There once was a time when I was the king of the techno-uber geeks. I was an early adopter in every sense of the word when it came to all things technological. Always had the latest in computers, PDAs, fun computer games, you name it. I was master of my technological domain and I knew it. I walked with a confident swagger of a man who had beaten dozens of Nintendo NES games – from Metroid to Life Force to both Tecmo Bowl editions.
Yet, something has been happening in the last 10 years that I can’t quite define, but the end result is I’m becoming more and more luddite as I age. Or maybe it’s just that my passion for technology has leveled off in the late ‘90s level of gadgetry. I still love web surfing, email, and playing my NES (I can still dominate a Tecmo Bowl season from start to finish) and Civilization. However, most of the stuff coming out these days doesn’t interest me. All the first person-shooter games bore me, I have no interest in instant messaging or text messaging, and I rarely use my cell phone for anything other than placing or receiving calls.
While this may seem innocuous enough, this is an ominous trend. What if I never evolve past 1990’s technology? What if I never get into the Cy-borg hipster movement when it hits in the 2010’s? What if I don’t have my consciousness transferred onto a computer chip before I’m 90? Will I become a mid-21st century equivalent of the Amish? Will I refuse to let people take holo-replicas if my face for fear it will “steal my soul”? I can see myself living in a cave in the woods with my cable modem, emailing on my desktop computer, using my Palm Pilot to keep names and contact info, listening to my iPod and driving to the grocery store while the rest of the world lives in bubbles under the ocean with their 4th-Gen wi-fi networks beaming information from the web directly into their brains and running down to the local Wal-Earth in their flying cars to buy sanitized (“guaranteed mad-cow free”) meat paste in tubes.
Yeesh…maybe this isn’t a bad thing.
Yet, something has been happening in the last 10 years that I can’t quite define, but the end result is I’m becoming more and more luddite as I age. Or maybe it’s just that my passion for technology has leveled off in the late ‘90s level of gadgetry. I still love web surfing, email, and playing my NES (I can still dominate a Tecmo Bowl season from start to finish) and Civilization. However, most of the stuff coming out these days doesn’t interest me. All the first person-shooter games bore me, I have no interest in instant messaging or text messaging, and I rarely use my cell phone for anything other than placing or receiving calls.
While this may seem innocuous enough, this is an ominous trend. What if I never evolve past 1990’s technology? What if I never get into the Cy-borg hipster movement when it hits in the 2010’s? What if I don’t have my consciousness transferred onto a computer chip before I’m 90? Will I become a mid-21st century equivalent of the Amish? Will I refuse to let people take holo-replicas if my face for fear it will “steal my soul”? I can see myself living in a cave in the woods with my cable modem, emailing on my desktop computer, using my Palm Pilot to keep names and contact info, listening to my iPod and driving to the grocery store while the rest of the world lives in bubbles under the ocean with their 4th-Gen wi-fi networks beaming information from the web directly into their brains and running down to the local Wal-Earth in their flying cars to buy sanitized (“guaranteed mad-cow free”) meat paste in tubes.
Yeesh…maybe this isn’t a bad thing.
Comments
For me, the height of video gaming was the Super NES - technology that could probably fit in my two-year-old cell phone. In fact, if anyone knows how I could download Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past for my Nokia, I would kiss you on the lips.
It's shameful, really.
So, most of the time I just put my presentations in Word because nobody can tell the difference anyway.