Analog People in a Digital World

My wife and I were talking about some app or other the other day, and we were commenting about how we didn’t fully understand how to do whatever it was we were trying to do, and I said that we were analog people living in a digital world. How did this come to be? Surely it was not always so. We are both participants in social media. My job relies on tech. I work at a computer and have to master several kinds of software to do my work. I was an early user of the personal computer, and understood PCs fairly well . . . in the 1990’s.

But the world moved on. Computers improved on at an exponential pace. It was no longer so easy to diagnose and fix thing when the hardware or software did unexpected things. I used to know how much memory, how much speed you needed to have a system with average competence. My knowledge of those numbers went out the window sometime in the 2000’s and I had to start relying on software specifications to tell me what I needed. Now they are just numbers, abstractions. In today’s world you don’t remain an expert forever. Things change too quickly. But that’s okay. Change is a part of life, right? It was true during the industrial revolution as it is during the computer revolution. You learn to adapt to the things you can, and cede the things you can’t to the next generation of experts, who will in turn find their own challenges in the world to come.

Side note: Do you remember 5 ¼ inch floppy discs? Not unless you are as old as I am. Those floppy discs were actually floppy. They were replaced by 3 ½ inch floppy discs (that were not actually floppy) which were in turn replaced by thumb drives, which we still have. Maybe thumb drives will stick around for a while.

If I really wanted to, I could study up on hardware and software, reexpertize myself, at least enough to not make glaring faux pas. But the pace of change seems rather exhaustive. I am content being an expert at the things I am an expert at, and not trying to do more. And if you are laughing at my antiquated computer skills I can only say, just wait. You’ll see.

Star Liner

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