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31 Signs That Technology Has Taken Over Your Life

31 Signs That Technology Has Taken Over Your Life:
      -- Joe Mullich, American Way Magazine, Nov. 94.

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1.  Your stationery is more cluttered than Warren Beatty's address book.
    The letterhead lists a fax number, e-mail addresses for two on-line
    services, and your Internet address, which spreads across
the           breadth of the letterhead and continues to the back.  In
essence,       you have conceded that the first page of any letter you
write *is*      letterhead.

2.  You have never sat through an entire movie without having at
least      one device on your body beep or buzz.

3.  You need to fill out a form that must be typewritten, but you can't
    because there isn't one typewriter in your house -- only
computers      with laser printers.

4.  You think of the gadgets in your office as "friends," but you forget
    to send your father a birthday card.

5.  You disdain people who use low baud rates.

6.  When you go into a computer store, you eavesdrop on a salesperson
    talking with customers -- and you butt in to correct him and
spend      the next twenty minutes answering the customers' questions,
while       the salesperson stands by silently, nodding his head.

7.  You use the phrase "digital compression" in a conversation without
    thinking how strange your mouth feels when you say it.

8.  You constantly find yourself in groups of people to whom you say the
    phrase "digital compression."  Everyone understands what you
mean,      and you are not surprised or disappointed that you don't have
to        explain it.

9.  You know Bill Gates' e-mail address, but you have to look up
your       own social security number.

10.  You stop saying "phone number" and replace it with "voice number,"
     since we all know the majority of phone lines in any house
are          plugged into contraptions that talk to other contraptions.

11.  You sign Christmas cards by putting :-) next to your signature.

12.  Off the top of your head, you can think of nineteen
keystroke           symbols that are far more clever than :-).

13.  You back up your data every day.

14.  Your wife asks you to pick up some minipads for her at the
store        and you return with a rest for your mouse.

15.  You think jokes about being unable to program a VCR are stupid.

16.  On vacation, you are reading a computer manual and turning
the          pages faster than everyone else who is reading John Grisham
novels.

17.  The thought that a CD could refer to finance or music rarely
     enters your mind.

18.  You are able to argue persuasively the Ross Perot's phrase
     "electronic town hall" makes more sense than the term "information
     superhighway," but you don't because, after all, the man
still          uses hand-drawn pie charts.

19.  You go to computer trade shows and map out your path of the exhibit
     hall in advance.  However, you cannot give someone directions
to        your house without looking up the street names.

20.  You would rather get more dots per inch than miles per gallon.

21.  You become upset when a person calls you on the phone to sell you
     something, but you think it's okay for a computer to call
and           demand that you start pushing buttons on your telephone to
receive      more information about the product it is selling.

22.  You know without a doubt that disks come in five-and-a- quarter-and
     three-and-a-half-inch sizes.

23.  Al Gore strikes you as an "intriguing" fellow.

24.  You own a set of itty-bitty screw-drivers and you actually
know         where they are.

25.  While contemporaries swap stories about their recent
hernia           surgeries, you compare mouse-induced index-finger
strain with a         nine-year-old.

26.  You are so knowledgeable about technology that you feel
secure          enough to say "I don't know" when someone asks you a
technology         question instead of feeling compelled to make
something up.

27.  You rotate your screen savers more frequently than your automobile
     tires.

28.  You have a functioning home copier machine, but every toaster
you       own turns bread into charcoal.

29.  You have ended friendships because of irreconcilably different
     opinions about which is better -- the track ball or the
track           *pad*.

30.  You understand all the jokes in this message.  If so, my friend,
     technology has taken over your life.  We suggest, for your
own          good, that you go lie under a tree and write a haiku.  And
don't        use a laptop.

31.  You email this message to your friends over the net. You'd
never        get around to showing it to them in person or reading it to
them on      the phone.  In fact, you have probably never met most of
these          people face-to-face.

-- 
David Ratledge
School of Information Science
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
http://funnelweb.utcc.utk.edu/~dratledg/php.html