technology? ~ do you rely on Siri or Echo or any of the other electronic "helpers"? ~ has your cell phone become an official body part? ~ wired or wireless computer connection? ~ etc etc etc

Sooz

iPhone not a part of my body and used rarely. FaceTime with family, texting hubby, rare phone calls. That's it. So I have my cable internet (VERY dependent on that!) and WiFi for the phone, and hubby's tablet.

Nothing else. Anything else would just confuse me, LOL!

We could do without the e-gadgets quite easily.

Some will definitely think of me as a "throwback" to another time ~ my only real dependency is on my computer connection ~ living in a highrise, I am hard-wired [not wireless] because I believe it's safer in this kind of environment, but my building has wireless in the public areas so it's easy to keep my Kindle charged and to wirelessly download books ~ I do not use or have any interest in any of the electronic "helpers" ~ I prefer my landline phone but do have a cell phone ... only a handful of people have that number since I rarely use it and it is often not even charged ~

Sooz

Only thing we have is a PC. That's it.

I'm connected. Two iphones, tablet, kindle laptops social media accounts. I use my iphone alarms to remember things, I write my grocery lists in iphone notes, i write the names of people I've met and want to remember in notes, I wear a fitbit and upload it to my phone and listen to radio over my phone apps through wireless bluetooth speakers and headphones. I use nike run for my running. I was at the mall yesterday and decided it was much easier to go home and order everything online. My Thanksgiving turkey was ordered on Amazon and delivered by Whole Foods. I uber. I have news and weather at my fingertips. I find photos of my kid doing things she loves and capture them with screenshots. I navigate with Google maps, find parking in the city and prepay with a discount on my paring apps.I use google maps to find restaurants, bars, stores, and events nearby wherever I am. I buy tickets for shows and movies on my phone on my way to the theater. I have an app that keeps track of all my travel arrangements- flights, hotels, busses. We rented a hotspot to bring with us so we would have internet everywhere we went in Spain and Morocco and used it to find things and navigate around.
Edit: I forgot to tell you I use wireless and cellular data but I'm plugged in at work. I have bluetooth phone in my car so I can ask Siri to find things or respond to texts hand free when I'm driving. She misunderstands me at times and sends some pretty funny texts. I text my husband and daughter multiple times daily.

For Christmas, I asked Santa for Amazon Echo.

All I can say in response to queenie's above post is YIKES! ~ you're a tech geek's dream! ~ ~ have you ever lost a phone with all that info on it?

Sooz

I don't know if i qualify as low or high tech.

I certainly wasn't high tech for a long time. I got my first cell phone five years ago, I was a low tech teacher who spent too much time at the photocopier for a long time.

But I'm someone who has historically struggled with organization. And there are so many organizational apps out there now. I'm currently geeking out over evernote, and I've got all my university coursework on there--class notes, research, images, presentations, slideshows. And it's a cloud based program, so I keep everything even when my current machine breaks down (and laptops are starting to feel disposable these days).

I'm actually taking two university courses, full credit, completely online at the moment. I've heard speculation that most undergrad studies will be online in five years. The tech is just too good and the savings are extremely tempting for the schools. You can collaborate, present, watch lectures, take notes, do research, all from hundreds of miles away.

Actually, one of the courses I'm taking will qualify me to teach online courses. It's an exciting new field. You can do things on line that you can't in real life--the tech has gotten really flexible and enabling. It's more than just a tool now. There's meeting software you can use to run traditional real time lessons, that include breakout rooms for small group collaboration and ways for students to interact with the teacher. There is virtual whiteboard technology to use to demonstrate concepts, and screensharing. There are tonnes of great collaborating apps out there.

So i don't know. maybe i'm enabling my inner tech geek.

I have not, but my daughter has had two stolen and being young, she is even more connected than me. Luckily with iPhone, you can erase your phone remotely but keep everything that is backed up in your iCloud account so the most lost was a few photos that weren’t backed up . I was even able to track one of her stolen phones to people in Quebec who bought it a year later. But I never got it back.

I am low tech. I keep my cell nearby, but truth to tell only activity I really do on it is texts between a few friends here and there, and one I talk by text to every day, and keeping in close touch with my son is a nice plus to this technology. The computer and the internet on the other hand I do rely on every day. Six days without it during the storm made me realize how much I did reply on it, and wondered what I did without it. Of course when I worked I was only on in the evenings, now I am on and off during the day - mornings mostly, reading papers, and googling whenever need be.

I used to be high tech. Now I'm low tech.

I was the first kid (well, 33 year old kid) on the block to get a home computer; a Texas instruments job with 4k (yes 4 k) memory and a cassette tape storage device. Later on I was the "computer guy" where I worked, and the first one to build my own word processor (based around an Atari). I taught most of my work colleagues how to use a Mac, and wrested with DOS, and the Amiga version as well, in my spare time.

Now I don't even have a cell phone, just this ancient computer, and have reverted to fixing small internal combustion engines and bicycles, gardening and woodwork, as hobbies.

Great thread. I'm posting from an internet café in the Istanbul Airport (didn't take my phone or computer with me). I love my computer for Word and Excel, playing on the internet and e-mail. Otherwise I'm clueless especially if something goes wrong. Fortunately I have a number of "under thirty" nieces and nephews around who can rid me out of most of my computer and phone problems. (Like why the e-mail address and password I've had for twenty years is now telling me my e-mail address or password is incorrect.)

My phone is some number of I-Phone. I seem to be the last person on the planet that actually uses it as a phone. (Makes you wonder why Graham Bell even bothered inventioning.) Everyone else texts so I have become moderately adept at using "What's Ap" although I still don't know how to send pictures or anything else except add the occasional emoticon. I also take the occasional picture but don't know how to take them off the phone other than just deleting them.

This past week was a good test of my addiction to the phone and computer. I was actually worried about it - especially the computer - because of the amount of time I was spending on it. I honestly never missed either at all. I did have my Kobo and an bunch of books with me. At one point I tried to check my e-mails and got the "not going to tell you" notice. I even looked in here for a few seconds and then realized I was doing what I promised not to do and shut down the internet funtion. Instead, I read books, took a tour, went on some walks and did some girl watching on the beach. (I'm getting old, not dead. Still like reading the menu.) Turned the tv on one night and then ignored it for an hour and read before turning it off again.

I'm kind of a techno freak.
I just moved to a new place and disconnected all my gadgets like Echo, Wink and even my good ole PC. Typing this on a friggin laptop which doesn't even have backlit keys.
Not sure when I get to set up Alexa to turn on and off my lights and my wifi enabled A/C or my wifi touchpad deadbolt.
But I certainly miss all that stuff.

Just a temporary solution...