don't think so. We are stuck in a race to own your personal information.

New Gadget Mania

You know "Skype" has arrived when my 86 year old mother is about to get her first computer so she can see her sister in Guyana and chat. This technology makes sense to me as a great convenience. I have held out for the simple fact I want to be able to sit at my computer and not worry if I look presentable or must I clean up my room in case I get a skype call. Uggh. Not appealing.

Now if I am honest, I would be able to manage if this technology war was just about my computer. Unfortunately, you are just not hip if you don't "Tweet". No thank you. I draw the line at Twitter. I am avoiding Twitter as long as possible. 

I-pods are great but I-Pads? Really? A laptop was just too inconvenient? Ipads may be the wave of the future but I will stay in my computer life raft until I am FORCED to adapt. And I do mean FORCED as is the case with my cellphone.

Texting Nightmares

I do not enjoy the phone in general. The idea of a cellphone completely annoys me. I enjoyed the days when you could not reach me on my cellphone that I am now "required" to take with me everywhere at all times. In case my friends want to text me some stupid comment about a subject I could care less about as I try to live my own life.

The fact that so many people have died needlessly that we have to have campaigns to tell folks not to text/talk and drive, boggles my mind! You are driving tons of steel and turning it into a killing machine because your life is so important you can't stop talking and drive safely? I don't care who is calling me I know that "multi-tasking" is a myth and I also know I will not do well in prison so I will not be making any trips to that hellhole because of a damn text.


Data Plan My Way To The Poorhouse

I have for years gotten by with a regular cell phone. Now, as I coach actors for auditions, it seems too difficult to get actors to text or god forbid call to schedule an appointment. Usually this was never a problem. However, it would seem that checking and responding to emails on one's I- Phone is so popular, actors can't differentiate between sending me a text and sending me an email. So I have lost a few coaching gigs because they sent me an email from their cell instead of sending me a text. Who checks email 24 hours a day? I must enter the I-Phone Universe or continue to be behind the business curve as more and more Entertainment Industry professionals adapt this technology into their work lives. My already stretched budget must make room for the nightmarish cost of data plans which I have so cleverly avoided until my professional back is up against the wall. What's next? Mandatory wi-fi so hackers can rob me of whatever personal info my email service providers have not already sold?

I have until May 18th until my old cell plan expires and I take the "red" pill, entering the I-Phone Matrix never to return the same techno-resistant state I love and adore. 

I know I know. Stop ya bitchin' and move on.  These days you either get on board the technology train or it will run you over because the conductor will be too busy texting or tweeting  to care.