"Technology is the future."

[hyphenate]

For a lot of us, technology was something we had to learn without any reference before time, not like those born much later, who probably had a streamed equivalent of a pacifier to appease them.

We learned sometimes the hard way--crashing the mainboard (I don't think it was called a motherboard in its earliest form), fritzing a sound card, frying a hard drive....

But that was our generation's equivalent of my father's old stories about walking three miles to school each day in blizzards. I did that a couple of times myself, I'll have you know, in Boston, yet!!!

Anyhow, I have a friend who is 6 years older than me. And I think he likes being somewhat of a troglodyte. He refuses to pay bills online, instead stressing out about mailing out his bills, who only uses a regular older model cell phone with no internet, bluetooth or music player, and who, in his own words, is hopelessly un-mechanically inclined. And yet, he has read SF for most of his life, and doesn't feel like embracing the wonders of the 21st century.

In comparison, while I can't buy the latest releases of electronic, I try to keep up a bit. I surf more than most people I know, pays bills online, and even keep up with things like P2P, torrents, security issues, most software programs, and even knows what Pirate Bay, Limewire and Warez are.

Questions for everyone: How much have you surrendered to the age of technology? Do you cling to some of the older stuff with the idea that some things are just done better in a low tech way? Did computers and subsequent electronics come to you naturally, or did you drag your feet, hoping that if you messed something up, it would be short of a full system crash? Did the new electronic vocabulary sound like complete gibberish to you? Perhaps a family member kindly saw you through the beginning...did that make it easier? How has technology made life easier for you....or harmed your psyche forever?

I just happened to be more mechanically inclined. While my sister knows cars, my brother is an electrician, my "skills" were born from add-ons to my first system. I had just purchased a 1200 baud modem, and the company wanted a lot to install the modem. I instead opened the "hood" and connected it myself, which I found easily enough. Haven't really stopped since.

But everyone is different. Tell us your story!

[Fearless]

1. I stick clear of "prepared" foods personally...

The amount of garbage and low quality ingredients in those things are enough to kill you... if the salt/fat/sugar content doesn't get you first.

No smart phone... I hate seeing people constantly on facebook in otherwise social situations.

But as I'm younger... I did grow up with a lot of the things older people didn't, so a lot of them are standard for me... computers, the internet, email, video games that have color, and places like DU.

[WingDinger]

2. I was a moldmaker, process eng, product designer in cad.

I have no use for most early adoption. Also, I recieved heart failure and enlargement from exposure to plastics in molten form. So, I am living{so far}, proof of drawbacks to tech.

The growth curve of tech is largely an advance in materials. Then, we develop different techniques to apply to the new materials. I am not really that impressed with mans genius.