Tech Adoption Stories.. Lighter Moments
The First Impressions..
In the Bygone era before 2000s.. Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Windows and Word.. The names grand and enigmatic.. the first steps quite nerve racking. The Hotmail, AOL chat and AltaVista search....
The promise and spread of Internet yet nascent. The Blue Wheel of Netscape Navigator like a Captain exploring the unknown waters. Home Pages on GeoCities was like building virtual homes and stirred quite some excitement.
In 2006 perhaps, when on maternity leave.. I received a rather unusual email from a coworker.. It had some Network Connection diagram, and mentioned of some Jobs. ‘I am not looking for a Networking Job. I wonder why did he send this mail?’ Little did I know that these were the opening doors of LinkedIn and building connections..
2005 perhaps.. I was an embedded engineer working on Imaging acceleration for low end mobile phones of those times.
‘There is great news.. You could watch videos from internet.. It streams like a tube..’ Manager was saying something with great excitement, as though History has been made. I did not even bother to exercise internet and fact check, as instant curiosity and internet search was not the second nature for many.
And a few years from then.. YouTube was all over..
We were cab mates and sometimes chatted a bit. She was from Business Operations. We exchanged phone numbers just in case we missed the cab.
One day I get a longish WhatsApp message from her and I give a sermon. ‘Why are you wasting this precious space with some message not a bit relevant to me?’
Little did I realise the great folly that I had committed. The dawn of WhatsApp messages and the ocean of forwards that the future had in store.
Covid time did bring out newer interests in people. I was very fascinated with the spotlight kind of food pictures in FB. My second son introduced me to filters of iPhone. And that was my coming of Age to Instagram. The power of Lenses and Image Processing.. It helped me capture moments of all the cooking experiments in that time.
Smartphones have become ubiquitous. Nobody naive anymore. Plethora of Apps and tech advancements stopped tickling magic and imagination perhaps..
May be not.. Time is always young.. Technology has newer things in its wings.. Sometimes distancing reality.. sometimes revealing distant things like a magical mirror.. I was allowing AI of Instagram to lead the magical reels to me since last two weeks.. And have been quite smitten by the young and talented influencers.. Idyllic life in Kerala.. Ancient Temples and Dance.. Funny Roasts.. Poetry and Philosophy in Telugu.. Life Style videos in Sanskrit.. Everything under 3 minutes.
