You’ve got a point there Deirdre, when it comes down to it I might just not have found a community of people who are excited about the same things I’m excited about. There’s not really a MA in blogging offered out there (yet) I try to bring this stuff to my grad school program because I’m interested in tumblr for the same reasons I’m interested in Shakespeare, but clearly not everyone feels the same way. I don’t mean to sound too harsh on folks like your mom or grandparents, I just get frustrated because I want to see how far we can go with this stuff, what the limits are (because I don’t think we know them yet) and if I always have to slow down to make sure everyone’s on board, we’ll never really get anywhere fast enough.
i can’t really say i’m a fan of that attitude. carleton, or “franklin” as it may be in some circles, you can go ahead as fast as you want, but if the choice is between blogging in the most advanced way possible or trying to find a way to share with my grandparents, well. i think you know.
for similar reasons, i (and many others, apparently including the president) have issues with the impending forced switch to digital cable. neither i, my mother, nor my grandparents own televisions that will tolerate this switch - i can’t afford one, i’m pretty sure my mom can’t afford one (public school teacher), and my grandparents, faced with a new technological challenge (yes, even one as simple as hooking up a new tv), will probably give up television altogether. in short, i don’t think it’s fair to obligate millions of members of society to keep up with advances in technology that they can’t afford or may not even be able to learn to use - it not only excludes them from the potential of those advances but also unnecessarily exiles them from a society that gets tired of waiting for them to “get on board.” (not that i really think that watching television makes one “part” of society, but imagine how it would feel to essentially be told that you aren’t hip enough to watch it)
First of all I’m not sure what exactly your talking about with digital cable, but if you mean the digital broadcast switch: All you need is a coverter box which is free, not a new tv.
But anyway, I know not everyone cares and needs to have the latest technology. There’s a lot of technology I couldn’t care less about, but there are other people out there like me, communities of them even, I want to be apart of them, not force everyone else to catch up to my speed. Someone has to discover new ways to do things, someone has to experiment and fail and then try again, if we didn’t we’d all still be living like the Amish
But beyond that sometimes I do think sometimes people have to “catch up” with those on the forefront. If we waited until every single person was adept at a technology before making it standard we wouldn’t be using computers period, because there’s plenty of folks that don’t know how to do use them whatsoever. Frankly I think it’s unfair to handicap me like that, to expect me to not perform at my absolute best and create the best possible blog/website/whatever I can. Is there a chance it won’t be for everyone? Almost certainly, but I know of no other way to make progress in this world.
Besides, why does advances in technology have to always mean a more exclusive user base? Look at the Nintendo Wii, an incredible advanced video game system that MY grandmother and everyone else at her retirement home, LOVES. this is a woman who can’t use a computer at all and has never played video games before but she loves the Wii. Thanks to new technology she’s exercising and socialising in ways she never did before.
