If my dear mum were still alive (she would have been 108 on November 29), I wonder how she would have viewed the inexorable advance of new technology, writes Clinton Rogers.
I’m no Luddite (truly), but I am starting to wonder whether all this ‘progress’ is making the world a better place.
And in many cases, I question whether it is even necessary?
If I’d told my mum that one day she would be able to argue from her front door without even being there, she’d have called me “proper daft”.
Yet here we are in the 21st century with doorbells that don’t just go ding-dong any longer; they have a camera and a microphone and a loudspeaker.
So now we can peer suspiciously at visitors – and shout at them if we so desire – from the comfort of our sofa, a holiday park in Minehead or even a layby in the middle of nowhere, provided your smartphone has a signal.
Actually, I’m not even sure my mum would have understood a smartphone.
That’s how fast technology is moving.
But doorbells are just the start.
We can now turn on our heating remotely using our phone.
We can start our car from just about anywhere in the world that has a Wi-Fi or 5G signal.
I tested it once, just for amusement’s sake.
The engine kicked into life on the driveway of my home – and I was in Turkey.
My family was there to see it, in case you’re wondering.
Now ask yourself, do I really need these IT toys?
Has my life been enriched because I can now see the Amazon man dropping a parcel in my porch?
I actually spent 15 years in our current house without any doorbell at all.
People used to knock, and we heard them.
Imagine that!
But when I was finally persuaded to invest in door answering technology, I bowed to pressure and bought one with a camera.
I can’t tell you how irritating it is to have messages popping up on my phone with monotonous regularity saying “human alert”.
Yet I find myself checking every single recorded video - just in case it’s a burglar!
I refuse to go further down the IT road by finding an app that controls my home heating.
I delight in telling my children that when their mum and I were young, we didn’t even have central heating.
We used to run from the bathroom, having washed our faces in the sunshine yellow sink (fashionable then) and huddle around the gas fire in the lounge to get dressed.
If only we could have switched it on with a phone!
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