Freaky Friday

This era is considered The Golden Age in Science and Technology.

Having spent a lifetime in technology, I have seen things change more rapidly than I could ever have anticipated. I began my computer career before the Apple was ever invented. I was working at IBM when a prototype came across my desk. It was smaller than any computer I'd ever seen before, had 16KB (yes, KB) of memory and did not have a hard disk. You could do only one thing at a time - which consisted in the early years of word processing, spreadsheets, graphics and databases. The screen was green on black, not high resolution, and capable of displaying only 40 characters on each line - which meant you had to print your work to see how it would look.

Floppy disks were 5 inches - smaller than the 8 inch disks used with word processing machines such as the IBM Displaywriter.

In just the past few decades, I've witnessed computers held in my hand that have far surpassed what we could once do with mainframe computers that cost millions of dollars.

With that technology has come a lot of power - the power to reach people by phone around the world (even from Mt Everest), the power to take our destinies in our own hands and create cyber-corporations, the ability to tap into vast stores of data at our fingertips.

How has technology changed your world?

Why Isn't Technology Helping?

When I first began using email roughly 15 years ago, I answered all my emails in 15 minutes each morning before I began work. Before long, the time allotted grew to an hour, then two hours, and then three. Flash forward to 2012 and I spend a whopping 6 hours a day answering emails. This is in addition to my workday, not to be confused with during my workday.

I receive on average 300 emails each day, 7 days a week. This is NOT counting spam, which numbers into the thousands. After an event such as Book 'Em North Carolina, my inbox swells to more than 1,000 a day. I have employed as many as 2 people to help me wade through the mountain of emails but in the end, I'm the go-to person for how to respond.

Yesterday before I started my 8-10 hour workday, I spent five hours answering emails, responding to tweets, Facebook entries and blogs directed to me. Though I have a presence on Pinterest, I haven't even begun to interact with it in any significant way. At the end of my workday, I spent an additional 3 hours answering more emails.


I spoke to another author who has a growing blog following. She began by posting her blog in a few short minutes each morning. Then as the list grew and she began commenting, her workday began to grow - and it's still growing.

A friend who runs a non-profit tells me that her world is spinning out of control. She used to mail things to sponsors, benefactors, and others related to her work. There would be a week or two lag time before they'd respond, and no one thought anything of it. Now someone sends her an email and if she doesn't respond within 15 minutes, they're emailing again or calling to ask what's the holdup?

Technology was supposed to make our lives better. Microwave ovens. Running water. Food from the grocery. Carryout. Email. Cell phones. GPS. Laptops. iPads. eReaders. Facebook. Twitter. Pinterest. Blogs.

Then how is it possible that my grandparents, who raised their own livestock, milked their own cows, sewed their own clothing, drew water from a well and had to walk outside in the middle of the night to find their way to the outhouse in the dark - worked 8 or 9-hour workdays and had time for dinner with the family in the evenings, weekends, church on Sunday...

And with all the technology we have today, all it has managed to do is make our days longer and the hamster wheel go faster?