I love technology

Technology is truly amazing. I remember not too long ago, in a galaxy far far away when I used to write letters to my friends. It was a tedious process in that you had to write the letter, find out how many stamps it would take, figure out postage rates for international vs domestic mail, and then mail it off. You would drop the letter in the mailbox and then wait, and wait, and wait some more and wait a little more and then when you stopped waiting, a letter would come for you. I remember feeling so elated to have the letter in my hands and opening it and reading the contents. Sometimes you had to read it more than once to see what it is all about and make sure you understood it completely.

If you were at all like me, and maybe you weren’t, I saved all the letters from my friends and girlfriends in a shoebox. I would take some time out once or twice a year to read the letters and reminisce. It seemed so normal, yet now it seems so antiquated. We don’t handwrite letters anymore and so we are losing our ability to communicate in a sense. Most of the kids today learn to text and email as soon as they are born. Basically they are handed an iPhone or blackberry in the delivery room, but I digress.

Today we do everything electronically. Emails replace paper and ink, Electronically scanned documents replace carbon copies, (do you remember carbon copies?), and text messaging is the new phone call. I am guilty of reveling in the new technology as I am a tech guru ( I type this on my MacBook air and will be watching a movie on my ipad on the flight home). I have thousands of friends/fans all over the world. I can communicate in real time with people from all reaches of the globe. What used to require us to wait until business hours on the other side of the globe, now requires us to find a computer, open a web browser and either send an email or log into the latest phenomenon, Facebook.

Yes, I know, Facebook has been around for sometime, but how we now communicate has changed once again. Seems that email and texting were the norm just two years ago, is now going by the wayside for more seamless means of communication such as Facebook, twitter and instant messaging (although I must admit, the latter are still iffy in my book). Since Facebook introduced its new email platform, they are promoting a seamless communication platform. You can now interact via instant message or email, where the instant message is automatically saved as an inbox conversation.

This is amazing because you can rehash and remember conversations you had years ago. (I recently found a conversation with a friend that I hadn’t talked to in 3 years and saw all the details of what we were talking about at that time, right there in my inbox!). The beauty of this is that you pick up right where you left off. I currently manage to have, although broken, some 12 to 14 conversations with people all over the globe in Africa, Ukraine, China, Australia and Brazil to name a few. Most of these conversations are instant or email and come in within a day. This is a huge change as communications before would have taken weeks or even months many years ago.

I embrace technology. I appreciate it and know of its power. I know it can be a negative force, but for the most part, I am looking at it from a positive perspective. Business has changed, relationships have changed, our lives have changed in part to the Internet and technology. I am an early adopter and like to buy the latest and greatest. I love the physical connections with people, please don’t get me wrong, but I love the fact that we can connect with more people now than at any other time in history. If used as a force for good, technology can be a great thing. Its just a matter of how you view it.

Until next time…