I entered the 21st century, finally, by purchasing an iPad. My phone is dumb, so this mini-computer was so foreign to me that I needed a how-to-use course. Before I left the store, my fingerprint was read and memorized by the tablet for my protection and privacy.

The Atlantic magazine, March 16, 2015, noted that in the future we’ll all be purchasing items via retinal scans. It suggested that wallets will be sitting in display cases in museums, and part of our eye, unchanged by aging, will allow very personal identification. (My wallet, with its driver’s license, car registration, health insurance numbers, cash, coins, credit cards, and a small paper with medication-allergies, hasn’t fallen apart from years of use!)

I don’t know what opthamologist read the copy and wanted to insert growing old can affect the eye – just ask cataract patients. Once a cataract is removed, a man-made lens is inserted into the eye. So, the once super-reflex camera becomes a Brownie as an artificial lens can’t change from near to far or vice versa. Then there may be retina problems that show up from former eye injuries or just, perhaps, the way some people age. A bright light needed for retinal identification could mean pain – and not the emotional kind.

Smartphones, with fingerprint identification to just open the phone, have run into difficulties in many cases, but why consider tossing that out for an eyeball? I’ve a “dumbphone” about the size of a matchbook, that’s cute, does what I need, has no internet nor much of anything except be a tiny telephone. So far, my fingerprints had only been recorded during World War II when all New York City schoolchildren had to have that done, and were given a plastic ID tag to wear around our necks. My plastic tag is in a museum now, but I can’t ever imagine my wallet sitting on the same shelf. The fingerprinting was done at a local candy store, and I did get a paper strip of sugar dots (a candy I loved) for a penny after rolling my digits in yucky ink. And I thought it was special being printed.

Okay. My 2016 introduction to technology memorized my fingerprint, but, actually opens with a four-digit passcode as too often the “can’t read try again” shows up when I put my digit on the reader. And only one fingerprint got imbedded in the machine; the World War II inky stuff used all my digits!

Buying: My husband and I paid cash for purchases, wrote out checks for rent. After 11 years, when we tried to get a mortgage to have a house built, we were told we had no credit rating and several banks refused. Not owing money worked against us. We got our first credit card and it didn’t feel different from Monopoly money – and way too easy to buy and then think, like at the grocery. My supermarket knows everything I buy via its courtesy card that offers store discounts on some items to holders of that special plastic with the store’s name. Not much is private anymore.

I’ve gotten used to credit cards, aware of but can’t do much about identity theft, and have little control of automatic deposits. I’ve refused a debit card as just the “sum owed” phrase goes against my upbringing. But now my cards are to be mobile phone apps!

Identity another way: Seems there’s a name already: RFID tags. Am I ready for a chip to be implanted, since my retina is of no use, to eventually get me in and out of places? Will the chip be recalled like some hip implants have been in the last few years? When I go through an MRI with an ID chip, will it set the machine into a spin or erase all the information as the magnets would with my credit cards?

The present has a Dick Tracy feel, and the current "smart" watch is right out of that past. But how come the future can’t easily blitz a cataract without having the patient lose the ability to see both near and far without glasses? How will eliminating keys, cash, or saving the planet by removing credit cards be a milestone in technology?

Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet’s work has been included in hard and soft-cover book anthologies. Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including 12 different divisions of The Smithsonian.