Feb 29 2024 - Technology Luddites

 

There are numerous articles  that tell me the original tech luddites were skilled machine operators.   "In the early days of the Industrial Revolution, what they objected to were the specific ways that tech was being used to undermine their status, upend their communities and destroy their livelihoods. So they took sledgehammers to the mechanized looms used to exploit them." I had thought of Luddites as in the same classification as Flat Earthers. But that's not the case.  Luddites were protestors with a noble cause.  I can claim confusion because there is a common question being asked today:   "Is it OK to be a Luddite?"  There's a Wired article in which the title is "Everyone is a Luddite Now".  Or what about the new version - "Neo-Luddites".   All of these articles talk about the "good" use of technology as in the original protests vs the bad use.  The very specific area I had been wondering about those people who still haven't learned email or various simple word processing,  spreadsheet and slide show computer programs. I was on a call last evening in which we were dealing with technology issues that arise each meeting for a garden club.  There seems to be issues every meeting.  They point to so many people who don't know how to use their computers and their software. Is it something more serious than disinterest or laziness - something that could be named Technophobia.  Other kinder expressions are technologically changed, or technologically inexperienced.  After 25 years of email availability, can that be the case that a person is still inexperienced.  Can you imagine someone happily boasting that they don't drive a car and know nothing about cars?  An 80 year old in the pharmacy boasted that she didn't use email or online systems to the pharmacist.  This topic of technophobes makes me wonder if this problem will increase and not decrease over time? Is it just the difference between 20th and 21st century technology and the age of people now?  I ask that question because I meet people 10 to 20 years younger than me who are technically inept or disinterested,  This is something I wouldn't have predicted - I guess there are sociological studies out there now looking into this.

White on white orchid from last week's Orchid Show at RBG. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

What's Your This or That?

Need some more entertainment?  Can you imagine that question today?  We are avalanched with entertainment.  Suffocating in a sandpile a mile high of grains of entertainment sand. OK. Here is a simple game:  This or That Questions List.  A game from the past, but this one online has a noticeable  number of tech choices.  These seem inconsequential to me.  Netflix or YouTube is an example.  Or Facebook vs Twitter.  What is the personality preference or identity statement is there in these choices?   Dog or Cat? Netflix or YouTube? Phone Call or Text? Cardio or Weights? Facebook or Twitter? Ice Cream Cone or Snow Cone? iOS or Android? Form or Function? Pop or Indie? Cake or Pie? Swimming or Sunbathing? Big Party or Small Gathering? New Clothes or New Phone? Rich Friend or Loyal Friend? Football or Basketball? Work Hard or Play Hard? So I wondered if there was some discourse on this topic.  I do find the question being asked - at medium.com:   "Tribalism around tech decisions still exists, but feels less and less relevant. Even if your colleagues swear by Windows and you use Mac, chances are you’ll all be working on the same Google Sheet through a web browser. Tech’s maturation in the third millennium has been a force of flattening technological nuance to a point where pretty much everything can do the same things in mostly the same way. So the devices we carry and use for so much of every day end up looking basically the same too." "This increasingly strikes me as peculiar given the other objects we engage with daily. People’s clothes carry a mark of themselves. Their vehicles — from bicycles to Teslas — say something about them. And it’s rare to go to someone else’s house to find an identical print or poster hanging from their wall as the one’s you’ve got at home. When we all clearly have our own tastes and desires to manifest our identities through them, why are we all buying the same tech and using it in the same way?" Yes - there was a time - just past - when choosing Apple was an identity statement.  But now we're farther down the road.  Today this or thatis about which apps are you using and linking?  Things like are you using a different browser than Google such as Dolphin? Or deciding which messenger service to use.  I can see the mountain of apps.  Must-have apps for your iPhone from lifehack.org include: billguard -bank app and spending habits buffer - sends out your social media posts to designated sites such as facebook, twitter, instagram dashlane - saves payment and confirmation info that would be lost in your email fooducate - health app for the grocery store SleepCycle - measures your sleep cycle to adapt your alarm clock Myfitnesspal - looks like a fitbit, well sort of This is the landscape of the questions today.  And our image? Autumn Sumac gives the colour to this motion blur image.