KATIE HEWITT / via The Globe and Mail / Nov. 19, 2019

“The remote isn’t working!” I call out to my husband.

I’m trapped on the couch without entertainment. I’m a Luddite damsel in distress.

My husband sighs. He shows me a sequence of buttons, which seems like too much effort to invest in the viewing of baking-based competition shows on Food Network. But I am a laggard who married an innovator, which means my home is filled with gadgets that make life less user-friendly.

My husband and I are millennials of the same vintage, born in time to navigate the Internet before it reached critical mass. We haunted AOL chatrooms and played video games with pixelated graphics. Together, we are part of a cohort called “digital pioneers.” As individuals, we could not be further apart on the innovation-adoption life cycle. My husband, Graham, builds new technology; I am inherently suspicious of it. He responded to instant global connectivity by doubling down on a computer-science degree. My interpretation of pioneer was more settled; I retreated inward, studying literature and philosophy. Our home is now littered with Faulkner novels, introductory works of metaphysics, old copies of The Atlantic – and unnecessary consumer technology. Products arrive randomly. He once bought a prototype device that measures moisture levels in soil and sends smartphone alerts when houseplants need watering. For a while, he got texts from the cactus. We still can’t keep plants alive.

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