Transthought

E-Mail and Newer Technology in My Life

My brother turned 76 yesterday and we exchanged communications via E-Mail. I believe E-Mail is here to stay, of course, and use it frequently. Some of my friends insist that it is not acceptable to send birthday greetings, etc., as the primary means of acknowledging such anniversaries, but I find that it works wonders. No one to whom I have sent such has objected and all have responded appreciatively.

It takes a long time for new technology to get accepted in the popular culture, but E-Mail seems to making it more rapidly than others. I think it is replacing faxes and telepone calls as the fastest, most reliable means of getting a message through. But there is the security issue, the interception possibilities, and all the other horror stories we hear of how it is unsafe. I have not found it so, but found it surprisingly usable.

I haven't mastered the art of it yet, but I have learned to attach things, pictures, letters, web-pages, etc., and wonder if there is anything else I need to learn. My students are quite skilled at all this technology stuff and do not object at all to having syllabi, assignments, etc., online. I even administer examinations and quizzes online. It is great, and I was skeptical at first.

I wish we had such technology when I was writing my dissertaton at Columbia University some thirty years ago. It was just coming in and I tried to learn it in my final semester there, but I was too skeptical, I suppose. It was fun, but I recognized that it would take me longer to catch on than I had time in that semester, so I graduated by typing the whole thing out on an electric IBM. What fun!

So here I am blogging now! Who would have thought it then? I haven't shared this blogging idea with any of my family yet, but I shall now that I trust the system. I can't imagine their being very interested in it, but my brother will read it a little, I would suspect. Some of them share my views and some see things differently. Perhaps that is my reluctance, not wanting to upset them more than they already are about my nonconventional views on things. We shall see.

Wayne's Words for August 21, 2006.

posted by Wayne Olson @ 6:51 PM