So I read on CNN awhile ago that if you want to stay current in today’s tech memes you needed to learn about Twitter. I’d never used Twitter before, never even knew what it was until that moment.
For those of you who are like me, and aren’t always into the latest internet fashions, Twitter is a strange alien sounding thing. Really, it’s one of those words that sounds like it really means: an onomatopoeia (yes I had to look it up). It’s a bunch of strangers all across the world saying what they’re doing/thinking. Not everyone is a stranger, but many to most of them are. They’re connecting in a strange light.
The reason I bring this up today (and not a few days ago) was I mentioned it to someone I knew who also didn’t get it. I thought how do you explain new technology to someone who doesn’t get it?
Imagine the first people to try to use telephones. “Here, you talk into this end” – Talk into an inanimate object? People will think I’m crazy. “No really, talk into this end, and someone on the other side will hear you.”
I wonder if the first time someone who wasn’t a techie kind of person spoke on the phone what their response was. Did they cry? Did they think it was God? Did they laugh or express some other kind of emotion?
Today we’re so apathetic (one I didn’t look up :p) to new technology I wonder what type of major milestone in our crazy world will provoke an emotional reaction like something as simple as the telephone had to have created.
Yes, I got excited when I brought home my first HD Television, but I didn’t cry. Maybe it’ll be some sort of faster transportation system, like vehicles that could almost instaneously get you from one place to another. Or a way to solve one of the world’s monster problems.
I don’t know about you, but I hope that the cure for Cancer, Aids or global hunger will provoke a human reaction. As for Twitter, it’s like people watching, but with the ability to get inside their heads.
For those of you who are like me, and aren’t always into the latest internet fashions, Twitter is a strange alien sounding thing. Really, it’s one of those words that sounds like it really means: an onomatopoeia (yes I had to look it up). It’s a bunch of strangers all across the world saying what they’re doing/thinking. Not everyone is a stranger, but many to most of them are. They’re connecting in a strange light.
The reason I bring this up today (and not a few days ago) was I mentioned it to someone I knew who also didn’t get it. I thought how do you explain new technology to someone who doesn’t get it?
Imagine the first people to try to use telephones. “Here, you talk into this end” – Talk into an inanimate object? People will think I’m crazy. “No really, talk into this end, and someone on the other side will hear you.”
I wonder if the first time someone who wasn’t a techie kind of person spoke on the phone what their response was. Did they cry? Did they think it was God? Did they laugh or express some other kind of emotion?
Today we’re so apathetic (one I didn’t look up :p) to new technology I wonder what type of major milestone in our crazy world will provoke an emotional reaction like something as simple as the telephone had to have created.
Yes, I got excited when I brought home my first HD Television, but I didn’t cry. Maybe it’ll be some sort of faster transportation system, like vehicles that could almost instaneously get you from one place to another. Or a way to solve one of the world’s monster problems.
I don’t know about you, but I hope that the cure for Cancer, Aids or global hunger will provoke a human reaction. As for Twitter, it’s like people watching, but with the ability to get inside their heads.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment