5 Reasons why you can’t be a Luddite any more

Back in the 1950/60’s (I’m assuming here, I wasn’t born back then) when business people needed their personal filing done or their contacts or mail organized, they would turn to their assistants (secretaries, admins…pick your term) and get them to do it. Inevitably the admin in question would have to do the work and use whatever tools were available at the time. When a letter was to be sent out the business person in question would likely hand write the thing and the admin would type it up on a typewriter before being sent out. If someone had documents that they wanted to file away then that was sent, again, to the admin and was put in a filing system that was kept by that admin.

This type of behavior is simply no longer possible.

Because business is so heavily reliant on technology it is a requirement that everyone is able to use it, and use it properly. Technology today is SO personalized that in order to “have someone” do it for you, you would have to compromise your system’s security in giving all your passwords to someone else. Being a Luddite and allowing other people to handle your system for you is something that in this day and age is so difficult, that it usually is much simpler, to say nothing of more efficient, to spend the time to figure out your systems yourself.

A Luddite, for those of you who haven’t heard the term before, is people who are unwilling to learn about new and different technology. They like how things are so why should they change? Well, there are a few reasons for that;

1) Too much technology – From smartphones to laptops and tablets and smartwatches, we have become a civilization which is completely inundated with technology. It has gotten to the point that technology (and I mean any type of technology) has become so much a part of our everyday lives that it is very little we can do to avoid it. In such a case as this, it’s better to arm yourself with knowledge on how to use technology than trying even harder to avoid it.

2) Too much Personalization – All of the programs and systems that we use today have individualized usernames, passwords, and customizations. Because of this, most technology requires a great deal of individual attention. Between the various customizations that your system might have and whatever your filing system might end up looking like, it can take a great deal of time and effort indoctrinating someone else into your personal system. This will also require them having access to your account, which means that your username and passwords are more exposed than if you were to handle your system on your own.

3) Too many options – For every action you are thinking of taking in the digital space, there are at least three different apps and programs which could help you do it. At this point, it comes down to the “look and feel” of a system. Three different people might like three different programs (which do either roughly or EXACTLY the same thing) because of how the programs feel. The user experience is so paramount these days that app makers are doing everything they can do meet the needs of their potential customers.

4) Technology moves and updates too fast – This may sound like an “old man excuse” but bear with me here. The constant flowing stream of technology and updates and new hardware every 20 minutes means that we need to be able to keep up with the pace. For sure there are some trends that show up, flame out, and go away, but it’s important for all of us to stay up on what trends are on the rise so that we have the ability to educate ourselves quickly. Like with anything else, the more often you learn about new technology, the easier it will be to understand it.

5) The rest of us are on board – If you try and hold on to technology you’ve had for a while you will look like you’re standing still. Our culture has become accustomed to moving forward to the point that when we see people who try their best to hold onto the past, they look out of touch and wrong. For sure there are somethings that have achieved the status of “traditional”, but I think that when it comes to technology, tradition is just the software that we used last year that didn’t work as well as the newer version.

In today’s world, it’s important to be fully engaged with your technology. For sure there are some things that you can (and likely should) leave to the professionals. These are things like coding and debugging of systems and whatnot. But for everyday things, things like knowing how to download and install a program, or setting up your computer, It pays to have at least a little bit of knowledge. It doesn’t take a professional to run a computer and as computers are quite logical, once you understand that logic you should be able to diagnose those problems yourself. Having the basic knowledge of how your system works can pay off dividends if and when something goes wrong. Those without a good sense of how their computers work may think that they have a $ 3,000.00 problem on their hands, when in reality it may be as little as a 20-second fix.

What do you find are your biggest issues with running computers? Do you think that we all should have at least a basic level of computer knowledge?

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