The Digi Life

Science and technology have made so much headway that we can’t live without them anymore.

IT has now become a household entity rather than a mysterious force, as it was considered in the medieval times. Science and technology has drastically changed our lives — for better or for worse — but we still have people who have trouble getting used to the new things technology has introduced in our lives.

Well, in our part of the world the youth is very comfortable with the latest gadgets and digital devices that older folks are unaware of even in this period of globalisation and mass production. When a baby is just a few months old, his parents try to calm him down by showing him the beeping light of their cell phone or by ringing the melodious ring tones. As the baby grows old, he knows exactly what a cellphone does. But his poor grandparents do not even know how to unlock the keypad. They usually curse science for making their lives miserable.

Our life has now become digital, while our elders find it hard to struggle as they were born and raised in a manually operated world. For them, a ringing cellphone has to be taken to someone who knows how to receive the call, and send/receive the messages. There are still people who type on a typewriter and cannot be made to enjoy the comforts of Microsoft Word. They defend their choice by saying that a typewriter works even if there is no electricity.

When VCRs became a household commodity in the early ’80’s, children taught their elders how to insert the cassette into the player and how to play, forward, rewind and stop the movie. Then, as technology evolved, VCRs were replaced by CD players and cassettes were substituted by CDs. Again the refresher courses were conducted by children for the adults.

Then science and technology brought personal computers that became the fourth most important necessity after food, clothing and shelter. Telegrams and airmails have been converted into emails, voice mails and SMSs, and life has become as easy as it can get.

Technology has certainly evolved, but it has become a continuous headache for its users, especially for those who read a user’s manual before everything. Technology has invaded our minds and it surely has gotten onto our nerves. You switch off your cellphone for half an hour and you start thinking of all the phone calls that are being missed and all the messages you are not able to read.

Talking about technology getting on our nerves leads me to discuss the irritating evolution of technology. Advancements, growth and change are always good, it is always for the better, but definitely not when you are working on Microsoft Word 2007. When a user of MS Word XP cannot cope up with using MS Word 2007, then how can this poor guy work on it who writes 10 words per minute?

I have been working on MS Word for the past six years and when I first saw MS Word 2007, it felt as if I was working on some alien software with far superior technology than the humans have.

The menu and formatting bar are intermingled, no options drag down and you have to painstakingly adjust your eyes to this new format before doing any work on it. Technology has evolved for sure, but this kind of evolution is a real pain in the neck.

I remember the time when we only used the internet to surf and email. But today, there are so many things that one does on the internet. The long lists of rituals that one does start off with checking of the email. First it is Hotmail, then Yahoo!, then Yahoo.co.uk, then Gmail and then it is Hotmail just in case a new mail dropped in. Then you go to Orkut, post a few scraps, reply to some and browse through profiles and communities.

After that, you go to Facebook, write on Walls, update your Facebook Status, post your latest pictures, edit your profile and roam around a bit. Then you again go to Gmail and Yahoo! just to make sure no new mails have arrived.

Lastly, if there is no other site you are interested in, you check on YouTube to see what’s new that will perk you up. And then so as not to miss out on anything that might have dropped into you mail accounts, you open your Hotmail again, and, while at it, you also check on the Gmail account one more time. We have all become digital maniacs and have a common disease called “obsessive digital compulsive scientific disorder” (ODCSD).

Frankly speaking, the youth and the digitally attuned are also confused by this rapid evolution. There are new terminologies and jargons that people use, which no one understands but has become a part of our life, culture, tradition and whatever.