The wind whispers through the small crack of the open window. Inside the house it's eerily quiet. The children are asleep. The grown-ups are not. And yet there are no voices coming out of the television set, filling our minds with useless facts. The tablet computer lies on the coffee table, its dark surface mirroring the ceiling fan that has stopped whirring and turning. The smartphone lies next to it, the same small circle having frozen in mid-buffer, failing to load whatever content the user had hoped to be devouring. The reading lamp has just given up the ghost. Outside it's utterly dark, too. and completely calm. But not for long.

Not much more than fifteen minutes will pass before the first neighbours come out of their houses. Very apologetically, the lady across the street, the one with the dog no bigger than a rat, will ask her neighbour, the burly man with the moustache, if his lights have gone out, too. A completely silly question, considering the fact that none of the street lamps are working. But it'll give her something to say, a voice to hear, company to seek.

Within half an hour, many more people will have left the safety of their houses, that have stopped feeling safe without the restless chit-chat of talkshow hosts and news anchors, the electric lights that flood every nook and cranny, warding off ghosts and memories. They'll have flocked to their cars, started their engines and driven off... without knowing exactly where to. To visit friends and family, whose lights are still on, whose wifi still works, whose television sets still carry on the conversation. They prefer driving around in the darkness to the sounds of their car radio to sitting at home by candlelight, with something as old-fashioned as a book to keep them company. Once the black-out ends, they'll be back in their brightly-lit and information-flooded homes.

* * *

Not too long ago, every man (perhaps many women, too) was fascinated by the idea that they could own a car that spoke to them, that drove up when summoned. At the time, television promised us bionic men and women, (cy)borgs who cooperated with us on our spaceships – self-sufficient universes floating into deep space, ready to discover new worlds – and we were all supposed to be flying to work with our jetpacks strapped to our backs by now, or at least that was what I believed The Year 2000 would bring.

* * *

My mum was never a fan of computers. That was always my dad's 'thing'. It was the Thing that kept him busy and preoccupied day and night, the Machine that was initially used for accounting, for record keeping, for all sorts of dull and dreary administrative purposes, and which was, therefore, something to steer away from. The novelty of the thing, even for my father, made it valuable. All of its functions soon made it invaluable. The unpredictable nature of it, however, made it a source of frustration for him – and something to be feared for my mother, who opted not to dust it off, just in case she might break it.

And yet, over the years, that same computer became a portal to new friends, and even a wider audience, once my father decided he had information worth sharing, worth subscribing to. He never saw the usefulness of 140 characters to let other people know that one was on one's way to work, that the supermarket had run out of grapes, or that they'd just discovered that their cat was the world's grumpiest (image attached), but in the months before his death he did receive support and was able to vent or just distract himself by posting messages and responding to others on a different social platform. My mother most likely won't set up an account on any type of social medium, but she has in the meantime discovered the many informational wonders of the world wide web, and the ease of communicating with distant relatives through e-mails and videochat.

Me, the product of these two, I couldn't bear to be without my laptop for very long. I'm a (book) translator, which means that the computer is a necessity for work, but it has also become a necessity in my down-time, for photos, for blogs, for writing. For endlessly surfing the Net, consuming whatever small and useless factoids happen to catch my eye when clicking from one page to the next when I'm supposed to be working. Distraction is never far away, even when the browser window is initially opened in order to visit a proper dictionary online.

Still, all the manners in which I use my Machine is nothing compared to the ease with which my children are already able to play and learn with tablet computers, on which they'll eventually do their homework, looking up quizzically at an old fountain pen I've rediscovered in an old moving box. It can be put away in the drawer containing a roll of film, a few cassette tapes (and the bic pen that goes with it) and my old walkman, which are all stashed away for 'later', together with the heavy typewriter; keepsakes in case the children will ever want to know more about technology in the age of their dinosaur parents.

* * *

The year 2000 has come and gone, and even though we're not hovering to and from work in our private, fully automated hoverships, we have come a long way. Flatscreen tv's are being replaced by semi-circular screens that connect to the internet, and as such, to all your other home devices. Fridges will no doubt soon be able to keep an inventory of everything inside, issue warnings when food is about to spoil (well, sooner than that would be even more useful) and be able to answer the conundrum of What Shall We Have For Dinner Today? by providing a recipe matching the foodstuffs available inside, and sending you a shopping list for any missing ingredients to your smartphone, so that you can pick them up on your way home from work - the supermarket bot will, of course, have made sure your order is ready for pick-up on time.

