Technology - the best or worst of our existence?
By Mona Mattei
Ever wonder about the whole computer technology world? I don’t mean the technology itself and keeping up to date on the new, improved stuff available – that would be overwhelming. Just this week Apple introduced it’s iPad – a tablet style notebook computer that will likely be all the rage.
No, I’m talking about us poor users who were told, in the early ‘80s – that computers were going to save us time. Well, so far I think it has failed to accomplish that. I don’t know about you, but I find myself spending far too many hours fighting with my computer.
Ah, yes, the internet is a blessing, after all I am earning my living on the net, but it’s also a curse. What happens when your computer stops talking to the net? Lately, my router is deciding to randomly crash and I have to reboot it sometimes as often as four times a day.
Then there is the software installed. We recently updated to Windows 7 which is promoted as easy to use and very stable as far as programs go. Sure, but now my printer doesn’t work.
With every update there’s learning involved, changes to adjust to, and problems that come up. I’m not a techie, but thank heaven I can handle as much as I do otherwise the bills for support would be through the roof!
So, back to the time savings. Yes, we’re able to do things we never could before. Keep an address book and link it to Word to produce envelopes – secretaries have saved huge amounts of time. But for every hour saved, there’s an hour of sorting things out that goes on behind it. And by the time we learn how to handle the programs we have, there’s an update!
I do love it though, even if I sound a bit whiney today. I like the challenge in some warped way. But I’m not sold that computers have saved us from endless hours of work. Instead they’ve created a whole new industry. Great for the economy and job creation, not so great for our parents who don’t want to get involved with the complicated world of technical problems. My mother-in-law loves me – just call Mona when the electronics are out of wack she’ll solve it!
But then again there’s a whole crowd out there who are eating it up faster than I can blink. A younger generation who float through the digital world on clouds. My hat goes off to you tech junkies – have fun and stop by anytime to fix my system!
