Technology, Guilt, and Insidious Neo-Luddism
Over at the The Shifted Librarian, a blog about technology and libraries and all the delightful interactions betwixt same, Jenny (the author*) posted this post, about technology as a source of guilt, rather than a tool for life balance. I came across the entry by way of Walt Crawford at Walt at Random, and no I’m not actually trying to name-drop (but I’m doing a good job!).
The post at The Shifted Librarian hit on something that’s puzzled/bothered me for a while now. It used to be that I was well out on the “early adopter” leading edge - I was probably the first kid at my college to actually figure out how to get onto the newly installed network (and do so several weeks before they’d planned the rollout); I bought computer equipment, palmtops, and cell phones as quickly as I could; I was happily engaged in email correspondence and web fora as soon as I learned what they were.
But lately, I seem to be wishing more and more that some of the new technologies would just git offa my lawn. In all seriousness, I’ve made a point of avoiding a number of the new social networking tools available, because frankly I couldn’t actually see a reason for them - what, for instance, does Facebook do? Why would I Twitter? And if you try to run a seminar in Second Life, please don’t invite me.
Upon reflection, a lot of my latent resistance to new things started after I became a Iibrarian, and began seeing how Things Are Done(TM) in libraryland. There’s a sense of traditionalism that is instilled, and it seemed to obstruct my interest in new technology gizmos for a while. I’ve felt a tremendous amount of guilt about not being well-versed in these tools, and a definite sense that I was therefore being a bad librarian.** I will also say that part of my resistance probably comes from no longer being the cool guy (or techno-nerd) with an inside line on how things work. Now that Twitter is for grandmas and housecats have blogs it’s hard to maintain my elite status.
Fixing it is easy, of course - just try them out. I’m using Facebook (as soon as the University approves the move, at least) to open another online avenue to our library, as well as connect with fellow faculty and colleagues. I’ve got blogs and wikis and such firmly in hand, and I…
…well, okay, I still haven’t figured out Twitter. It’s like short-attention span theater, or something.
* She says her name is Jenny, right there on the blog!
** No cookie!