technology and me
I travel a lot. 96,000 miles so far this year and will go over the 100,000 mile mark by weeks end. One of my good friends sent me an email this morning with a link to Fire Eagle, in an effort to help me let people know where I am at any given moment. This particular friend doesn’t really love his current job and is often looking for things to do to occupy his time. So part of me believes he sent this to me for selfish reasons, as a way to escape cold calls and multiple trips to CVS daily.
Back to the point. As I explored this new social service with the odd name (I often wonder how companies in the internet age can get away with naming their start up something that has nothing to do with the service the provide) I realized that certain aspects of technology are becoming a turn off to me. I’m a child of the video game era. I love technology. I embrace it. I read blogs about worthy technological advancements and strange pointless “look what i can do with 1’s and 0’s inventions alike. Popular Mechanics and Popular Science are two of my favorite airplane reads. As is Wired. But I can’t keep track of it all. I never was a part of the MySpace movement. I’ve set up shop on Facebook, but do little more than update my status and approve friends. I stare at amazement at people who are constantly expanding their applications or groups or whatever else it is you can do Facebook. How do they take it all in and decipher what is worthwhile and what isn’t.
Now Facebook is a microcosm of what I’m referring to, because I’m fairly convinced Facebook is simply about time. The more free time you have, the more hours you need to waste at work, the more you dive into things like Facebook. Looking at it on a larger level though… with the unlimited areas of opportunity on the internet, what becomes viable, what is worth using, what is to invasive, what really saves time and how do you navigate it all. Do i really need an application like Fire Eagle to update my Facebook and Twitter sites? How many sites do i need to update my info on? For our bands there are easily 20 “social networking” sites we try to keep updated with information and those are just what are considered the “major” sites. Hell, I have two blogs.
As I told my friend today, I’m becoming my father. I in my early 30s and I’m overwhelmed by technology. Maybe I just don’t put enough effort or time into it, the reality is though, I don’t want to. I want simple and consistent. Innovation is great. I just need a map to navigate it all.
3 years ago