Sometimes when you’re disabled, living your life independently in an inaccessible world can be very dependent on specific pieces of technology.
Technology doesn’t know how valuable it is, and technology being technology it will eventually break. You will need a replacement eventually, that’s just life.
But just because you need a piece of technology doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to find the replacement you need for it. And what do you do when you can’t find the replacement that you need? Like anything, you adapt.
Adapting is something you have to do a lot in an inaccessible world, but that doesn’t make it easy. It can be very upsetting and difficult to do, especially when adapting involves changing a way you’ve had that works.
I don’t like to do it. But does anyone like change?
Needs must, I suppose. And so I’m trying to continue and adapt and change. To face the challenges life throws at me. But in all honesty it doesn’t get easier.
The last post I wrote here was on my difficulties writing, and now that I’ve opened my laptop, I feel like in a way I could write more. That got me wondering if my biggest issues is opening my laptop? Like a more techy version of struggling to pick up your pen, I suppose. Once it’s in your hand, the hardest part is over.
So maybe once I open my laptop, or perhaps more specifically the file I’m working on, the hardest part is over. Who knows?
All this said, as I sit here writing this, despite my increased motivation to do so, I can feel the fatigue setting in my body. Despite only having been awake a couple of hours, I know that I could really do with a nap. But i don’t want to put that need to nap on the person I live with. We’re watching something together, and I don’t want to destry, I mean I don’t want my fatigue to destroy what we are doing. I know they will be okay with me sleeping, but it being something that feels so out of my control, doesn’t mean I don’t feel guilty. If I’m completely honest it makes me feel more guilty.
It’s an odd feeling, being both motivated to write, and fatigued at the same time. My brain feels wired, with words and ideas. It feels like breathing to get them out, to see them on a screen, to get some sort of release. Like I don’t even have to try to get it done. But my body feels tired, like I can’t keep up with the words I want to write. Like my body didn’t sleep last night, even though ny brain did,
This isn;t how I always experience fatigue, just how I’m experiencing it right now. The physical slowness, tiredness, is always there. However the mental tiredness comes and goes with the fatigue. Sometimes my brain feels just as tired as my body, and that is actually easier to deal with. At least everything I am feeling then is on the same page, right now it all feels to different to suceed at at.
I have so many ideas that I want to get out, but right now it feels harder to get the words out over the tiredness.
So I’m going to answer this question in terms of what invention I feel has had the most important impact on me personally. Not necessarily the most important global or social invention of my time. Basically I’m not doing any research, I’m just answering the question based on my life.
If you looked at me now, you’d think this was the most logically answer. And while I am grateful for the invention of the wheelchair, and in my case particularly the electric wheelchair, there are in fact other more important inventions to me.
I don’t think I’d be answering this question properly if I didn’t consider the inventions that undoubtably saved my life when I was born. Like many with my condition I was born extremely prematurely and should’ve died. So a small nod to the inventions that are the reason I’m alive.
Then it’s important to remember the ones you’re more likely to see me in, my electric wheelchair. There’s my electric bed and air mattress that I need to sleep, as well as my electric blanket which has to be the best pain killer for me personally. My comfy chair which just gives me somewhere else to sit and my shower chair, which I hope by the title is self-explanatory. Then you’ve got to remember the hoist, that gets me from a, to b, to c and sometimes d.
But the ones that I feel are the most important thing to me are those like the mobile phone, the internet, the computer. Now I know this sounds very millennial of me, if I’m getting the terminology correct. And someone’s somewhere is going to judge me for my reliance on the internet. But just remember where you’re reading this blog.
The internet, social media and the technology that exists to use them on. Provides me access and inclusion to the world around me in a way my wheelchair cannot do in such an inaccessible world. Steps do not exist on the internet.
I know social media gets a bad reputation and I understand why. But I always say it’s the way people use technology, not the technology that it is bad. While this doesn’t apply to things like guns which don’t have a good use. It applies to things like knives which clearly do, and in the case of this post, social media.
Social media lets me be the me I wish I could be in the real world. It lets me meet new people near and far, and learn all about them. It lets me keep in touch with people, that would be even more difficult to do without social media due to my lack of mobility. The internet truly is a wonder. And phones can do so much, provide so much access beyond what I use them for.
Inventions truly are a wonder. They can often be used by people in ways the person who invented them likely never imaged. They are never to be underestimated.
I don’t honestly believe in the need to manage screen time in the way, I believe most people view it. I think screen time should be more about what you do with technology rather than how long you spend on it
Technology has acted as a window for me to accessibility in an inaccessible world. so to limit how much time I spend using it, honestly seems bizarre. To me, it seems like I would be limiting how much time I spent in the real world, which I am aware, is the complete opposite to how most people see the situation where screen time and the related technology is concerned.
Now, as I write this, it might be obvious that I am thinking of technology as a mobile phone or a computer. and therefore pre-labelling screen time as meaning time spent on such devices, using social media specifically. As social media has definitely been my biggest window to the world. I personally level criticisms at the way people use social media as opposed to the platforms themselves, but this is a point of written about previously and something to save for a further post.
I make this point, purely as I want to make it clear that I’m aware that screen time can refer to things other than social media and the use of mobile phones and computers. it can also refer to, and often does refer to watching TV or perhaps listening to music. Again, if this is something you enjoy, I don’t believe it is something you should limit yourself to a certain time period. Why should your joy be limited by other peoples perceptions of it?
No, I make such statements of somebody who is able to make my own decision in the world and free use of technology. As somebody who understands what others might say, I would ‘be giving’ up in order to spend my time using technology. In other words, I’m fully aware what I could be doing instead of spending my time looking at his screen, others may not be. By others, I mean young children, not simply somebody you disagree with, people can spend their time, however, like whether you like it or not. Children are however a different story.
It is my firm belief that children should be given access to as many different things as possible throughout their childhood. This includes social media and other sometimes tabooed websites, when children have been educated correctly on their use and safety, as well as other screen focused technology. I don’t agree with banning use of any type of technology with appropriate considerations. In fact in modern society, given how prevalent the use of technology, and the Internet is, I actually think doing this would be cruel.
I could write about this topic forever, but I should get back to the initial question asked.
I don’t actively manage my screen time, I don’t see any need to. I live my life as close to the way I want to, as I can, and don’t listen to arbitrary faults the people place within it.
And to anyone reading this, you think I should be limiting or at least monitoring and managing my screen time in someway, I say this. Make the world accessible first, and then we will talk.
This climate, this post was written using both a screen and voice to text. I apologies for any mistakes in it that may affect the clarity of this post, please do let me know if and we change any such mistakes.
Your life without a computer: what does it look like?
I know computers, the internet and social media can often get a bad reputation, mainly due to bullying. But in all honesty, for a long time, social media was how I accessed the world around me. For all the bad I struggle to see how computers can be anything more than a positive.
I’m fortunate both in my ability and living where I live, that I now have much more of an active in-person social life, than I did when I was younger. However, there were many ways to make friends online.
So to be honest to put it bluntly, my life without computers, looks boring and isolating.
My Inaccessible Life 