Adding the heck, no! in techno: Is technology moving too fast?

Let’s go back in time: I am in 5^th grade; I have just changed schools – cities, in fact. My class enters the computer room for our weekly lesson on PowerPoint. Each student picks a computer from the three rows of computer stations. I choose one next to my friend.

I look around and notice that everyone is switching their computers on. I’m nervous; I don’t know which button is the power-on one. I look at my friend pressing the largest round button on her CPU, and it turns green. I immediately press the largest button on my CPU, afraid that I might miss something if I don’t follow her step-for-step. She then presses the square button on the monitor and I follow her lead.

Hers switches on, with that quintessential 2006 Windows ding. I look at my screen. My screen is white with two thin-lined rectangles on it.

This is my second earliest memory of having a panic attack. I know if I can't get the computer to start in time, nobody is going to wait for me. The teacher will start the lesson and will have no time to fix my problems (or so I thought), and I might miss the entire lesson; I haven't taken a book to note anything down either.

My friend suggests I change my computer station but I can't find an empty one. Anyway, I am apprehensive to leave her side because she is the only person kind enough to help the new girl out. I burst into tears.

This is how my screen looked. True anxiety-inducing material, if you ask me.

Freeze frame; fast forward. It’s 14 years later, and I have just noticed that most writers and copyeditors have blogs. I look up how to make a blog. There are countless articles with loads of advice and words that I have never seen before. Some suggest I use Blogger; others suggest I use WordPress. I look up YouTube videos on how to set it up, I write it down, I bookmark them. 

After many years of failed attempts at switching on computers, this is a big step for me. I decide to start easy: I start a blog on Blogger because it has the easiest interface.

But this is not enough. I need to figure out Metatags so that my blog is visible to search engines. The articles for these are confusing; many are outdated. Some send me to an HTML generator, others teach me how to write my own code; some write out the code for me and ask me to copy-paste it, others go on a rant about how to find the best metatags for my blog.

This is still not enough. Now, to get repeat readers, I need to figure out how to add a ‘subscription button’ to my blog. I need to know HTML to get the ‘follow me’ buttons, and I have yet to figure out ads. Cherry on the top: I realise that the ‘subscribe by mail’ option that Blogger used to provide has been discontinued just 20 days before I started my blog. Fantastic.

At this point, mid-palpitation after multiple panic attacks, I pause. I just want to write. Why is this so hard?

Apparently, there is a word for this feeling – Future Shock. This term was coined by the Futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler in their 1970 book by the same name. They defined future shock as “the anxiety caused by too much change in too short a period of time,” and they used it mainly in the context of technology. By the way, Alvin Toffler is also the one who invented the term ‘Information Overload.’

In their book, they predicted what the world would look like in the ‘future.’ They said that a rapid change in technology would mean loads of unchartered territory, much like with culture shock, leading to an increase in anxiety levels experienced by individuals and even whole societies. In addition, Toffler wrote, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

This is what I hear: He predicted that not only is there going to be a whirlwind of technology taking over our lives, there is also going to be huge disadvantages attached to those who can’t learn it quick enough, those who don’t have the aptitude or the capabilities for it, those who can't afford it, and those who find old technologies more convenient than the new.

He predicted that the technology boom is going to bring with it a lot of knowledge; so much, we can’t possibly know and digest everything. But there is also going to be no excuse for not knowing everything.

Today in a job interview, if they ask you why you don’t know how to use Photoshop, “technology makes me anxious,” is apparently not a valid reason. If they ask you whether you are a fast learner and can learn it on-the-job, I can guess you will not be comfortable with saying “I can’t guarantee that.” We have to know everything - and we have to know it fast - without citing anxiety or discomfort anywhere along the way. The future the Tofflers predicted is here. 

USB or Memory card, that is the question.

An article I read pointed out that our predecessors used stone weapons, spears, fire and bones for hundreds of thousands of years before they moved into the Neolithic era. The time duration between the first industrial revolution (with its steam engines) and the second industrial revolution (with electricity) was, in comparison, just 61 years. The first iPhone was unveiled in 2009, and in 12 years, we have had 33 iterations of it in 13 series, each with more features to learn.

Is technology moving too fast, or am I just not a fast learner? And how fast is fast enough? Many of my friends have had blogs for years. Some earn money off of it. Many have been learning coding since they were in 7^th grade. Some of them owned YouTube channels even before they were made to learn Final Cut Pro in college. Classmates owned and had used DSLRs before I knew what that was. People had gotten over Canva and knew how to use Photoshop before I had even figured out that you could directly attach your camera’s memory card into your computer to transfer photos. Was I the only one still using a USB cable for this? 

It is not for the lack of trying, but no matter how fast I run, I still seem to fall behind in this race. How long ago did I have to start to make sure I am on par with everyone else? 

“This change in information and technology has brought huge benefits in communication, medicine, clean energy, and countless other areas,” says Humanist counsellor Chris Mounsher in another article I read, “However, fundamentally we are the same human beings that, a few hundred years ago, spent much of our days farming fields and working the land – we have no natural defence for information overload.”

There is an unmistakable link between our deteriorating mental health, the rate at which technology is progressing, and the toxic hustle culture it produces. But we don’t know how to defend ourselves against this; nobody before us knew either.

I guess we have all felt the desire to shut our computers and go frolic in the fields for a bit, or start a revolution against the Rise of The Planet of The Technos. Since we can’t always do that, maybe we can start by recognising how important it is to take a breather from this race for the sake of our mental health.

Maybe it’s time for us to remove phrases like “Are you a fast learner?” or “I work well under stress” from our vocabulary. Maybe it’s time for us to stop acting like it’s a mortal sin if someone doesn’t know something. Instead, maybe we can help someone who says, “I don't know this,” or maybe we could even say this ourselves. Maybe it is time for us to realise that no amount of starting early is enough to know it all, so let’s just give ourselves (and the children who come after us) time to learn things. It’s okay if we haven’t yet learnt something; we can always learn it – at our own pace – right?