Confessions of a Digital Alien

Here’s what I think I know about digital aliens: they are not “quick studies.” In thinking back on what we have done in our 533 class, what takes shape in my mind is a kind of indistinct blur.
We created – in my case, for the first time – a website, a blog, a podcast, a PowerPoint presentation and a wiki. We also worked with Excel 2007, Word 2007 and other software I knew nothing about three months ago.
Before this class started, I didn’t know hypertext, browsers or URLs from a dairy cow. Yet, as much ground as we had to cover, I can honestly say I know much more about the computer and the possibilities it offers than I ever have, and that feels good.
What troubles me is that I’m not sure I could repeat any of the assignments we’ve completed without the same level of instruction that was offered the first time around. In other words, I fear I won’t learn this stuff in a meaningful way until I can be around it on a regular basis.
Then again, the reason that hasn’t happened before now is that I simply haven’t felt compelled to take the time. And part of that, I’m sure, resulted from feeling intimidated by a technology for which I didn’t feel any natural affinity.
I believe the key shortcoming of the digital alien is a lack of curiosity that is based largely on fear. That leads to a failure to do the one thing that brings understanding of a new technology: exploring. With all that we have been exposed to, I hope I have overcome that barrier, at least to some degree.

The Wonders of Technology

On Thursday night, I was in the audience at Theater Theatre on Belmont Street, awaiting the opening night performance of Rick Huddle's new one-man show, "Spent," which is pretty good, by the way.
Like most opening nights, the production was a little late getting underway, and after killing a couple minutes reading the program, I settled in for the show. Directly in front of me was a couple, probably in their late '30s or early '40s. Across the aisle from them was another guy about their age, either a friend or someone with whom they'd struck up an amiable conversation.
He was showing them the features on his cell phone, which looked to me like a fairly advanced model. It was about the size of half a deck of playing cards and its face with covered with touchpoints decorated with icons I probably wouldn't have understood even if I had been able to see them clearly. It looked to me like the guy was explaining to the couple the various functions of the device and they looked on eagerly.
Down the row from them was another, somewhat younger couple, probably in their late '20s. They were a good-looking pair and I judged from the rather formal quality of their body language that this was their first date, or something close to it. In any case, it wasn't long before he had his cell phone out, and something about it was intriguing enough that it formed the basis of a discussion.
Is this, I thought to myself, what technology has given us? (Or taken away?) In the few free minutes these people had before the start of the show, did they have nothing more interesting to talk about than these little machines?
How about: "What's new with you?"
Just a thought.