Digitiphobia
The hoary old NY TImes has an op-ed today by a gentleman named Richard Conniff titled The Rich Are More Oblivious Than You and Me. In the article, the author posits that not only are the rich less aware, but they are also risk takers in interesting ways because they do not fear the downside. As examples, he gives the recent story of comedian Eddie Griffin trashing a million-and-a-half dollar Ferrari and the by now notorious Steve Wynn's elbow-through-the-Picasso puncturing. The nonrich drive a 7 figure car differently than the wealthy, because any resulting damage can disproportionately disrupt their (non-rich peoples') lives.
I think that this principle also applies to technology. Those who are willing to take chances with tech gear learn more. Perversely enough, these people tend to be the ones who already understand computers and other gizmos well enough to fix any resulting problems from the experimentation. I can download and install a piece of wacky public domain software, because I can remove it later if it acts up, but everyone is not in that same position. I can experiment with digital cameras and cell phones, computers and camcorders in a way that non-techies cannot, because the downside is a couple of hours of my time rolling back what I did. If the downside was complete and utter destruction of the utility of the expensive product, I might not be so quick to try something new.
I'm constantly being asked by those around me to help them fix their email, configure something on their laptops or explain the birds and bees of USB and firewire to these helpless souls standing there clutching a proud and masculine digital doohickey in their lefthand and a receptive female whatchamacallit in their right.
Perversely enough, the more we experiment, the more we learn. The more afraid we are to play Dr. Moreau and cross-fertilize technology beasts, the more that the nirvana caused by understanding technology passes us by.
Digitophobia: the fear of screwing up a digital gadget by playing with it.
The lesson for parents: encourage your children to screw around with expensive computer stuff. Treat your gadgets like tinkertoys, not like the family jewels. After all, those cameras and computers will be obsolete in 5 years anyway.
Posted on April 06, 2007