As I have talked about before, I have grown up, witnessing first had, the digital age come to life as we know it today.  So yes, I like to think I am pretty up on my tech stuff.  Not everyone can make that claim though.  It’s expensive to be on the up and up with today’s technologies.  Have you seen the price of a TV lately?  I don’t know about you, but my cell bill is RIDICULOUS!  My point is this: it’s hard to keep up with technology, and many people simply don’t have the means to do so for a variety of reasons.

I am starting to feel the pull of the digital divide.  I am getting to a point that there is so much technology out there, that I am starting to say “I like this one, I know how it works, I will stick with it.”  That’s all fine and good, until I wake up one day and that technology is out dated and something new and unfamiliar is now in its place.   I am aware of my issue.  I hope to combat the problem, but I do have a concern that someday the technology will outpace me, the simple human.

Take my mother for example.  She is pretty tech savvy.  Just the other day, she asked me if I ever heard of Dropbox.  Um, yea, I have and I have been using it for years.  Until recently however, my mother has never had a use for that technology.  I started to talk about all the cloud services and how I couldn’t decide which one I liked better.  I think I heard her head explode over the phone.

Then there was the guy I met at my last Toastmasters meeting.  He was the Public Relations Chair for another Toastmasters club.  Outside of Toastmasters, he retired from the U.S. Navy and then worked at the Pentagon.  Pretty intelligent, right?  He must be up on his technology.   During the meeting, he asked my why I was recording the speakers.  I explained that I would later upload it to YouTube and send the person an unlisted link to their video so they could review their speech.  This man had no concept of using YouTube for anything other than search music and cat videos.  It blew my mind that he had no idea how to use this technology.  I am so familiar with it, that it took me a minute to explain to him how to use it.  His mind was also blown, but he was very eager to learn and now how a new technology to experiment with!

Bottom line: I think the digital divide is coming for us all!  In some way, some day, we will all succumb to it.  We may decide not to learn about new technology because we like what we have, we may become concerned about our online security, it may become affordable. Good luck and try to keep up!