Signs of our times…Technology of our times…

This is a sign I recently noticed outside a neighborhood restaurant. It cracked me up. There is a middle school close by to this sign. You see kids with necks drooped into their texting devices, cross that very street. The truth of it cracked me up. 

Technology is here to stay. No doubt. As a generation, we have watched information technology unfold in front of our very eyes - as it continues to do so.

If we were to put it in the context of Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations model (circa 1960), and his categories of “innovation adoption”: Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, Laggards, we would be all of those.

Our generation has seen the spectrum. Our generation has and is living the spectrum. We may have been early adopters for some and laggards for others.  

I wonder how Everett Rogers would frame his DI theory with respect to kids today. For each one of them seems to be an early adopter (provided they have access to the technology). Technology has entered their lives in so seamless a manner, it might as well be air or water to them.

Admit it, each of us has our funny technology stories and continue to make new ones every day.

Take for instance last week. My daughter, her friend and I were at a science museum. My husband who was in Tokyo, ‘facetimed’ us (that’s got to be a verb in an urban dictionary somewhere, right?) Now the previous day, he had given us a little tour of downtown Tokyo from his hotel room. Ahem… a certain nine-year-old, was however, far more interested in the bidet menu, and he also gave us a tour of the toilet. (Now now, don’t judge… some families converse about politics and the arts, others… oh well.)

Excited to see her dad, my nine-year-old asked him to give her friend a facetime tour of downtown Tokyo. Then even more excited, she squealed, “Dad, show (friend’s name) the toilet”.

It’s funny how volume control is always off when strange or embarrassing words are being uttered, or then the room is always silent for that moment.

Such was the case and of course, most everybody in that chemistry lab was giving us strange looks. Sigh… Thankfully, the giggles and the amazement at the bidet choices and buttons, proved stronger than any forces of embarrassment. While we may be amazed at how much and how quickly technology is shrinking the world, for the younger generations, it is a given.

I wonder if a certain letting go is required in the knowledge the future generation will not only be steps ahead in terms of technology, but that their relation to technology is different. It just seems more entwined and imbibed in their life and being. They cannot imagine being without it.

I started writing about technology, and oddly enough, a myriad discussions seem to be happening in my head. Perhaps, I will jot down more of those later.

But for now, I want to end with the elusive, illusionary and impermanent nature of technology and a certain letting go we perhaps need in relation to it.

Technology, (like other aspects of life, probably) seems to strongly adhere to the concept of Maya, a Sanskrit word, referring to the impermanent and elusive nature of life. It refers more philosophically to a subtle force that creates the illusion that the physical world we live in is real. For in the end, everything is Maya, and ever changing and it couldn’t be truer with technology. Not simply the latest and greatest computer you bought, and which seemed outdated in a week, but also in the ways in which our lives, our relationships, our communications, our personality, our being, are affected.

Truly, there seems to be no permanence in technology, and trying to make even your most favorite technology permanent is difficult. It evolves all the time and we need to simply let go in its mirage-like elusive feel and the speed in which it evolves.