I believe that my kids love me, but both of them have told me that I am too stupid to use a smartphone. Sometimes this opinion is expressed with frustration, but usually it is with resignation, a condescending role reversal in which they politely but firmly explain to me the facts of life. “Dad, let me do that. You’ll never learn how. It’s too complicated for you.”

To counteract this humiliation and so I can delay the inevitable obsolescence brought on by advancing age, I don’t allow them to do it for me. Instead I say, ”Please, just show me what to do.”

“It’s called a touch screen for a reason. Did you touch that?” says my son, pointing to an icon whose function, represented by small, blurry features, is a complete mystery to me.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why not.”

“I don’t know what it does. I didn’t want to mess something up.”

“How many times have you told me that you have to make mistakes in order to learn?” he says, raising an eyebrow. “Tap it.”

I feel a need to defend myself so I say, “Back in the old days computers were complicated. A couple of wrong clicks and you were hopelessly lost in some utility file extension…”  

I thought the vaguely technical terms might buy me some respect, but I can see that he has gone from irritation to pity so I stop talking.

“Please, just tap it, “ he says, giving a barely perceptible shake of his head, eyes half closed.

I obey.

“And now that one. Tap that.”

I’m a monkey now, just doing what I’m told.

“There you go. How hard was that?” he says.

“Thank you. That was easy. I’m sure I’ll remember it now.”

“Dude, you asked me the same thing two days ago.”

Recently a friend from Boston brought her fourteen year old daughter and a friend of her daughter’s up to visit my parents. The girls, intelligent beyond their years, which, paradoxically, seems to be the state of all teen-aged girls, wandered around the old farm and eventually found their way to a tractor sitting in the side yard. 

They climbed onto the tractor and turned the key. After all, in the world of smartphones the cost of hitting the wrong icon is negligible and this lesson was written into their neural networks years ago. 

The tractor, missing the safety feature that prevents starting with the transmission engaged, obligingly coughed to life and started trundling down the road. My father, who had been working in the garden, ran over, reached the key and shut the tractor off. Tragedy averted. Lesson learned. 

But what is the lesson? Not everything is a smartphone? Don’t try things unless you know what they do? Stay away from tractors? Don’t leave the key in the tractor?

I think it is a very simple lesson. Context matters. 

Bears understand this.  

Erica Heilman’s fascinating podcast about the “bear man”, Ben Kilham, describes black bears as making a limited number of sounds which convey different meanings depending on the context of the situation.  That’s how it is when you are limited. You have to rely on understanding the surrounding information, the context.

Everything we humans have done to make our lives more convenient has eliminated the necessity of assessing the context. You get exactly the music you want in your car which you turn on remotely and warm up before you leave the comfort of your temperature controlled house. No challenge from unexpected lyrics or temperatures that might force you to adjust your behavior or perspective.  Then you go to a job where, this being a modern economy, you are likely to do a very specific task that does not involve contexts outside your area of expertise. And on the way home, if the roads exist in the context of ice, instead of pumping the brakes or driving more slowly, we rely on ABS brakes and all-wheel drive to manage the slippery conditions. 

Learning about context is what happens when things are inconvenient. 

Unlike a bear, I can’t seem to learn the importance of context and so I continually cripple my ability to use a smartphone. Modern teen-aged girls are oblivious to this lesson and that’s why they turn the key on a ten thousand pound tractor that could easily crush them. Sophisticated and successful politicians are unable to distinguish between the context of a smartphone and the context of cyberspace which is why they take revealing photos of themselves—one context, and then text those pictures into a completely different context.  

One mistaken comment taken out of context on social media and a person is “cancelled”. Nationally we seem to be having an epidemic of context ignorance. Like thinking that success at reality TV is preparation for being president. 

Makes me want to turn off my smartphone, crawl under a brushpile and sleep until April or maybe even until after the election.