I took a lot of heat over Monday's edition of Random Access, in which I endorsed New York Post gossip doyenne Liz Smith's exhortation to use a TiVo. They claimed that I had condescended to older Americans like Smith, 82, in suggesting that they're not able to adapt to modern technology.
For the record, many people do reach a certain age when they adopt the word "newfangled" into their regular vocabulary -- but not all people. That is what makes an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer seem so timely. Reporter Deborah Bach visited Seattle's Ballard High School where the AARP's Washington chapter is working with EarthLink on a program that pairs high school students with senior citizens to get the elder parties comfortable with high-speed Web surfing.
| ___About Random Access___ Random Access is a daily column by Robert MacMillan that explores the latest trends in technology and how they are changing daily life. Random Access won't tell you why a new gizmo will revolutionize your ad server. It will tell you about episodes from daily life -- exasperated waiters who use blogs to vent about their customers, whole runs of salmon injected with nanoparticles for individual tracking in Norwegian fjords and the growing number of DJs who are sick of being sidelined in favor of iPods. (Only one of these stories is fake.) Most of what you see will be culled from news sources and blogs from around the world, though we will supplement Random Access with original files on the novel, unusual, bizarre and reactionary happenings in the world of technology and society. E-mail: Send links and comments. | | |
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The GenerationLink program launched in Seattle in the past few days. Three high schools in Dallas got in on the act a year ago. EarthLink's Web site says GenerationLink, which first went live in 2002, also is active in Atlanta, Orlando and Philadelphia.
Bach featured several profiles in her article, including that of Ray Wiesner, 71, who she reported was more interested in the shape of things to come than talking about the good old days. "Wiesner used to eagerly anticipate letters about his great-nephew, a race-car driver who lives in New York," Bach wrote. "Once he learned that his great-nephew had set up a racing Web site, Wiesner decided he had to get online. 'I was hooked,' he said." And in a choice example of turning the tables: "Sophomore Gyasi Bass, 16, volunteered for GenerationLink after discovering, through visits to his grandmother in a nursing home, the truth in the adage about wisdom and age. 'They definitely have a lot of knowledge to teach us,' he said. 'Just talking with them and hearing about their experiences is amazing.'"
The story also focused on Margie Conover, who graduated from Ballard in 1933. Nearly 72 years later, she's learning from Soley Gunnarsson, 16, about Google and other search engines. "A former legal secretary, Conover said she's ready to hang up her electronic Royal typewriter and start composing letters on the computer her son gave her. She previously took a community college course in an effort to get Web-savvy but said [that] without personalized instruction, she learned little."
Another class of '33 grad, Katherine Herndon, said she's happy to learn about the Web from her tutor, 17-year-old Ana-Maria Standolariu, but that she "has no plans to turn into the sort of Net junkie who whiles away hours in chat rooms or online shopping sites. ... 'I like to get out of the house. I don't want to stay inside.'"
Not that I support online gambling, but it sounds like it's time to take bets on whether Herndon, when we catch up with her in a year, will be sporting a Blackberry, iPod or PSP -- or all three. She might like to go outside but that's no reason to untether from high technology. I spend a lot of time trying to deflate the hype that clings to tech, not just because it's tiresome but because technology is a means to improving our lives, not an end. Sometimes it's nice to forget about e-mail, the Internet and MP3s for a while -- more than just a few hours. But that doesn't mean that the Internet shouldn't be a part of everybody's life, and that's why it's good to see that young folks are helping older generations climb aboard.
I'm an Internet Major
Today's campus really does provide an instant, borderless gateway to new worlds of knowledge. What? Did you think I was talking about those musty old professors? USA Today reports that "the American college campus, long an oasis of scholarship and coming-of-age, is now being transformed by a more palpable force: an armada of laptops, cell phones and perpetual connectivity." While not a groundbreaker in news terms, the story provides good color for parents who wonder how their kid works on campus. Take the case of University of North Carolina sophomore Dax Varkey: "In class, he takes notes on the portable computer, sometimes instant-messaging or e-mailing friends if the professor is less than riveting. In his dorm, he instant-messages his roommate a few feet away. He's tethered to his cell phone, which he even uses to call a buddy who lives one floor above him, and his iPod, which supplies music for walks between classes." It's a long story and is worth reading down to the end, especially because of its interesting digressions into the effects of being constantly online. Consider this in particular: "Nig-Yi Zheng says she's used the iPod a couple of times to record lectures when she was tired. But, she adds, 'If it was up to me, I'd use [the money] for other purposes.' Some professors worry, too, that in the rush to expand connectivity, something intangible is being lost. 'Once you post lectures to the Web, it implies the face-to-face encounter of a classroom doesn't matter,'" says Duke history professor Elizabeth Fenn.
The story links to two other interesting resources. One is a Princeton Review chart of the most "wired" campuses. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute comes in at No. 1, and the top 10 includes Temple, Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania. Another link is to a short article on how colleges' redundant technology systems can inflate students' fees from $100 to as much as $1,500 per semester.
Trends in Involuntary Liberation
USA Today also ran an article on the travails of travelers' who lose their laptops and other electronic devices. Check out the stories for yourself, but here's one excerpt worth highlighting: "There are no official counts of how many gadgets are lost or stolen each year. But losing devices is one of the hazards of dashing madly for a plane, train or taxi. Business travelers also leave BlackBerrys clipped on airplane seat pockets or cell phones charging in their hotel rooms. Some leave laptops at airport security checkpoints. Software consultant Joanne Langhoff of Cincinnati, looking for a mislaid cell phone, was once allowed to peek inside a Hertz car rental lost-and-found room at the Kansas City, Mo., airport. She was 'absolutely amazed' by what she saw: hundreds of phones, laptops, chargers and other electronic accessories. 'It looked like Best Buy was having a garage sale,' Langhoff says."
