Isn’t technology wonderful!  We now control nearly every aspect of our lives with a variety of powerful electronic tools.  At home we can fire up the desk top computer with the dazzling 55 inch high definition monitor.  We have laptops and notebooks for the road.  We have smart phones and watches that have fantastic capabilities for the rest of our life functions. 

For example, an App on my watch monitors my life expectancy.  Using GPS technology and the buying history on my array of credit cards, the App constantly updates the time I am likely to have left on this planet.  If I walk for fifteen minutes it will extend my life for four days.  If the walk takes me to the local liquor store, it takes two days off.  If I buy a bottle of Beefeaters, I lose another two days.  Red wine, it adds a day.  A fine Macanudo cigar, it drops ten days.  If my destination is the local grocery store and I buy fried chicken for lunch, I lose three weeks.  The watch is incredibly helpful.  It beeps every fifteen minutes and tells me how long, actuarially, I can expect to be alive.  Several times each day, I make adjustments to the very detailed plan for the rest of my life.  I want to ensure that I squeeze in the most important goals on my bucket list.  At 10:45 AM, I found out that I’m down to 5.324 years.  I went out to my travel App and cancelled the trip to Stonehenge for the 2028 Winter Solstice and prioritized a week in Vegas, ASAP.       

Before technology, I squandered my leisure time visiting with friends, playing golf, reading, biking and barbecuing.  I did this even while I was employed full time in pretty demanding occupations.  Now, I am retired and I don’t waste a lot of time on these frivolous activities.  I spend 70 hours every week maintaining my technology.  In modern America, this really is not an option.  Executing daily digital functions takes Herculean effort and constant diligence.  Where am I spending my time?

A lot of time is spent on portals.

Medical portals are a great example.   Before the perfection of internet commerce, I would call my family doctor to report a significant malady.  His or her staff would set up an appointment.  If needed, they would refer me to a specialist who would call with another appointment.  Total administration of the medical process required less than five minutes of my time.  After the first appointment, the initiative shifted to the medical providers.  I am through the gate keepers and talking with the appropriate specialist with minimal effort.

The new process goes like this.  I call my Primary Care Doctor.  No one answers the phone.  A robot says that they are short staffed due to Covid and I should start an on line chat in their portal sawbones.com.  I have never used the Sawbones website.  So the first step is to sign up for the portal.  You would think that all I need to input is a few pieces of information.  Name, address, cell phone number, driver’s license number, insurance information, email address and password and I’m in the portal.  In fact, the primary care doc has all of this info other than the password.  They could have set it up for me.  However, I spend an hour and ten minutes carefully inputting an entire lifetime of medical history, a list of current prescription drugs, daily dosages of vitamins and minerals, my dietary habits for the last nine years, my smoking, drinking and illicit drug habits, and an extensive litany of personal preferences.

“How many drinks do you consume each week?  When you drink scotch, are you buying inexpensive blends or do you drift toward high quality single malts aged for at least fifteen years?  Where do you buy alcoholic products?  Can we refer you to our affiliated purveyor of alcoholic beverages?  Do you regularly purchase street drugs?  Which ones?  Would you be amenable to buying substitutes from a local pharmacy affiliated with our medical practice?  Did you have acne as a teenager?  Have you ever contracted the bubonic plague?  Are you an Ebola survivor?  Could you use a therapeutic massage twice a week from our affiliated organization the We Won’t Rub You The Wrong Way massage specialists? ”       

Five times during the process I am notified in red letters that I failed to provide a piece of information.  I back fill the required data.

Finally, I am down to the password and a few security questions?  The red letters come back.  “Your password does not comply with our requirements.  Please note that at least one letter must be in Sanskrit and an Avatar from a post 2016 Disney feature film character is also required.”  Security questions include “What was your great uncle Oscar’s third dog’s full American Kennel Club name.”  More red letters.  “Your answer to your wife’s college sweetheart’s nick name is incomplete.  Dork is correct but it is preceded by a seven letter adjective beginning with F.”

After another twenty seven minutes, I get the green light that I have successfully signed on to the sawbones.com portal.  

It is important to note that I have not done anything yet.  I invested more than two hours simply to establish the communication link with one of my medical providers.  After buying fried chicken for three straight days, my Life Expectancy App has strongly recommended a visit with a cardiologist.  When sawbones.com refers me to the cardiologist I will have to go through the same portal initiation process on his or her website, itsthebigone.com.  In fact I have to initiate portal communication with every medical professional, hospital and pharmacy I do business with.  Even though my Life Expectancy App has put me in the “Ticking Time Bomb” category, I don’t have a long history of visits to medical professionals.  Not with standing, I need to sign up to 17 different medical portals.  This will be a full time effort for several weeks.                     

Medical portals are only a small part of my digital life.  The financial portals for my broker, bank accounts, and credit cards are numerous and every bit as complex as the medical portals.  I have 14 different portals for my cable and streaming services alone.  Another ten or twelve are tied to travel.  Hotel, airline, and rental car sites.  There are at least 20 sites tied to online and phone services. 

I live in Florida.  I’m retired.  I love to play golf.  However, I haven’t played a round in three months.  Who has time when you are maintaining your technology? 

A few hours ago, my Life Expectancy App gave me the “DANGER WILL ROBINSON” notice.  The App monitors electrocardiogram, blood pressure, heartrate, and oxygen level data through my digital watch.  After 21 straight hours on line and two fried chicken meals in one day, a lot of stuff was “off the chart” bad.  The App recommended that I call 911 and seek medical attention immediately.  The 911 robot answered the call and said that, due to Covid and the current high volume of calls, they could not respond for several hours.  Evidently, this is common at 1:30 AM because so many citizens are working late on their portals.  As an alternative they recommended contacting Acme Ambulance directly.  I called Acme.  Their robot referred me to their portal ridesforthewrecked.com.  So I am halfway through the two hour process of signing up for Acme’s services.  My Life Expectancy App is beeping continuously and indicates that, actuarially, I may have less than six hours to live.

Hopefully, I will make it through the next few hours.  But I ask you. Where would we be without this amazing technology?