Modern life harder for auties?

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Computers have done that because everyone wants ease, from your grocery store to your phone company to the doctor's office. It just makes life a lot easier. You don't have all those files and papers to keep up with. You don't have to send everything through the mail. I think it's awesome. I wish it was even more advanced than this. I've always wanted to live at the peak of a technology boom, a much bigger and encompassing boom than this. The future will be so exciting, full of knowledge and advancements thanks to nanotechnology and computers.

Online shopping is a good reason to like computers.
I don't think gadgets would make my life any easier though. I still prefer to boil water and pour it through a funnel to make coffee. I hate trying to figure out coffee makers.

I don't know, I find that computers (and my computer especially) assist my brain considerably. One problem I have - verbally - is being able to say exactly what I mean, and this problem is significantly lessened when I work with text. Further, I have records of all kinds of things I've talked about and want to reference later. It's virtually a cybernetic relationship and without it I am uncertain what I'd be like. I already know that the work I have done wouldn't have been possible without such a thing.

Also, handling other matters, like shopping and other stuff, managing schedules, keeping track of appointments. The computer is a tool, but a versatile tool with a vast array of uses. I am not sure what I would do without it.

My main issue is trying not to overload myself with information, which I think I've been okay with over the past couple of years.

I think some are missing what I am getting at. Computers are fabulous tools.Without computers this conversation would not be happening. Without computers there are people on the spectrum that would have little chance at meaningful communication.

My issues are with what we are are choosing to do with our technological prowess and not just computers. For example, we have made things "easier" and now have increased rates of obesity and diabetes. The answer? "Easier" exercise programs, gym memberships, magic diet pills, and "effortless" exercise gadgets that end up gathering dust. I'm sorry, but 6 pack abs require WORK. There is no "easy"

From my point of view, there is more and more stuff out there, more and more decisions, more and more stimulus, more and more interruptions. None of these are good for my aspieness. I have to actively structure things to minimize all the noise in the system and each iteration of products and services just makes it worse. All this energy in making life easy makes it harder for me in many ways.

Am I going to abandon technology and become a Luddite hermit in the woods? Nope. But I am not going to allow technology to rule my world. It will have a place, but as much as possible that place will be at MY behest. Technology will serve me, not the other way around.

THIS sort of is how I live. I live completely alone, in a remote cabin on 40 acres about 1/2 hour drive from civilizaion. I have no TV and only a computer and internet. Most my time is spent studying books, practicing guitar or writiting. Though I helped to create the latest sandybridge (Intel) processor, I really am not into tech stuff that much. Thank you to everyone else who buys it though... LOL!

Couldn't agree more. I also grew up without a diagnosis in an era in which AS was barely known outside of specialist researchers. It felt like a huge relief to finally have an explanation for my continual failure to engage people socially, and to get enlisted on a specialist employmenrt programme for people on the spectrum (without which I'm firmly convinced that I'd still be unemployed now).

Now THAT is how it should be done. A real nice balance!!

Ooh, I wish... And all that lovely night sky with no light pollution too!

I much prefer living in cities so I can get to stores and such myself. Then again, I don't drive.

That's how the future was presented when I was a kid. Now... I think we will be lucky to hang onto the technology we've got. Technology never advances in a straight line. It goes forward and back and forward and back. The ancients had the rudiments of something that could have become steam power and look how long a wait that was. And now we are using resources in a way that wasn't even possible back then. And I worry where we are going.

You & me both.

Same.

I like it.

I can chat and make friends online, where I can express myself better and don't have the same problems with face-to-face stuff.

I can keep in touch with people by adding them on facebook then ignoring them. (lol)

Google and wikipedia, combined with the AS person's ability to focus intensely on a topic of interest, means we can totally indulge in the subjects that interest us, and we can potentially become very knowledgeable about them.

We can set up blogs and upload our thoughts and creations online for the world to see; for a socially isolated person this is awesome.

I love technology and think it's making everyone's life easier, especially people with AS.

As for where it's going, I'm optimistic. Increasingly we're seeing mankind realize its essential oneness, and the value of co-operation. The International Space Station, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), the United Nations, FUNDAEC, UNICEF, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund. We're at last moving past the phase of nation state's being supreme, and towards an age where the whole planet is regarded as one country and mankind as its citizens. I could say more, but it's off-topic. What I will say is this: a golden age is coming, the likes of which no mind has ever conceived. It will be most glorious, and it will adorn the pages of history forever.