"OK, I'm ready," I say, nervous, with pen and paper in hand.
I am sitting on the family room couch in a cold sweat preparing to take notes on a situation that may well change the rest of my life. The question that has plagued mankind for years is about to be answered.
"Which one of these here remotes works the TV, dagnabbit?"
In my dad's eternal quest to get a working and fully integrated digital home entertainment system, he installed yet another component to "simplify" it and bring our humble home even further into the digital age.
The "digital divide" is a term used to describe the difference in technological abilities and advancement between developed and developing regions of the world. I would say a similar knowledge divide exists within our own communities - within single households, like mine.
Yes, it is shocking that any twenty-something college student could possibly be confused about technology.
Curiosity, present even in my old age, pushes me to peek behind - I swoon at the mass of wires, plugs and power strips. I shuffle back to my seat and look at the large stack of remotes, cords and manuals.
I remember in my youth laughing at all the silly grown-ups who didn't know how to use the Internet or program their VCRs. Now I think I am beginning to understand their bewilderment.
Ironically, it is the work of my even-more-ancient father that has made me realize it's about time I join the AARP, take up Scrabble and worry about Social Security.
I am lost between emotional responses.
I am grateful that I have someone like him to make such an impressively integrated system with which it is possible to access every piece of media we own.
I am frustrated at the prospect of relearning how to coordinate the TV, sound system and players so that they actually present output from the same source at the same time - and knowing it could all change again next weekend.
And of course, I feel blind terror at the realization that I don't know how any of it works anymore, wouldn't know how to fix it if something went wrong and can't understand half of what my dad is telling me about the differences between component, composite and HDMI cables.
Why terror? Well apart from the fact that I am less with-it than my dad (yikes), home entertainment is just the beginning. Almost every part of our daily lives is directly connected with technology we average folk know little about.
Sure, we figure out how to use it eventually, but understand it? Rarely. Each new gadget or feature at this stage of technological advancement requires extensive research to comprehend and a whole weekend to install. Then comes the realization that everything related to the one new installment has to be upgraded as well-there goes a whole year's worth of weekends.
So what do we do? Call in the experts! Pay a specialist to worry about setting it up, and continue on in blissful ignorance.
Unfortunately, informed consumers and users are necessary to keep experts from taking advantage of the masses. Understanding how things work is the only remedy to the feeling of helplessness technology inspires.
OK, I am going to become knowledgeable! I'll start with this chart I drew to figure out the TV settings.
To play a DVD, set the TV to Video-1 and the stereo to auxiliary. To use TiVo, set the TV to Video-2 and the stereo to TV. For the Xbox, TV input is Video-3, stereo is auxiliary. To use the media center PC, access the wireless network through the Xbox and navigate it through...wait, I still don't know how it works.
Ah, nevermind, I'm going to finish my homework so I can graduate and eventually make enough doing what I specialize in to pay a different specialist to know it for me.
Francesca van der Feltz is a journalism senior. Offer her free tech support at: francesca.vanderfeltz@asu.edu.
