Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright once assured a reporter that he was all in favor of removing dangerous weapons from the hands of fools.
That process, he wryly suggested, should begin with typewriters.
Most of us dont use typewriters anymore. In fact, my daughters claim to have never seen one up close and personal except as props in old movies. I do know someone, however, who recently purchased an old Royal manual, which he keeps as a talking point.
When I first began in this business, my idea of bold progressive technology was filing stories from the road or at an event on those old Radio Shack/Tandy portables. Once done, I would hook up the modem, keep my fingers crossed and, hopefully, transport my copy back to an awaiting editor.
I wont bore you with the trials of what it was like trying to find a technician at midnight in Atlantic City when the modem failed or the machine jammed, and my deadline was a mere minutes away.
But Ive learned a thing or two about technology since those days I wouldnt put the number too much higher than that but now I am at least able to reasonably negotiate a PC, a MacBook Pro and my BlackBerry without sending desperate and frequent SOS pleas to my IT department.
Should my required body of technology knowledge have ended there, I would have continued on as a happy man, secure knowing that the days of changing tangly ribbons and using carbon paper are items better suited for a time capsule than as a practical modern application.
But as the father of children who as members of a generation that are imbued with an almost freakish aptitude of all things technology, I became inculcated to the dizzying rise of social networking sites beginning with My Space and then gravitating to Craigslist and ultimately, to Facebook and Twitter.
I have since signed up on Facebook both personally and for Accounting today as well as on Twitter, but I have to admit for the record that I have yet to tweet.
Besides, Im not sure who would willingly follow me.
Despite writing for a living, I have far more trouble than I envisioned generating interesting comment posts on Facebook. I assume no ones very interested in what I had for breakfast or how long my plane is delayed.
I guess either Im dull, or Ive contracted some cyber form of writers block.
Along the way, they also introduced me to Oovoo a conferencing and video chat program, which my offspring have used so frequently with their classmates, that my living room often resembles a TV studio complete with an anchor desk.
But like it or not, its the technology landscape in which we now reside.
It would be interesting to get Frank Lloyd Wrights take on this whole phenomena were he still around. Ill bet he would have some interesting comments for Facebook.
