It might come as a surprise to some people to hear me say that I am not a slave to technology \u2013 after all, I\u2019m a self-described \u201ccomputer geek.\u201d You\u2019d think, therefore, that I walk around with an iPhone or Blackberry (or both!) strapped to my chest at all times, checking email and looking up information on-line everywhere I go.<\/p>\n
However, you couldn\u2019t be farther from the truth.<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s true that I am a major<\/em> computer geek, and I would love to have (say) a nice little netbook for looking up information, sending email, writing blog posts, etc., the fact of the matter is that it\u2019s because<\/em> I\u2019m a computer geek that I’m not a slave to technology.<\/p>\n Because I\u2019m confident about it, I don\u2019t allow it to control me \u2013 I control it.<\/p>\n For example, I know many people with mobile email who are, quite frankly, addicted to it (think: crackberry). They\u2019re always checking email \u2013 all the time \u2013 no matter where they are. Even if I had a mobile email device (which I don\u2019t), I wouldn\u2019t be checking email all the time. As it is, I don\u2019t check email often, even when I\u2019m at my computer. I\u2019m confident enough with the technology to know that I don\u2019t need to answer every single email at the moment it comes in \u2013 that I don\u2019t need to be \u201con-line\u201d all the time. I control the technology \u2013 I use it when I want to, not the other way around.<\/p>\n Another example is when the power goes out \u2013 for people who are slaves to technology, to computers, the Internet, email, Twitter, social networking, what have you, the power going out is like having their \u201cfix\u201d cut off \u2013 they don\u2019t know what to do. Without email, chat, or whatever, they\u2019re lost. They\u2019re so badly enslaved that they don\u2019t know what to do when they are \u201cfreed\u201d from it, for whatever reason.<\/p>\n As for me, even though I spend my entire day at the computer (and often much of the evening, too), writing code, answering emails, being online, writing blog posts like this one and so on \u2013 when the power goes out, I just shrug, grab a book from my bookshelf, and go read. Or, if it\u2019s dark, I\u2019ll go for a drive, or a walk, or just plain go to bed.<\/p>\n I control the technology around me \u2013 it doesn\u2019t control me.<\/p>\n For many people today, the opposite is true. It\u2019s worth it to sit and really take a look at yourself and see whether you are one of those people \u2013 whether you\u2019re a slave to technology. Even in today\u2019s connected world, it\u2019s important to be able to just leave it all behind sometimes, to just \u201clet go.\u201d It\u2019s the difference between being controlled and being in<\/em> control.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Despite being a huge computer geek, I am not a slave to technology – and I would say in today’s world it is increasingly important NOT to be a slave to technology… despite the fact that an increasing number of people are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[203,200,199],"tags":[35,392,388],"class_list":["post-2554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet-technology","category-my-life","category-my-opinion","tag-internet","tag-society","tag-technology","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-Fc","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":889,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/05\/28\/a-long-time-ago-in-a-dorm-room-far-far-away\/","url_meta":{"origin":2554,"position":0},"title":"A Long Time Ago, in a Dorm Room Far, Far Away…","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 28, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Lately I've \"re-discovered\" a lot of old photos I had squirreled away on my hard drive from long, long before I started organizing them in any sensible manner.","rel":"","context":"In "personal"","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":579,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/07\/21\/i-am-your-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":2554,"position":1},"title":"I Am Your God","author":"Keith Survell","date":"July 21, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, not really, but in the technology sense, the IT department sense, I am. Some people think I control the Internet!","rel":"","context":"In "personal"","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":311,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/11\/12\/how-it-worksthe-computer\/","url_meta":{"origin":2554,"position":2},"title":"How It Works…The Computer","author":"Keith Survell","date":"November 12, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Scans of a book from 1971... yes, you read that right. Re-published in 1979 (just after I was born, how nice!). Both editions are included. Even if you just poke though the scans, it's very amusing. I especially like all the pictures of punch cards... and the \"micro\" computer that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "fun stuff"","block_context":{"text":"fun stuff","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/fun-stuff\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2866,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2009\/11\/17\/keiths-logon-screen\/","url_meta":{"origin":2554,"position":3},"title":"Keith’s Logon Screen","author":"Keith Survell","date":"November 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"My rather... unusual... choice for a Windows logon screen background image.","rel":"","context":"In "personal"","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"keith's logon screen","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2519\/4111483759_83b8726f72.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1066,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/03\/17\/geek-quiz\/","url_meta":{"origin":2554,"position":4},"title":"Geek Quiz","author":"Keith Survell","date":"March 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"What era geek am I? I took a quiz to find out.","rel":"","context":"In "fun stuff"","block_context":{"text":"fun stuff","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/fun-stuff\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1034,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/01\/29\/bluetooth-and-the-motorola-v3-razr\/","url_meta":{"origin":2554,"position":5},"title":"Bluetooth and the Motorola V3 RAZR","author":"Keith Survell","date":"January 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I've had a Motorola V3 RAZR phone for a while now, and being the geek that I am, I've always been interested in the more technical aspects of the phone, such as file transfers, Bluetooth connectivity, and custom-made ring tones (not the ones you buy, but the ones you can\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "tech"","block_context":{"text":"tech","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}