I’m constantly surprised when my luddite friends and family exhibit techie knowledge or show up with techie gadgets.
The other evenning, while at a get together supper in a restaurant, one of them pulled out, albeit last years ipod touch, bought on sale now that the new ipod has been announced. She said she was looking for free Wi-Fi. I didn’t even know she knew what Wi-Fi was. My luddite husband didn’t know what Wi-Fi was until this summer, when we went looking for it while holiday, in the car with my macbook open on my lap.
My friend said she bought the ipod touch for use next spring when they go to Chile. Not just for playing music but for quick access to the web for email, directions to hotels, restaurants, shopping, places of interest and for other touristy advice.
Last week my 83 year old father in law came to visit. he used his new GPS unit to find the shortest route from his home in Victoria BC to our home in the boonies north of Prince George. Upon arrival he wouldn’t get out of his car until he had showed me his new gadget. Except he was a bit upset because his GPS could not find our house. I tried to explain that it took google maps at least a year and a half before it noticed our new house so the GPS software may take even longer. I don’t think he wanted to believe me.
I hope the GPS software never finds our house.
He set the GPS it on his dash board and the voice told him which way to turn. It reminded me of something Nora Young surmised about on her podcast, The sniffer. She wondered if google was making us dumb.
At first I didn’t understand what she meant but soon I began to realize I was using google to find definitions of words as well as their spelling, historical facts, cultural reverences, every damn thing. I realized I wasn’t learning any of it because I know all I had to do is regoogle it.
It seems a little scary.
I’m now forcing myself to reuse my well worn, well loved copy of the Canadian Oxford dictionary. But, what if I can’t find the word I don’t know how to spell in the dictionary. Is it ok to see if the spell checker can figure it out….
2 comments:
Millennia ago, storytellers warned that literacy would ruin people's memories for words.
And it did.
Decades ago, math teachers worried that electronic calculators would sap our ability to do math in our heads or use slide rules.
And they did.
I've always been a mental accumulator of trivia, and maybe Google will make that rarer. I don't think so, but even if it does, maybe all these technologies let our brains do more creative things instead?
hmmn interesting thought
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