The Pace of Change 2

Matt Edgar also commentates on how now we use the Internet for everything. He says that now instead of going to the library and searching through the books to find the answer to our question, we just type it into a search engine, even though the answer will be less accurate and probably worse as well as less fitting to our needs.

This shows how our generation has changed. It has become more technologically advanced, making the technology do the work for us. Our generation has become lazier with the Internet and we mainly depend on it.

Matt Edgar uses some good examples, which show how we have changed and moved on, but I believe this has made us lazier.

Think about this:

Order the journal or cut and paste from a random Google Books snippet view?

Track down the original 12-inch vinyl or settle for the bedroom remix on MP3?

Search through books in the library or search for it on the Internet and settle for any answer?

You know what you should do, and you know what you will do.

Matt Edgar uses a metaphor ‘like a theatrical lighting effect’ to describe the above. Using it he means that the technological side is so bright and visible to us that it darkens the non-technological stuff so we don’t see it and forget about it.

I find this idea very worrying, but on the other hand, interesting and true.  

THE RATE OF CHANGE IS QUICKLY CHANGING AND SO ARE WE...

THE RATE OF CHANGE IS QUICKLY CHANGING AND SO ARE WE...

The rate of change and how quickly we adapt to it is rapidly increasing. Isn’t it amazing how long radio took to reach a global popularity? It took 40 years! The television took not as long, but still 10 years! For us this seems impossible. We use the television everyday and don’t see anything complicated about it, but humans, we, took 10 years to ‘adapt to television! As we were improving technologically, our brains could slightly understand different technology, so the iPod took 5 years to ‘adapt’ to – I still think this is very long!

Then YouTube, created in February 2005 only took 6 months to get used to… This time can be understood. People were now fairly technologically advanced, but still not as much as we are now so it took them half a year, but compared to the radio that’s 80 times faster!!!

The new Google+ is predicted to become very popular within less than 6 months, around 3 months! I am sure you have all heard about Google+ and some of you might have even tried it; it is like an improved version of Facebook.

I find these facts astonishing and hard to believe – what do you think?

Some people argue about how we measure the time it took for a product to get ‘adapted’ to, a major argument is that Twitter, something that was created in 2006 and is very popular now, took 212 years to become globally used and popular.

‘Why not just chain together sequential inventions in the field of short messaging, from the 1794 Chappe telegraph to Twitter in 2006? 212 years! What took you so long, Jack Dorsey?’

Without doubt, these measurements might not be completely accurate, but they are enough to see how we humans are technologically advancing and getting to know things and start using new thinks quicker. This also shows that now products spread globally in seconds, compared to a few decades ago.

The idea with Twitter takes 212 years to develop, I believe is complete rubbish… I believe that the data we have it quite accurate for us to use it.

Material taken from: 

http://www.slideshare.net/yiibu/letting-go-9109114

AND

http://matt.me63.com/2011/09/16/the-pace-of-change/

Both of the links are highly recommended to have a look at J