I heard it again this week, “How do you keep up with all of this?”
It’s a common refrain whenever I present a new program, online service, or piece of hardware. While it’s flattering to be treated as an expert (clearly fooled another one), it’s simultaneously disconcerting. When I hear, “How do you keep up with all this?” I also hear the unstated, “and I have no intention of keeping up with it.”
Another reason I am disturbed by this question is that it reminds me of the truth behind it. I’m not keeping up. While I can see the outline of objects flowing in the rushing river of tech development, I know almost nothing about them. I read teaching and technology blogs and I’m overwhelmed with unfamiliar acronyms and confusing processes. At times I feel like I started the game three turns behind and I’m in a constant struggle to catch up before I’m caught in a web of my own ignorance.
On top of keeping up with news, in starting two separate blogs (and accompanying podcasts) I have created a never-satisfied vacuum for content (not to mention my neglected Facebook page and my daily attempts to say something of value on Twitter). I pined for invitations to Google Voice and Google Wave, but now that I have them, I don’ have time to sort them out (I think that Wave may take me the rest of my life). This morning I received an invitation to participate in the new Twitter Lists program, and I all I could think was, “Great, here’s another tool I’ll feel guilty for not using.
Which brings me back to the questioner. I don’t know how to advise him or her to keep up with technology since I can’t keep up. I know I spend a good portion of every day reading, listening to podcasts and thinking about it, but I doubt that is possible or desirable for many people. I sometimes want to say, “Start 15 years ago and follow the stream up to today, and you’ll still feel overwhelmed.”
We may have been born boomers or GenXers or Millennials, but we are all becoming Generation O’s…Overloaded!
Nice picture of Sisyphus and I too feel overwhelmed at times, yet I keep pushing forward. I also often feel envigorated by the possibilities. Being a little older I take the long view, I see this technology as a wonderful lever to accomplish tasks and have meaningful conversations, but it can also get in the way.
We are so much more productive today because of technology than our peers were 20 or 30 years ago. Posting to a website is as easy as a click of a mouse and social networking is giving a voice to those that choose to harness its power. How we choose to use all this tech says a lot about ourselves.