THE OPEN DOOR: Technological growth versus intrusion

This past week a friend in California was shopping at Whole Foods Market and saw a paring knife for sale. Because she needed one, she bought it. That night pop-up ads appeared on her computer advertising paring knives. Coincidence? I think not.

Whole Foods is owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. Ever notice how after you’ve Googled info on the internet, or bought something online, ads for that product pop up all over? Maybe you’ve gotten used to it — or not —if you use the computer a lot.

When did we start taking it for granted that we no longer have privacy and that we swim in an ever-widening sea of technological “knowingness” to the extent we don’t even realize its pervasiveness anymore? When does it become pernicious? When was it that “security” cameras popped up at every corner such that hardly anything takes place unobserved anymore, whether you’re aware of it or not?

Technological intrusion takes many forms these days. Last week I turned on my computer one morning to find it had been literally taken over by an “update” called Microsoft Edge for Windows 10. My whole screen had changed, things were missing, my email was disconnected, etc. It’s a long story that took me several days to right with the help of professionals, and you can read about everyone’s distress at this move by the computer giant online: just google something like “Microsoft Edge changed my desktop.” To me, it’s a prime example of going too far with technology into the personal lives of those who use it. Don’t push something on me that I haven’t asked you for.

Technological intrusion takes many forms these days, subtle and not-so.

If you use the computer, you’re intruded upon with emails you never asked for or wanted, and if you don’t “unsubscribe” from them, they will only multiply. When you try to unsubscribe, they demand to know why. Hello? How about, “I didn’t ask for it, and don’t want it.” You get unwanted pop-up questionnaires asking about delivery service and products. You get at least one or more scam emails a week looking to rip you off at all possible, so you must constantly be on your guard and up-to-date just to read your email.

So, what’s a person to do in this era of creeping encroachment into our personal space? (You DO remember personal space, don’t you?) Our choices are becoming more limited as this insidious invasion becomes more and more the norm. In many instances, we have to — as we used to say — eat it; it’s a one-way street.

But, if the last year has left us with any new kernels of wisdom and insight, it might be that we don’t have to allow the world’s voice, annoyances, and clatter to invade our personal domain. And we don’t have to go from zero to 100 overnight. In fact, we never have to go to 100 again if we don’t want to. There is a middle ground, a place where we can continue to claim and reclaim our “selves.”

There is a mute button on the TV remote. There is a way of blocking unwanted, unasked for emails. There are ways to reclaim those moments of quiet insight and during the returning chaos of this “new” world, eager to inundate us. We can shut off our phones, we can take a short walk, we can read a book, sit on our decks or porches, plant flowers or vegetables or herbs, and leave the phone inside. We can take a ride to the ocean’s edge and just listen and look. Be inventive. Create your own individual respites. Nap. Don’t care what others think about them; they’re yours.

So, as the “new” world comes roaring back at us full tilt, you can be armored-up so to speak against its incursions and frequent assaults by keeping on hand and reclaiming the nuggets of inner peace you’ve gathered and learned over the last year.

I leave you with the last lines of a poem I often think of by the 17th Century poet Richard Lovelace: “To Althea from Prison.” I find it applicable in lots of circumstances:

“Stone walls do not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage;

Minds innocent and quiet take

That for a hermitage.

If I have freedom in my love,

And in my soul am free,

Angels alone, that soar above,

Enjoy such liberty.”

Sandra Matuschka of Tiverton is a freelance writer and columnist. Send feedback and suggestions to smatuschka@cox.net or C/O The Newport Daily News, P.O. Box 420, Newport, RI 02840.

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