— — I’m deep in the 21st century and I’m glad I lived this long.

Technology has filtered down to my level. We’ve begun figuring out the capabilities of all those computers we’ve purchased (then junked and bought improved versions). All that stuff designed for nuclear war and outer space maneuvers have percolated downward, into my home, into my pocket.

Which is why, when I walk away from my car without checking the door handles, but hear that reassuring chirp from the car key that the doors are locked, I mutter to myself, “I love the 21st century.”

It was in a hospital room recently, surrounded by beeping right-here-right-now medical hookups and readouts even a patient could comprehend, that a young man (a Kenmore West High School freshman, he told me) explained the Village of Kenmore was an early adopter of Verizon FiOS technology, as well as the latest incarnation of cellular wireless standards known as “4G.” Why Kenmore was chosen as a rollout point is beyond me, but that’s the sort of thing with which a future historian can grapple.

And if the young man ever needs prescription medicine? There are websites galore, these days, to explain what he’s ingesting.

You do not need me to explain the myriad advancements to you. They’re noticeable when you buy a smartphone and observe it did not come with an instruction manual. Just begin messing with it; it’s intuitive, it’s adaptable. You’ll figure it out. It’ll figure you out. Remarkable.

It’s also the reason the phrase “lifelong learning” has entered the vocabulary. We’ve built a society in which destructive improvement is the norm, and that includes people, careers and futures. Think of everything you’ve learned, on any marketable specialty, that’s now obsolete. Think about a person who leaves his or her chosen profession for a few years, and what has to be learned, relearned or forgotten. Picking up one’s game, looking for places to apply skill sets, is not just for overachievers these days. And it often means that when you’re on the job, you’re on the job 24/7, you and your sundry technological connections.

He not busy being born is busy dying, Bob Dylan wrote in 1965, a long time ago, and boy, was he one prescient little bellwether on that one. (That’s the year the prominent folkie strapped on an electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival, alienating pretty much everyone in attendance but pointing the way. Even he knew something about the value of technology back then.)

The 21st century is a busy place. It’s why ordinary citizens need office supply stores. That reassuring little fanfare from the car key means more than “your doors are locked.”  It’s also an aural cue to concern yourself with something other than your car.

This is the sort of thing occurs that to me when I palm the little phone in my pocket, the modest and already obsolete device (the newer ones talk, in English, when information is accessed) that keeps me plugged into life, keeps my life plugged into the world, encourages me to look stuff up so that “I dunno” is never an option and also makes and takes phone calls. If they put a bottle opener on this thing, it’d be ...

Of course, there are downsides to all of this, plenty of them. I witnessed a misplaced application of available technology at a Kenmore CVS the other day.

I espied the Justin Bieber Singing Toothbrush, which is evidently a device to hear a tune by young Mr. Bieber while brushing one’s teeth. Toothpaste on one end, a tiny speaker on the other. Hit the button while scrubbing those molars and Bieber’s voice fills not necessarily the room, but the space around the brusher’s face.

While I lack the qualifications to judge Mr. Bieber’s toothbrush oeuvre, I find this a jarring use of science.  Envision the family bathroom with a glass full of singing toothbrushes, purchased not for size, grade, bristle strength or even on price, but on artistic preference. (All right, I occasionally can be seen wearing a Dora the Explorer Band-Aid, instead of the traditional ecru color, but that’s merely my wound’s fashion statement.)

A tiled echo chamber of a bathroom and toothbrushes for every musical style. One by Beyonce, perhaps. Brad Paisley and, yeah, Bieber. Arcade Fire. Maybe Tony Bennett. This could get clamorous, but technological noise pollution is a topic for another day.

Ed Adamczyk is a Kenmore resident whose column appears every Friday in the Tonawanda News. Contact him at EdinKenmore@gmail.com.