Old habits

How much new technology have you absorbed?

Our tutoring consultant brings a laptop in to work each day, because much of the admin of the business shifted on-line during the lockdown and has remained there.  His first actions are to plug it in and turn it on.  In this, he differs from most of his students.  When they have laptop-work for school, most of the time they run the machine off the battery.  Indeed, the younger tutors are comfortable with unplugged laptops.  And they hold them in their laps or in one hand, making more use of their portability; our tutor always rests his on the desk.

He realized that his different use stems from old habits.  He first used computers when they all had cathode-ray tube screens, which required high voltage to run; they had to be plugged in to work.  And they all sat on a desk, not being at all portable.  All of the computers he’s owned have been laptops, not because he wanted or needed to use them away from power sources, but because he moved from place to place often and needed to take his work with him.  This is becoming another way of giving him an older technological age: he likes to have files and programs on his machine, not in the cloud.

Another habit concerns his smartphone, which he generally does use unplugged.  Like the rest of our consultants, he becomes concerned when its battery goes down to less than, say, 70 or 80%, and looks to charge it as soon as possible.  This is far from necessary; a 70% charge will last for days at our level of usage.  Our navigator, at least, thinks he has an excuse for it.  His first ship in the Navy was a destroyer, a notoriously thirsty type.  The admiral in charge of a task force was always concerned that he might have some extended high-speed maneuver forced on him, and monitored the destroyer’s fuel tanks closely.  If a captain let his level fall to 60% he risked very sharp words from the boss.

The fact that our astronomer logs out and turns off his computer, even the laptop which never leaves home, puts him in a sort of middle technological age.  As a graduate student he used the university’s system, which was always on; and in fact often he would set a calculation to run overnight.  Nowadays, computers which can remain on continually seem to do so; Microsoft’s updates assume they do.  But this may be more due to a lack of desk space at home, so it’s convenient to clear away the laptop when it’s not being used.  (On the other hand, the fact that he has desk activities that don’t use the computer indicates something about his technological age.)

People do change their habits with new technology.  Almost everyone who wrote paper letters shifted to email, and almost everyone who took pictures with a camera now uses a smartphone.  But again, if you still mainly use email rather than a messaging app on your phone, that says something about your technological age.

So, do you still use a credit card (or even cash) to pay for things, instead of a phone app?  If you read, what do you use: tablets, your phone, or even paper books?  What do your habits say about you?