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Understanding New
Technology
If you are reading this editorial, chances
are that you have
a computer with an Internet connection,
unless someone
has passed it on to you in a printed
form. It is amazing how
technology in our daily lives is taken
granted, we simply use
it and never stop really to give it a second
thought ...... until
something goes wrong, that is!
I subscribe to various mailing lists to keep
in touch with many
topics that interest me, one of these is an
arts discussion
forum that has lots of interesting
people who range from just
arts lovers to artists to academics, it
served many people who
simply used it for all kinds of things, but
mostly for exhibitions
announcements and other arts news. Many
didn't really have
any understanding how a discussion
mailing list works and I
can't blame them, it is just another piece
of modern computer
technology we take for granted. The "proverbial" hit the fan
when someone posted to that list some
kind of a letter with a
large attachment and sure enough it has been
re-posted to
all the members of the list. That is how
this kind of mailing lists
works, it is supposed to distribute all the
mailings to it to the
members.
Never mind why some people didn't like that posting,
or any others, the mailing list was at no
fault, it is the lack of
understanding that has compounded the
problem and caused
many members to try to unsubscribe by
sending the list their
irate letters, which in turn sent them further
again to all the list
members, that is how it works, and so, on it
went, there was
a flood born out of a trickle. I could just
imagine the poor list
moderator trying to calm all the frayed
tempers and thought,
there is no sense in kicking your TV
screen in just because
the contents is full of B.S., simply
switch it off, but to do that
you gotta know how the damned thing works,
same with
mailing lists or any other technology...if
people tried to find
out how it all worked, it would have been
just as easy to reach
out and switch it off. Now the sad fact is
that a good and very
useful thing has been virtually destroyed
because of few
trivial things and the inability to deal
with technology that we
expect to function to our liking
without even taking the time to
think how does it all work. Granted
there were postings at
times that could have annoyed some
members, so what is
the heck, just reach out and click...it is
gone, no hassles.
Now the same list has moved to another
location offering
the members more control on all the aspects
of subscribing
and unsubscribing and many other functions,
that is to say
more technology to the end user, is this a
guarantee that what
happened will not be repeated? I really
don't think so.
Unless we approach all that technology with
more realistic
expectations and build some tolerance to the
occasional
hiccup, we are assured of getting ourselves
in strife.....
It is all our fault!
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