I'm Getting Too Old For This

I am getting too old to be a geek. Oh...I like getting a new computer and playing with it and learning about it. I liked playing with a Blackberry when I had to learn to use it to support it. I would like a new cell phone but can't decide which one to get. I am somewhere between a geek and a techno-phobe.

I don't want a cell phone to use all the time. I like my landline...there is something comforting to me about being tethered to the wall and knowing I can hear the person I'm talking to all the time. But I carry one for emergencies.

I don't want cable TV...I like my channels the way they are and looking at the cable listings I don't find anything I want to see. But I keep the TV on all the time for background noise.

I love to read but I'm resisting getting a Kindle. Because I love the feel of a book in my hands.

Since my job requires that I be a geek or as I like to put it a "gu" not a full blown "guru" when it comes to computer software and hardware, I have to keep up with not give up on technology.

And try not to kill the users I support when they ask questions that they should already know the answers to!

Tags: cell, computers, hardware, phone, software, technology, users

Add a Comment

You need to be a member of Reviews, News, and How To Geeks to add comments!

Join this Ning Network

Comment by Shtanto on December 1, 2008 at 6:25pm: Sure I'm only mid 20s and I'm already starting to feel this way. I remember Lego and I remember being happy. Lego never broke. Lego could be chewed. Lego was colourful. Now I have computers. They break, they cannot be chewed (safely) and they aren't colourful. Usually, they are grey and depressing. Though I suppose I can use them to buy lego :)

I don't see the point of HDTV or Blu-ray. Technology shouldn't be an end unto itself. It should be about making more time to spend with friends and family.

Comment by WKnight on December 1, 2008 at 7:39am: I (being on the edge of the gap according to Flimmer) often feel myself slipping further away from geekdom. I don't have much of a desire to be cutting edge anymore. In fact, i like the safety of being a year or two behind (at least). But, when the need arises, I can still debug script errors, do a firmware upgrade to fix a compatibility issue or program a vcr. So, i think it's probably geek for life because you don't lose the ability, it just goes dormant.

My first experience with the generation gap is a funny story that I'll always remember. I was about 13 and playing super mario brothers on my new nintendo entertainment system. My stepfather (about 28ish at the time) says to me, "i don't get these new games. they are so complex. how do you even know which way to go?!"

Comment by Norm Stoehr on December 1, 2008 at 7:37am: Eleven years ago, at age 56, I was hoping to get out of the world before having to learn how to use a computer. But finally I couldn't ignore progress any longer and bought a laptop, called notebooks back then. I would open it up, look at it, wondering what keys to press, and close it up. One day I must have learned some long forgotten application, and I've been hooked ever since. I also read voraciously and watched limited TV. I think it was curiosity that drove me to switch to Mac five years ago, try four different HDTV technologies, drop my land lines and get both versions of the iPhone, and recently, God forbid, I bought a Kindle. Perhaps I'm too old to NOT be a geek!

Comment by Flimmer Skjerm on November 30, 2008 at 1:08pm: It is interesting to see your approach here. The generation gap that begins at around 33 - 34 seems to be expanding exponentially with new technologies and lifestiles being made available. I have never reflected much on IP-phone, eBooks etc. - it comes pretty natural to me, but then again - I have probably always been a pretty early adapter of new technology. But even I have no chance of keeping up with teens and how they adapt and use for instance mobile phones today. Which is a rather sobering thought considering system development and developing business strategies are part of what I have to do in order to keep abreast in todays tech development.

Of course - the age gap is of course not the only reason we see an increasingly segmented market in these particular fields. The availability is just as important. Availability goes both for cost, for target market adaptation (your friends need to start using the same technology as well), and it needs to be available to the physical location where it is intended to be used. There are also a number of other issues that should be referred to here, but it is definitively not a black and white picture.

But in the very end it all boils down to one thing: preferences. And that is not anything anyone can take from you.

Comment by erik markus on November 30, 2008 at 12:16pm: that's cool. The thing keeping me from cel phones and I-phones and the like is the health effects. It is cool to embrace new technology, I think, as long as were progressing. I don't see a new cel phone, just because it is new, as progressing. The same thing with texting. Why? wouldn't it simply be easier to talk on the phone?
Advances: solar car, solar house, a cel phone that doesn't present a health risk, pastries that aren't fattening, etc.