I’m not an incredibly technical person, or at least until recently I have never thought of myself as such. I work at a software company, and over the course of my six years there, I have definitely learned a lot about computers—by trial and error, by reading help files and other user documentation, and by asking questions that may or may not make me look stupid to the people who know the answers.
I LOVE technology. I love my cell phone, and can’t live without it. If I leave it at home on a run to the grocery store, I feel like I have to go home and get it. I love my computer, and even though I work on it all day, I go home and turn it on again, so I can surf the web or watch t.v. online. I love writing a blog, and reading the blogs of friends and strangers. I would feel lost without the ability to search for something at the drop of a hat. I even love the fact that “Google” has become a commonly used verb in our vernacular (even though usually I am a stickler for correct grammar).
Since I joined Facebook, I’ve seen a change in my relationships with both people I haven’t spoken to in years, and people I see every day. People I’ve met once or twice are more quickly engrained into my social circle, and people I haven’t thought about for years have become good friends again. Even the relationships with people I see or talk to every day have an added dynamic—reading people’s status updates, and seeing the comments and messages other people leave for them opens a window into someone’s life that you would most likely never experience—all with the dialog on the wide, wide, world of web.
At work, I learn something new every day about the capabilities of the personal computer, or some new way to technologically organize your life (check out Life Hacker for ways you never imagined using technology to simplify your existence). I’ve learned things about programming languages, and databases, and increasing usability in interface design. Do I sound like a nerd? I prefer email over letters or cards, text messages over phone calls, instant messaging over getting up and walking down the hall to talk to someone.
Being a nerd used to be a bad thing (remember all those teen movies where the nerd is transformed into a cool kid?) but these days, nerds are in high demand. Having the best and most up-to-date gadgets makes you more desirable, not less. Knowing how to fix a boot loop in your home PC, or how to write in HTML makes you marketable (both in the working world AND in your personal life).
I watched these videos the other day at the request of a friend, and I wasn’t sorry. The first is a short video about what Web 2.0 is, and the second (and much longer) is a presentation by a professor from K-State, who is studying the anthropology of this brave new world being created by Web 2.0. It’s a new term to me. It means that the internet is no longer just a viewer for information someone else has placed online—it’s a community, a culture, an interactive, necessary experience.
I want everyone I know to be my friend on Facebook. Sure it’s no substitute for actual human interaction, but I wouldn’t say it is LESS important…adding that dynamic of virtual interaction has made my relationships more interesting. I’m working on getting my parents to join up…we’ll see if they do.
So I’m not as technologically savvy as most of the people I know here at work, and I don’t claim to know much of anything about all this new stuff, but it excites and intrigues me, so I want you to feel that way, too. Let me know what you think about the videos.
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