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Is technology where it's at?
In the US, there is a current discussion about a presidential candidate who apparently doesn't know how to used email. The question raises an interesting point.
Without going into the politics of the whole thing, which is a subject much better suited for other blogs, let's just look at the question of whether or not it is vital to be technologically integrated in this day and age.
If a person is, let's say over 50, is it vital that they get a computer and get into the internet age? I say no. I am not even convinced that the young should be totally immersed in it. Knowing how it works and understanding it is one thing, but for some of us, we would be better served to "just say no". For many more of us, we would be well served to limit our exposure.
I am not even talking about the renowned sinful temptations and cyberdangers of the internet. I am just talking about wasting our precious time in the pursuit of "efficiency."
You see, there are things that computers speed up in a terrifically dramatic way. There are other ways it just doesn't live up to its promise. We need to be wise and discern between them.
Like the Mennonite and Amish communities, perhaps we would be well served to take a long hard look at what technology brings us and adapt only that which we are really ready to deal with and which serves us in an overall sense.
For some of us, that might mean not having a computer a home. For others, it might mean having an aggressive filter for our internet access. For others, it might mean checking our email only once daily. For others, it might be a decision to use a hand plane instead of a CNC machine.
The fact is the internet brings the world to our desktop. We should ask ourselves if we really want it there.
The longer I'm involved with computers and the rampant use (and users) of technology, the more I want to walk away from it all.
People forget that computers (and technology) are tools, and not a solution. Use of e-mail, Google, and other online resources is noted to change people's thought processes and patterns (not to mention drastically shorten their span of... what was I talking about?)
Besides, I'd hazard a guess that the President doesn't sit down and read his e-mail until after it has been filtered through at least one other person (if not several). I'd say the candidate is better off avoiding e-mail. It's not like it's going to change how he runs the country.
There is a difference between being a sole practitioner and the president. You can wallow in self-absorption as much as you like.
In the latter case however information (accurate actionable intelligence)is the most important commodity and if you cannot get it or are too incurious or so certain that you do not need it.... then the rest of us deserve a pitbull with lipstick to be "the most powerful man in the world."
There may be political hay to be made from this (or not), but that is not what interests me for the purposes of this article.
I didn't intend for this article to be about the presidential candidates understanding or use of technology, but rather about the rest of us. I'm afraid the point may have been lost. Perhaps I should have chosen another starting point for the article.
I consider myself to be pretty technically literate. I don't mean that I am a guru, I just mean that in my circles of friends, I usually am by far the most technically literate of the group, at least as far as computers and the internet go.
For example, I use Linux. I am fairly comfortable working from it's command line on a remote server. I understand the difference between Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Slackware, Arch Linux, Fedora, CentOS, Red Hat, OpenSuse, and so forth. I know what people are talking about when they refer to scripting the DOM, javascript, PHP, mysql, html, xhtml, xml, the semantic web, the difference between web 1 and Web 2, a scripted language and a compiled language, and so forth.
And yes, there are days when I wish it wasn't so. There are days when I would rather just hole up with my hand tools and forget that the 20th and 21st century ever existed.
When that happens, I just go to my computer and start blogging about it. ;-)
Hi all - You know what? I love working with tools whose designs largely predate the 19th century, but I SURELY wouldn't have been able to dive into using them as readily if I didn't have all the internet content out there to learn how to use them. Youtube, weblogs, this site, etc. Very powerful technologies to gather information on techniques materials, and tools. It's a boon for tinkerers like me!
And the technology is vastly more transparent these days than it was even a few years ago...hopefully the trend will improve. I hope to see more people who haven't had much internet experience get involved in web-logging and commentary. I say yes to it all.
How ironically true that the internet has indeed greatly facilitated the revival of 18th and 19th century traditions.