Line between improvement, annoyance can be thin

I've been thinking about quitting Facebook.

I won't do it, of course, but I'm giving it some thought.

I've never been all that adept (or extremely interested) in social networking skills. In fact, the distance between "adept" and my abilities on Facebook is best measured in units more commonly used by astronomers.

I've only recently figured out how to transfer pictures from a digital camera to my Facebook page. I won't embarrass myself by telling you how long it took to learn that, nor will I mention my blood pressure levels while learning to do so. We Neanderthals struggle with progress.

Still, I use Facebook and enjoy the features I've slowly learned to use. Keeping up with friends, sharing information, passing along photographs (now that it's relatively painless) are pleasant things to do.

What's made me think about quitting is the folks at Facebook keep changing things (usually without warning) and, as I've entered my dotage, I've become less than enamored of changes, be they major or minor. Comes with the territory, I think.

As further explanation, I'll offer that I'm of that breed of people who, when we find something that works and works well, are not prone to replacing it. Call it trust.

I have a can opener on my key chain that I picked up in Vietnam in 1972. It's small, easy to use, well made, and actually opens cans (and the occasional finger) very quickly. I see no reason to either change or replace it.

My table saw is 25 years old. My pocket knife is 40, and my truck is 14. I won't go into the age of my favorite coat or, better (worse?), the age of some of my ties.

On the electronic front, I progress as does a slug. I was recently in a local mall and a young man from one of the cell phone kiosks stopped me to ask if he could talk with me.

He wondered what kind of cell phone I was using.

"Don't know."

"Who's your provider?"

"Don't know that either. My wife handles it all."

To satisfy his curiosity, though, I showed him the phone my wife gave me several years ago. Its screen is cracked and it doesn't hold a charge all that well any more. Still works, though, and I know how to dial the thing and can even silence the ring tone. What more, one asks, does one need?

He was amused at its age and asked how often I used it. I told him "a couple of times a week" and, about then, I could see the light of understanding dawning upon him.

Still, he told me about all of the new features that come with newer phones, the "apps" I could download, the pictures I could take, and all manner of other things that his product could do to make my life "better."

I told him that the only reason I carried a phone was to make and receive calls, that my old phone did that well enough, and that all of the other stuff seemed to be more of a bother than it was worth.

He smiled and gave up.

But back to Facebook.

As I said, I like the things I do with it. Simple things. All in their proper places in my universe.

What I don't like is when they go about "improving" stuff without any warning and expect me to keep up.

It took a while for me to get comfortable with Facebook and I don't want the aggravation of trying to wrap my 63-year-old brain around some new "feature" that shows up unannounced. These days, I have enough trouble remembering names of good friends, why I'm in the kitchen, or what I'm supposed to be doing tonight. On the "information highway," I'm simply roadkill.

Still, I'll likely stay with Facebook, but I wish they'd understand that there are a few of us out here who'd like to be taken into account before they change things without warning.

Makes us irritable is what it does.

Which, for those of us now taking graduate-level courses in "geezing," tends to be a nearly constant state requiring no further stimulus.

I'm not going to win this one, am I?

Didn't think so.



Larry Simoneaux lives in Edmonds. Send comments to larrysim@comcast.net.