Personal Blog of Rob Sayers

Will Technology ever pass us by?

Note: This is an old post from 2009 that has been imported recently

I recently had an interesting discussion with a friend of mine about technology.

We are both from Gen Y and microcomputers were already invading homes before we were born. We've grown up with them and their integration into our lives has been fairly natural.

In contrast, many from older generations have never fully embraced computers and view it as a necessary evil forced on them by a world which has changed despite their protest. Mind you, I'm not stating everyone over a certain age has technophobia, but I think we all know at least a few people who resent the fact that may familiar aspects of their lives were complicated by computers.

Will the younger crowd, GenX, GenY, etc ever feel the same way in the future? Will we ever reach a point where we wish things would just stay the way they are? I suspect that as we grew up in a rapidly advancing world, we may be immune to this. The only constant in our lives has been change and I often find myself frustrated when certain aspects of life are not yet as computerized as I feel they should be.

For better or worse, I and many of my peers would rather avoid dealing with a human for most tasks.

While It is promising to think we will be comfortable on the cutting edge of technology into our elderly years; my friend made one good counter-point. While most people I know tend to converse in complete sentences with more-or-less proper grammar, today’s teens have essentially created an entirely new language to use over SMS.

I dislike reading this sort of text and dismiss it as something people will grow out of, but why should they?

While not at all correct English, it is certainly more efficient and still offers an effective form of communication. By that description alone it sounds like progress, but my brain refuses to accept it.

So are we destined to wish things were the way they were in the good ole days of computing? Or will we be the ones the march to the beat of progress well after retirement?