Comments on: Observations on Society and Technology

By: Kristin Moyer

Kristin Moyer — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:13:59 +0000

Mr. Scism and Kathy,

I often wonder, as well, what will happen as the “texting” generation starts full time employment. But I have high hopes that the technology train will move forward in amazing ways.

My husband and I rode in an ultra marathon mountain bike race (100 miles) this past weekend in Breckenridge. We didn’t have as much time to train as we would have liked, so we rode it as a team with one of our soccer Dad friends. There are three loops in the race, so our soccer Dad buddy rode the first loop, my husband rode the second loop and I rode the last loop. Here is a conversation I had with my four boys (ages 8, 7, 6 and 3) as we drove out to cheer our soccer Dad friend as he rode through Frisco:

My boys: “Mom, are you going to be wearing a chip again this year so that they know you rode your lap?”

Me: “Not this year, but I’m not sure why. Last year they had us wear chips.”

My boys: “You know what would be really cool? Instead of a chip that just detects when you go by, they should have a real GPS chip in there. Then we could log on to the race’s Internet site, type in your bib number and see where you are on the course – you could be like a dot on a map. If you are not moving, your dot could be red. If you are moving, your dot could be green. Then we could know if you crashed or had a flat tire or something.”

I thought that was a pretty cool idea. And dreamed up by a 6, 7 and 8 year old. Makes me excited to see where the next generation of techies will take us.

By: Kathy Harris

Kathy Harris — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:26:21 +0000

To Mr. Scism — Thanks for your comments — sounds like another high-tech day for you too. I agree with you that these are vexing questions; however, the 10 and 14 year olds we’re dealing with don’t know why we’re even talking about this.

I do think people will have to put away the technology occasionally — turn it off and tune it out — or it will overwhelm them and their lives. And, the interfaces and integration will have to be simplified — carrying around multiple devices and managing interactions with multiple websites and applications is tedious and time consuming, not to mention complex. We will need simplification.

Kathy

By: Observations on Society and Technology - Local Tech Experts

Observations on Society and Technology - Local Tech Experts — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:17:54 +0000

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By: Observations on Society and Technology « Gadget Exposure

Observations on Society and Technology « Gadget Exposure — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:35:04 +0000

[...] Read the original: Observations on Society and Technology [...]

By: Jay Scism

Jay Scism — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:04:57 +0000

While I sat out a 4 hour flight delay by watching progress of a baseball game via my laptop and espn.com, the girl next to me spent her time on facebook, and we all used our Internet-enabled cell phones, blackberries, and laptops to track the status of our delay. When my cell phone died, I communicated with my wife via email.

I have watched my own 14yo daughter work on facebook, text, watch TV and talk on the phone at the same time (there’s a lot more texting going on, we routinely see 4000/month from just her alone).

This is an amazingly technology-enabled generation, but are they capable of keeping the technology train moving forward, or are they going to be victims of the lethargy it can create?