* * *

Dinner's ready. Dad walks into the kitchen and sniffs appreciatively. 'Mmm, that smells absolutely delicious.' He turns and calls out: 'Kiiiids! Dinner's ready!' And within minutes all three file into the kitchen, one with earbuds in, the other carrying a tablet and the third giggling at something her best friend just apped her.

They help set the table and they each take their own seat. At dad's nod, the Devices are put down, but not away, never further than an arm's length from their owner. After a few bites, the smartphone pings. Daughter glances at the screen and, mouth full, makes an apologetic hand gesture that signifies: sorry, peeps, I really have to get this, it's important.

Before long Dad's reading the latest newsfeeds, while Teenage Daughter is eating with one hand and typing chat messages with the other. Son is staring at a video clip – which is either a music vid, a hilarious blooper, a cat video or Something That Just Went Viral. Mom is trying to find out what everyone's been up to today – How was work, dear? How was school, darling? How did you do on your test, sweetheart? – but everyone is too busy to even notice that they're trying a new recipe tonight.

'I guess I'd better just app, text and e-mail you these questions next time,' Mum grumbles.

* * *

All right, all right. That previous scene was not only hugely stereotypical, but pessimistic too, and I realise it's making me sound like my parents when I was young. (That happens, you know. It's a historic fact, there's no escaping it. You can have all the smartphones and virtual glasses you can imagine, you're still going to sound like one of your folks at some point. Just wait for it.) But it's true, in a way. For all the upsides of having your life made easier and more convenient, there is the downside of coming to rely on all your daily devices a little too much.

That friend's phone number, your niece's birthday, the new address for the neighbours that've moved – everything is stored on a cell phone, tablet, memory card, or some other device. Most people can't even remember their own mobile number, because hey, when do they ever need to call themselves? And besides, all they need to know is right here... tap tap on a coat or trouser pocket, purse or handbag>;;;.

It's true for more than that. Remember when you had 'this song' stuck in your head for days before you were able to figure out which Eurodance group it was, or what the song was even called? Now, all you need is to search a few of the lyrics, and you can play an entire video clip right away. Don't remember the lyrics? There's probably an app you can hum the tune to, so that it can check your harmonious efforts against several databases.

How about the capital of Zimbabwe, Switzerland or New York State, for that matter? Normally, your brain cells would be working overtime in the background to dig up the information that's stashed away in some old, dusty filing cabinet of facts until, three days later, you figured out – all by yourself – that the answer to at least one of those was Albany (and you'd feel darned proud of it, too!) Nowadays, all you need is a device, an internet connection and three seconds later, Harare, Bern and Albany are at your fingertips, including flags, population statistics and a link to Book Your Holiday Now! (P.S. In searching Switzerland just for the fun of it, I did just Wiki-learn why the abbreviation on the bumper sticker is CH rather than anything recognisable, so, like I said, it's not all bad.)

But I was going somewhere else with this: I'm starting to worry that my 'little grey cells' are getting lazy with that little to do. (Because the likelihood that I'll actually remember what the CH as a national abbreviation for Switzerland means is relatively small. I can always look it up again, should the curiosity rearrise.)

The thing is, I like being able to remember what the capital of Kentucky is – a long time ago I taught myself the names and capitals of all states, since they skipped that continent in school (and I found it more interesting than Africa, which was on the programme). It's bad enough that it takes ages to drag all that stuff to the surface – the countries and capitals they did teach us, how to ask for more than where the loo is in French, how to conjugate Latin verbs, how to calculate the standard deviation. Most of that is buried under so much brain dust because I haven't used or needed it, that it seems impossible to clear the cobwebs without a refresher course.

And that's just songs and capitals, or actors whose face looks familiar (but what show or movie was that?). What about people who need reminders to take medication? Who rely on their devices to be their brain when it comes to remembering all their meetings? One faulty battery, and they're at their wit's end. People who blindly use their satnavs to end up in the middle of some farmer's field, because roads have changed or the computer saw a strange name or typo and automatically assumed you meant something else instead, or perhaps you ever so slightly touched the screen, changing your destination without knowing it, so that you're in front of the building where you took a meeting last week, rather than with the important client that's impatiently tapping his foot right that very minute three cities over?

Rambling. Sorry, a creative mind can do that – go off on a tangent, I mean. I'm not saying your smartphone, intelligent watch or ingenious pair of glasses is going to go all Asimov on you. I am saying, however, that many people have stopped using their brain for even the simplest tasks because some app or pre-programmed device can take care of it. That, in my mind, is at least one of the bad-case-scenarios. Not The Machines taking over and telling people what to do, but people turning into mindless zombies as soon as The Machines have stopped telling them what they're supposed to be doing.