Back when I was in Junior High School
in the early 1970’s, my father bought our first hand-help calculator. It was a
Texas Instruments TI-2500 Datamath, and I remember it cost about $60. That is
equivalent to about $350 in 2019 dollars, so purchasing it was no small thing. It
was not something every family could afford. It was a novelty and I thought it
was so cool that we now had a “computer” (yes, that’s what we called it). I
actually still have that old TI-2500 Datamath and it is pictured here. Within a
few years, new companies were making calculators. The price dropped like a rock,
and soon everyone had one. I even bought one with my own money to use in my
high school chemistry class. I think it cost about $6 and did twice as much as
our old $60 one did. The novelty was gone.
Around the same time digital watches
were coming on the scene. Like the calculator, digital watches quickly dropped
in price to where they were affordable and everyone had to have one. Douglas
Adams in his wonderful novel “The Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy” noted that earthlings were
looked down upon by other races because humans still thought digital watches were a really neat idea.
As calculators became affordable,
detractors started popping up. The arguement went something like this: kids won't learn how to do
math if all they have to do is push a button. It will be the downfall of
civilization. Other detractors came out against digital watches. If the watch
just tell us the time, then kids will never learn how to read a clock. How will
they ever learn the concept of “clockwise” and “counterclockwise?” It will be
the downfall of civilization.
Well, all this time later, I think most
kids still come out of school able to do basic math. And while digital watches and
clocks are still around, they never really supplanted the standard clock
face. Civilization has survived.
Over the years other innovations have
come out that have had some observers worried about our existence: the personal
computer, video games, the internet, Facebook, the iPhone/iPad. I will admit
that sometimes civilization seems a bit frayed at the edges, but so far we have
survived. Let’s not forget that the same kind of detractors railed against television
and even radio when they first came out. For that matter, I have no doubt that there were some ancient Greeks and Romans who thought that theater would be the downfall of humanity.
It is true that all new technology
needs to be used judiciously and responsibly: you shouldn’t use a video game as
your babysitter. All new devices and applications have the capacity for abuse. I
think the big rush to develop self-driving cars is because too many drivers can’t
be bothered to put their smart phones down. But we should not fear new
technology just because it is new. The next big new thing will come, and the
next, and the next. Last decade’s science fiction is this decade’s commonplace
device. People don’t like change, but we live in a world where change is
constant. So learn to adapt.
But seriously, if you are driving . .
. Put your [expletive deleted] iPhone down.
(My novel Star Liner, is now available as an
ebook through Copypastapublishing.com, Amazon, or the other usual online
sources. For those who like to turn physical pages, the paperback will be out
soon).
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