Quick: If You Have a New Gadget....

...do you spend lots of time learning all the features and tricks and shortcuts, devoting your eating and sleeping time to mastering the device? Or do you dive right in and use the basics as best as you can, without being bothered that you don't know what else you could know?

One famous family story tells of my grandfather, ever frugal (even after he no longer needed to be), hot-wiring his own car to get it to start. Only at that point, or maybe even later, was he willing to "invest" in a new car (ahem, well-used clunker). I'm fairly certain that he would not have been considered a "gadget guy." The one gadget I know my grandparents discovered quite late in the game was a Caller ID box. My grandfather used it as an answering machine - indeed, he never had one of those. How does one use a Caller ID as an answering machine? Simple: call back whomever's number is shown, and say, "You called ME?" The challenge of this method is that the original caller may not connect the bellowed inquiry with his or her initial call hours earlier (I know; this happened to me - though at least I (of course) recognized my grandfather's voice).

(This approach has trickled down to my parents - who are supremely talented at "making do" with NOT the latest gadget...though they tend to crawl up onto the bandwagon eventually, even if the rest of the circus has moved on....leaving them making do, once again, with not-the-latest-gadget!).

Not my grandfather's hot-wired car, but the 1974 Plymouth Gold Duster clunker that was my first car (gifted in person by that same grandfather (and grandmother) - if you imagine it in dark brown.

On the other side of the divide...

Remember Palm Pilots? One friend acquired his device and spent a long snowy weekend fiddling and niggling with it, until he had added all of the data he could possibly imagine and finally went to sleep looking forward to the technological enhancements to his upcoming week. Another friend makes sure that his place of employment provides for the latest updates to both Apple and PC products (his wife doesn't know what to make of most of it). And I recently had the lucky experience on a transatlantic flight of touch-screen individual T.V.'s. The most entertaining aspect of this entertainment center was the two-year-old sitting in her mother's lap in the next seat over who swiped her fingers across the screen to make the picture change (it didn't work; tapping was required - but the toddler is certainly comfortable with the technology).

The proliferation of gadgets in recent years is astounding: iTunes (MP3's and MP4's); iPhones (and other Smart Phones); Kindles (Nooks - and other e-readers); GPS; digital cameras (what's film?); HDTV; Bluetooth...Honestly, I don't know how all of them work (but I bet these people do: http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/).

As for me - I have my preferences (most importantly, I want things to work reliably and well). Sometimes, I pay more than the bare minimum for the sake of sleek functioning (I am not interested in needing to hot-wire my old cell phone (you really think it would work? then you're not a gadget person!). I don't want a smart phone (too much screen time as it is). And knowing that my phone has the capacity for Internet doesn't entice me to pay for the data packages. But I'm happy to have a cell phone that rings - yes, rings! I'm not surprised to find myself in the middle of the divide I've concocted (maybe a tad closer to the Luddite end, once I can trust in  my devices' high functionality).

Is this question a decision? Actually, I think it is. People surely have natural inclinations, but they also choose how to interact with all the current hardware. The most old-fashioned make use of current technology when it suits their purpose (one of the finest 92-year-olds I know - surely the finest! - is a whiz at email, and welcomed online billing).

There are political implications to this "decision" as well. Just this week (Feb. 13), the New York Times lauded Mooresville, NC for its wired school, dramatically changing the format of classroom instruction.  But in case you think that the purported successes of that school system are a definitive last word, don't forget that the New York Times admired a Silicon Valley school that shuns technology altogether last October 22. The implications of either sweeping approach merits the serious investigation of educators, but any preconceived approach to technology in general (whether cool or dangerous or boring or necessary) surely shades the question of technology in the classroom.

How about you? Do you take to technology? Or are you a closet Luddite?  (By the way, if you're reading this, you can't be a true luddite, by definition.)