Welcome to Touching Stories' first blog post!

 

It's a little contradictory to be writing about the benefits of staying low-tech on my new blog page. 

 

The truth is that technology has become an integral part of most of our lives.  We use our computers, smartphones, and notebooks to communicate, to shop, to give and receive help, and to make our lives easier. 

 

Fifteen years ago, I could never have imagined how much of my life would occur on-line.

 

In 1996, I moved to El Salvador.  I bought my airline ticket through a travel agent. I placed my passport in an envelope and sent it off to the Salvadoran Embassy to get my visa stamp. Once in El Salvador, I navigated the tricky international dialing system once a week to place a fifteen minute call home.  A couple friends were writing letters on the computer and sending them home through something called "electronic mail," but I was too intimidated to try it.

 

Now, fifteen years later, I book tickets on a travel website, I renew my passport through the internet, and I keep up with friends and family all over the world through Facebook.  There is no doubt that technology has made my life easier.

 

Technology has also been of immeasurable benefit to people with disabilities.  In Boulder, CO, "smart homes" are being developed for people with disabilities so that they can live more independently, stay home more safely, and enjoy the comforts of home more easily. http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~mozer/index.php?dir=/Research/Projects/Adaptive%20house/  Adaptive House is amazing, and will increase the quality of life for people who need adaptive supports.  In addition to adaptive homes, technology is being used to help people transfer safely in and out of vehicles, to remind people to take necessary medications, to alert them to their daily schedule.

 

I don't think anyone would go back to a time before these technologies were available, but there is a price for all this technology.  Human hands are no longer required help someone in or out of a car.  A human voice is not necessary to remind someone when it is time to take their afternoon meds.  Humans contact and interdependence will be less necessary in an "adaptive home." 

 

At Touching Stories, we are grateful for the advances in technology that allow people to be and remain safe and independent, but we also recognize the need for intentional touch, for eye contact, for human-to-human collaboration and connection. Each of our story kits is made by hand and each is designed to offer touch, voice, eye-contact and connection. 

 

Telling stories to each other creates a bond between people.  Telling that story in a way that engages all the sense increases that bond.  So while I would shed a tear over the loss of my blackberry, and I would mourn the loss of Facebook and online bill pay, let's hear it for those things that we choose to keep low-tech.