I can see that technology has its advantages but, at times, is it not just complicating what was already a rather simple process?

THERE are various things our children say, at some time in their lives, that we never forget. Like the time my daughter was five and, being a fussy eater, we celebrated when she took a small taste of spaghetti for the first time. When I asked her what she thought of it she said, “It was lovely, but I never want to eat it again in my life, thank you.”

Or one Easter, when another of my daughters bounced out of pre-school and told me her teacher had read a lovely story.

“What it was about?” I asked.

“It was about Jesus, and they hammered his hands and feet into the cross, like this,” and I watched, a little horrified, as she stopped and pretended to hammer her hands and feet into the ground, before skipping off saying, “Wasn’t that the lovely story?”

However, despite many gems spoken by my son over the years, the words I’ll forever associate with him are, “There’s an app for that.”

Not wanting to appear out of touch we let on we knew, but some of his suggestions took us by surprise.

“I can’t put that picture up,” said yer man recently, “I’ve lost my level.”

“But there’s an app for that,” said my son.

“The alarm on my phone isn’t going off in the mornings,” said my daughter. Yes, you guessed it, apparently there’s an app for that too.

Unfortunately, while our son sees technology as a wonderful aid to living, yer man sees it as a direct threat to a way of life he enjoys.

I’m on the fence. I can see that technology has its advantages but, at times, is it not just complicating what was already a rather simple process?

Take the other night, for example. Yer man and I decided to go to the cinema with two of our children. Our movie of choice was A Star is Born. Anxious it might be booked out, I decided to pre-book tickets, and the only way was to go online.

Click ‘here’ for which cinema. ‘Here’ for movie. ‘Here’ for date. ‘Here’ for time. ‘Here’ for tickets. ‘Here’ for purchase. After all that clicking it told me there were not enough tickets available. Not to worry, it was showing on another screen. So, I did my clicking all over again and, what do you know, there were no tickets available there either.

So, we looked up another cinema. This time there were no online discounts for students, but I was defeated by then and took what was offered while ranting about the good old days and how easy life used to be booking over the phone.

At least we knew we had tickets? Yes, but this cinema doesn’t allow us book seats, only tickets, so we left early to ensure we could sit together. As we were driving, I asked yer man had he his phone.

“Why, have you not got yours?” my daughter asked.

“No. It just died. Out of battery,” I said.

“But the tickets are on your phone, remember?”

“Oh dear. I remember now.”

Yer man continued to drive, insisting we’d just show them our credit card. Our son shouted that they’d not let us in by just showing a credit card.

My daughter said she’d log into my email.

Did I know my password?

I said nothing but thought, yikes, password?

All were shouting together. Not exactly the family night out I’d anticipated.

Miraculously, I remembered my password and we got seats together. Unfortunately, the movie was not what I’d imagined.

“Well that was a serious disappointment,” I said.

“What do you expect,” said our son, “if you never checked the reviews?”

I stopped him before he could add, yet again, there’s an app...