The Technology Learning Curve

©iStockphoto.com/tisphoto

I’ve got a lot to learn.  I know that.  But couldn’t it be just a little easier?  I’m feeling totally overwhelmed and discouraged.  There’s just so much to learn.  At times, it feels like too much.

In college, I typed all my papers on an electric typewriter.  In fact, my big Christmas present my senior year in high school was that very electric typewriter that got me all the way through college.

I had one professor my senior year who demanded no corrections.  He hated white-out.  So if I made a mistake, I had to start the page all over.  Between my junior and senior years, I got a job in an office with a computer, and I could go in after hours and type my papers there.  What a huge difference that made.

After that big leap, there weren’t many more for awhile.  I went to graduate school in journalism and learned to use a video camera.  The equipment was heavy and burdensome, but I did it.  I even learned to do some basic editing.  When I went overseas, my biggest challenge was not erasing my audio tapes and taking decent film pictures.  I could master all that.

And when I came home and got my first real job in television, the equipment was basically what I had learned on in graduate school.  And it remained that way during my eight years with CNN.

So why this enormous explosion in technology that has left me feeling like one of my grandparents?  Digital cameras were mind-boggling enough.  But then cell phones, and laptops, and email, and the internet, and social media, and digital this, that, and everything.  And why did it all happen while I was taking a career break?  It feels like an evil plot to keep me from re-entering.

I’m trying to catch up, but I’m telling you, it’s a struggle.  And that’s my post for tomorrow.