I used to be amazed by what I thought the rate of change in our culture was. If you spend much time online it seems as if it is a different kind of reality, where things happen much, much faster. But, as I started to think about it, I realized that the real changes in our culture happen a bit more slowly (albeit much faster than even…thirty years ago).
An example of what I am talking about would be how most people now are aware of a number of new words and concepts…but not necessarily knowledgeable as to what they really mean. Twenty years ago the act of backing up data seems to have been relegates to those of us who wrote code, now many people are aware of what this means, and some are even aware of what losing data could mean to them.
It’s just that they haven’t lost data yet, and probably haven’t given any serious thought as to what they should do. This would seem to create an implication that many people don’t see the computer/internet world as part of their reality… (OK, it’s just a guess of mine…).
I recall in the mid 1990’s, where my Mom asked me “what does Chevrolet.com mean?” Now, URL’s are ubiquitous, everyone knows what they are…or do they?
These thoughts seem to circumscribe some thoughts I have been mulling lately. It seems (ironically enough) that the more technologically advanced out culture gets, the less the average person needs to really know about it (i.e. to understand the technology).
Only a generation ago, this started. When my Dad was young, many people who owned cars knew how to personally take care of their car’s maintenance. When I was in high school these skills were relegated to those who took metal shop, and worked on their own cars (as a hobby). I know that talking about cars in the USA can quickly take a turn into discussion of the underlying psychology of what it means to have a car (etc. ad nauseum), but here I am only using this as an example to show how we have slowly been weaned from getting our hands dirty with technology.
I find this interesting to think about, but there are some niggling perspectives about this which I think are worrisome. You could say that the Roman Empire was based upon military and political power, as they ceded these things to others they lost the empire. The USA (and western culture in a general sense) is based on technology… It isn’t about whom the knowledge is being ceded to; we are losing knowledge either way…
There you have my latest thoughts…Bear in mind that this is really a question, not an answer, this isn’t really so much a diatribe as a poser…
