Boomers living through the Technology Boom. Could we do without?
Posted by Kirk M on 25 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: Reflections, Times a changing
Rhea of the Boomer Chronicles put up a rather thought provoking post about how she’s outlived a lot of computer technology and since we’re both around the same age, I had to sit and ponder about this for a bit. Then I left a rather long comment (who me?) that reflected these pondering’s of mine which I’ll post here as well…
I remember my grandfather taking me to where he worked setting type into a Linotype machine. I was only 4 or 5 at the time but I was fascinated with machines from day one (almost) and the memory is still clear as a bell. I swear I remember thinking what a lousy way of doing things that was.
Funny how it seems I think the same thing about how I used to do things when I first started out in computers (1977). I’ve had experience with card punchers and readers, paper tape readers and writers, magnetic tape drives, early hard drives where the disk spins in an open air drawer with hydraulically actuated heads, hard drives with stacked, 2 foot wide platters spun by synchro motors the size of industrial furnace blower motors and still I think what a lousy way of doing things that was.
Displays embedded in contact lenses, micro computers on a chip connected to your brain, computer tables where the entire surface is a touch screen yet you can eat off of it, our grown children/grandchildren telling their friends that their parents actually had to drive their car…
Whatever is in store for us as far as the world of computers, electronics, the WWW and the Internet that it rides within I hope I never grow too old to keep up with it.
Then I got to pondering some more. I wondered how many folks between the ages of say 45 to 60 feel the same way? That we’re actually the only generation that grew up into adulthood well before any type of "Personal Computer" was ever thought of yet lived through the advent and subsequent evolution of said computer and associated electronics to where the majority of us couldn’t envision a life without them. I think I can now understand what it must have felt like for the folks that spent half their lives using a horse and buggy and the other half of their lives using a car with the possible exception that most of those folks could always go back to using the horse and buggy when the car broke down now couldn’t they? Perhaps we don’t even have that advantage?
Make sure you read Rhea’s post and take a good look back at what you knew before and then think about what life might be like if we suddenly had to do without our current "technology". Here’s a few points to ponder:
Could you go back to:
- Using the library for your research projects.
- Trusting to newspapers, radio and television for all your news.
- Using the postal service and the telephone for all your communication.
- Applying for anything by obtaining and filling out a paper form.
- Using paper, word of mouth, inter-office mail and postal mail to run your business.
- Having to do all your merchandise ordering from an old style paper catalogue.
- Having hospitals, government agencies, etc having to do things the "old fashioned way".
Kind of a scary proposition isn’t it? And I know all too well that I wouldn’t like it one bit. What about you?
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2 Comments »
on 26 Jan 2008 at 3:13 pm 1.John Hunter said …
Doing without the internet would be horrible. Many other technology innovations are also nice but doing without the internet would drive me crazy now. Most tech gadgets I could do without if necessary - iPods, cell phones, gps devices, digital cameras… They are nice - the internet is great.
on 26 Jan 2008 at 4:16 pm 2.KirkM said …
John,
I actually don’t have any of those other gadgets except for my old digital camera which I’d hate to be without. I’d despise being without the Internet. It would make blogging a whole heck of a lot harder.