Social media, too, need to take a rap, though it’s not always the media themselves that are broken but the way people use them, says Wyn Drabble. Photo / NZME
OPINION
Broken hands on broken ploughs
Broken treaties, broken vows
Broken pipes, broken tools
People bending broken rules
Hound dog howling, bullfrog croaking
Everything is broken. (Bob Dylan)
I checked online for the phone number of a government agency I needed to call to clarify an issue. I did it with some trepidation because I knew the call could eat seriously into my day, and at my end of the age spectrum you appreciate just how quickly time passes (at breakneck speed).
Beside the number I found online was a short message advising that the current phone waiting time was two minutes. Well, I was in like a shot. Two minutes!
I dialled the number and inside a minute I was listening to execrable music, which I felt I could bear because of the low waiting time.
Please don’t get me wrong, I’m a music lover but there are two provisos; one is that I like to choose my own music (in general songs that do not contain lyrics like “cause I’m bluffin’ with my muffin I’m not lying I’m just stunnin’ with my love glue gunning”); and two is that I like to listen to it through a decent sound system rather than a tiny phone that has the sound fidelity of graunching gears but without the clear low notes.
So, about halfway through the first song, my two minutes were up. Not long now, I thought. And I knew that my call would be important to them.
My call was answered 57 minutes later! 57 minutes is a huge hunk of the remainder of my life.
Another effective time-waster is spam. You can religiously “report (it) as spam” but still it keeps coming. And coming. Some of the grim ones (“we have hacked your computer ... blah blah blah ... and all you need to do is deposit a lot of money into the following bitcoin account ...) really highlight the darker, more-sinister side of life.
Some of the spam is at least interesting to prehistoric pedants and grim grammarians because the spelling and lack of correctness in the messages clearly give them away as unwanted intrusions.
The mistakes can be outrageous but often worth at least a giggle (”You have inherted a millon dollars from a long lost neice and need to klick this link to turn rich”).
Spam can, I suppose, be a comfort to those who are a little lonely and could do with some perking up. It must be easy to feel uplifted when six banks want to give you easy, no-interest loans, five big corporations want to employ you, you have just won a huge lottery, a matrimonial site has many suitable matches for you, your hair loss can be cured and at least 20 girls are feeling lonely and have a burning desire to meet you.
Social media, too, need to take a rap, though it’s not always the media themselves that are broken but the way people use them. Sites like WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok can certainly break people.
And please don’t get me started on passwords, logins, security questions and the like. I realise they are there to protect us but there are limits and I’ve reached mine. My brain is too full to cram in another password.
But let’s try to end on a positive note. On the day I wrote this piece I did not need to buy cheese, petrol or fresh vegetables, Winston Peters did not become prime minister, there were no tropical cyclones, no intruders menaced me with weapons and the local liquor shop was not ram-raided.
Yes, you’ve got to look on the bright side.
– Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, musician and public speaker.
A fundraising movie night and auction raised over $13,000 last month.
