Sometimes I swear there’s an alien in our house. Or maybe I’m the alien and I just don’t belong on this planet. Something happens that is totally illogical and I think, “Is that me? Or is this situation just too weird?’
These types of activities occur (where you can’t figure out why something happened or what happened) typically involve technology. Just recently, two of my coworkers were joking about which of them must have touched their keyboard to eliminate some files that were available the day before. Those are the types of situations where you wonder if a force has seized your keyboard, your computer, the software or the cloud itself to change something and drive you batty.
It’s the “change” element that baffles most of us who are IT illiterate. Our expectations on a daily basis are to turn our laptop, iPad or desktop on, and the screen lights up. We tap in our password. Like magic, we get access to data and can go almost anywhere in the world to look at pictures, read things or watch videos.
We get used to that simplicity. Because we really don’t understand how our typing actions affect the inner workings of the programs running on our devices, we get completely lost when something goes wrong.
The coworker example was about some files used for stories. Typically, my two coworkers just clicked on what they needed, did their work, saved it and moved on. But then for no apparent reason the aliens took over and they couldn’t get where they wanted to go. Neither could the IT troubleshooter. The help desk was no help. That’s probably never happened to you, right?
Despite how integral various electronic devices are to our daily lives, they really are not our friends. The slightest miss-tap causes a mistake. We get lost. The cursor goes into nether-nether land and never comes back. You need an expert in language AND technology to explain things and figure out how to fix it. An alien might be a better able to solve the problem.
Scarily, the alien has access to many things about where you go, along with personal information. We trust the alien because we presume his goodness. If we work with him closely, he will not do us wrong.
But we don’t have proof of that. And when we get locked out, or our files disappear, we know the alien haunts us.
Recently, I found my files reversed on my home desktop computer. Why? Who the heck knows?
One day I accessed some Word documents and rather than them coming up starting with the “A’s,” they came on the screen starting with the “Z’s.” That’s okay. I can figure that out. But what did I do to piss the alien off? I’m sure it was something simple like accidently hitting a key but that doesn’t allow you to replicate the action to figure it out and reverse the complication.
Last week, Facebook stopped showing videos that are downloaded from other sites. I don’t know why. Initially they come up, then as you scroll down the Facebook page, they disappear and turn into different shades of black, inaccessible. That’s okay. I really don’t care. But still, why does the alien care about videos on Facebook?
I wish he’d figure out something more productive to do. Then again, maybe he’s telling me where I should stop wasting my time.
These types of activities occur (where you can’t figure out why something happened or what happened) typically involve technology. Just recently, two of my coworkers were joking about which of them must have touched their keyboard to eliminate some files that were available the day before. Those are the types of situations where you wonder if a force has seized your keyboard, your computer, the software or the cloud itself to change something and drive you batty.
It’s the “change” element that baffles most of us who are IT illiterate. Our expectations on a daily basis are to turn our laptop, iPad or desktop on, and the screen lights up. We tap in our password. Like magic, we get access to data and can go almost anywhere in the world to look at pictures, read things or watch videos.
We get used to that simplicity. Because we really don’t understand how our typing actions affect the inner workings of the programs running on our devices, we get completely lost when something goes wrong.
The coworker example was about some files used for stories. Typically, my two coworkers just clicked on what they needed, did their work, saved it and moved on. But then for no apparent reason the aliens took over and they couldn’t get where they wanted to go. Neither could the IT troubleshooter. The help desk was no help. That’s probably never happened to you, right?
Despite how integral various electronic devices are to our daily lives, they really are not our friends. The slightest miss-tap causes a mistake. We get lost. The cursor goes into nether-nether land and never comes back. You need an expert in language AND technology to explain things and figure out how to fix it. An alien might be a better able to solve the problem.
Scarily, the alien has access to many things about where you go, along with personal information. We trust the alien because we presume his goodness. If we work with him closely, he will not do us wrong.
But we don’t have proof of that. And when we get locked out, or our files disappear, we know the alien haunts us.
Recently, I found my files reversed on my home desktop computer. Why? Who the heck knows?
One day I accessed some Word documents and rather than them coming up starting with the “A’s,” they came on the screen starting with the “Z’s.” That’s okay. I can figure that out. But what did I do to piss the alien off? I’m sure it was something simple like accidently hitting a key but that doesn’t allow you to replicate the action to figure it out and reverse the complication.
Last week, Facebook stopped showing videos that are downloaded from other sites. I don’t know why. Initially they come up, then as you scroll down the Facebook page, they disappear and turn into different shades of black, inaccessible. That’s okay. I really don’t care. But still, why does the alien care about videos on Facebook?
I wish he’d figure out something more productive to do. Then again, maybe he’s telling me where I should stop wasting my time.
