Teresa Martin wrote a moving article in CapeEyes about the application of technology in two areas of her life. We so often (myself most especially included) tend to put technology as an end in and of itself. Teresa discusses the implications of technology application on human quality of life.
What does that mean? I recently upgraded my computer. Funny, after the anticipation of a “new toy”, there is, for me anyway, a bit of a letdown. It does everything I was doing before, just faster and with less, um, interruptions (crashing!). Once the newness wears off I simply go back to doing what I was doing before, albeit more efficiently (hopefully). Yea, faster is good, but it isn’t the end all.
A couple of years ago I got a new acoustic guitar. For decades I had played a cheap no-name acoustic that had deteriorating action and peeling paint. The new guitar was at first “new and shiny”, and there were oohs and aahs as I played it and shared it with my pals. Then it became integrated as just another tool, and facilitated a change in my playing that has been nothing short of profound.
In both cases, it wasn’t the technology that was the end, it was what the enabling of human possibility.
