Woman versus Machine

My original tablet is almost six years old. In machine years, I think that is 112 years old. It began randomly locking up about four months ago, then last week it would reboot whenever the spirit moved it. It became unusable for more than ten minutes at a time…so with great reluctance and trepidation we went replacement technology shopping this week.

I wanted to avoid any i-things thinking anything else would be less privacy invasive. So I bought – actually Jim told me it was an early birthday gift – a new Samsung tablet. The salesman had trouble finding where they were since they’d just reorganized. I’m always amazed how little technology companies use their own tools to do business. He finally found the “last one” and the only cover option. He bagged it up and wanted to be paid. I asked about setting it up and transferring stuff from my old one. He said, “Just follow the instructions in the box when you get home.” When I muttered something about the death of customer service, he told me to blame COVID. Of course…

The instructions consisted of a diagram that showed two buttons, Side Key and Volume. It said “Turn tablet on and follow on screen steps.” Okay…I pressed the available buttons. Nothing happened. My husband held down the Side Key until the screen changed. That turns it on. I loaded my Gmail stuff and started configuring the tablet. It wanted to set up voice activated help called Bixby and load my daily schedule so it could remind me, and where I worked so it could tell me the optimal route each day. It stubbornly insisted I needed to do that as if I couldn’t survive a moment longer without its help. When I finally slogged my way through all its probing questions, it needed to be charged. I tried to turn it off pressing the two keys the manual said would do it and the Bixby configuration request kept popping up. When the screen went black, I plugged it in. Jim swore it was talking and beeping while it was charging. Later, I learned it was never off. It wasn’t until the next day when I figured out how to disable Bixby and get a Power Off button instead.

This thing is almost a sentient being – I guess I should be careful talking about it like this! It can even be set to sleep at specific times and then wake up and start all your smart appliances like coffee makers and TV. Thank goodness I only have dumb stuff – having one device that may be smarter than me is more than enough!

It will be weeks before I have all the software loaded since I’m trying to see what each icon does before I download the updates. Bixby still reminds me that I’m ignoring him and seems worried about how I’ll make my scheduled meetings and get to work on time without telling him all about it …I’ll just have to soldier on…

Ain’t technology grand?