Do You Stream Yet?

It took walkers in my neighborhood with their eyes glued to their cell phone for me to realize we’re out of touch. Not happening.

I keep my cell phone handy, I’m just not obsessive about it. We don’t stream TV either, and we’re comfortable not doing it.

Not keeping up with the Joneses is nothing new. I was in my 20s when the last typewriter holdout was allowed to use his vintage Underwood in the newsroom once computers came in. The rest of us felt sorry for him.

Newspapers were the first industry to convert to computers for the obvious reason. We had to constantly update, so everyone had a terminal on the desk that fed into a mainframe computer. Smart computers or PCs, invented by IBM right here in Boca, came next. I even had a portable computer in the ‘80s that was as bulky as your grandmother’s sewing machine.

I’d like to think we’ve kept up with the times since then, but that’s really not true. When our granddaughter started creating and posting her videos years ago, that was our wakeup call. I knew we no longer fit in.   

No hard feelings. Our generation had a completely different perspective when we were their age, and nobody liked it then either. Now it’s their turn up at bat, and they’re entitled to their own ways and world views whether we like it or not. Even The New York Times, once called the Gray Lady of journalism, has started posting the “Best Things to Stream” every week. I had to look up what streaming means.