Quofda asks today ‘What one piece of technology can you not live without?’. My first thought went to my Macbook pro for obvious reasons. Although after a little more thought I came to realise the one piece of technology would be my net connection. Whilst it’s not what most people think of when they think of technology - usually it’s some gadget or gizmo and if you want to be thinking in that way lets make it my router. The net though is the single most important technology in my life.
Homer Simpson’s love of cable has nothing on me
Whilst I have yet to be found stroking my net cable with fond love all day, I am fully aware that although to me it is passive until it breaks and then I’m less than passive. My net connection not only brings my living but it also brings my entertainment and play. I probably have some form of net ‘on’ every hour of the waking day and even if I’m not at home I have my iPhone to hook in with.
On realising your career didn’t exist a short time ago
Whilst most people have roots in their career if you work on the web you really can only look a short while back to see where the origins of your career came from. I’ve often thought what would I have done if the web hadn’t been about. When I started out choosing a career path it didn’t. As I left studying art though it was starting to brew and I could look to train with a handful of courses in it. Before maybe I’d have been a graphic designer, engineer, teach art or have followed through with studying psychology - I honestly don’t really know though as if you take actual computers out of the mix, I really find it hard to think what I’d do if my current career path wasn’t an option.
A world without the web?
If you take a doomsday approach I admit I get a little concerned, you see I really haven’t the foggiest what I’d do if I wasn’t in my current career. All the options I listed really don’t have such an appeal to me as what I do now and none seem to ‘fit’. I don’t have any ‘doomsday net blows up’ plan of action. Maybe I should? Are we all being complacent thinking the net will be here for all time in some evolved form? I can’t really answer that and think it’s perhaps a little alarmist to fixate on for too long. There is always someone shouting about bubbles bursting but the fact is the net crawls along bubble or not.
There are those though who aren’t online, I actually know a few people who don’t even have internet access and a few more who do but clock up maybe a hour or so a week if that. There are more and more parts of the world ‘turning on’ but there still exists a digital divide that you have to take note of. Over time of course this will narrow but we’re certainly not there yet with everyone having the same access and those of us in the industry find it hard to look over our navels and acknowledge this sometimes.
The silent enabler
The net really is one of those silent things that enables so many of us to interact, work and play. We have the social web, we have the professional web, we have online gaming, we have so many ways we use the web to live now. You check your banking online, letters are more and more a rarity with email or instant messaging as the more common forms of communication, we even file our taxes online and do our shopping online. If I think about the off line against online activities I do the online has far more in it. I’m not going to go into if this is a bad thing or not as obviously as I’m happy with my life I don’t see it as a bad thing - I still get out in the world and have a off line life it’s just not as much as my online one partially due to the nature of my career. The net threads through my daily activities enabling me to do so many things.