fear of technology

Last month, when I was at pop!tech liveblogging the conference, I was given a N95 nokia phone... everyone else who got one got happy playing with it at the conference, installing their GSM sim cards into the new gadget and off they went. Me? I kept it in its box and I stayed as far away from it as I could. Like a pig with diamonds. I kept on: clacking away on a borrowed clamshell Y2K ibook, my Nokia 1112 sitting in my room and working as an alarm clock/watch. I´m not that much of a tech buff. I don´t "get" gadgets and the need to get a bigger, better one every time it comes out. So I felt like they had given me a Lladró collectible sculpture. Pretty, expensive, sought after and not quite useful for myself.

I came back to Colombia resolved to sell it. Then I started thinking. Who is going to buy this phone? If this person is willing to pay for the phone and use it... why can´t I? None of us at Hiperbarrio have laptops or cellphones that go online. We work with blogs but can´t really experience mobile blogging. It didn´t take much to get me convinced to give it a test drive and make the most of it, get updated and see why people get all excited about connectivity. And here I am with a computer unlike any I have seen. A computer that does a lot more than what my desktop computer where I´m typing this does. And it fits in my pocket.

After much hemming and hawing, yesterday I took the cellphone out of its box and charged it for the first time. Today I popped it open and inserted my sim card.

Today I felt the technological gap in my own skin.

I was able to understand my mom and her fear of cellphones.

I was able to get why people don´t like computers when they´ve never used them.

I could get why people freeze in front of ATMs.


Usually there is a slow learning curve: You learn how to do something with technology, then you upgrade a level, then another, then a bit more. Every time you upgrade, you learn something slightly newer and slightly more complicated. You slowly go from the tecchy equivalent of boiling water to eventually making caviar and truffle lemongrass frappès as aperitifs. It is painless and gradual.

Today I felt as if after making scrambled eggs, I had somehow skipped every intermediate step and been sat in front of a poisonous puffer fish with a samurai grade steel blade and had been expected to make fugu sashimi for the royal family.

I have no idea how to use that thing. It taunts me. I can see the icons and I can read the labels, they are in plain English (or Spanish, I tried them both). But I don´t have the faintest idea of what they mean. My theory on the step by step learning curve? Not original. The writers of the Nokia manual apparently take it for granted that you´ll know lots of stuff before getting a phone like this one. Can´t blame them. The handbook is 134 pages long... in only one language.

The manual is peppered with terms like HSDPA, UMTS, Ad-hoc, LAN, IMAP4, DTMF. WTF! I feel like Melanie Griffiths in Born Yesterday, looking up every single word in the dictionary and trying to piece things out to get a sense of what they are asking. I feel like an alien who just got told a Chuck Norris joke... with the task to first find out who Chuck Norris is, what martial arts are, what movies mean, where Hollywood is, the definition of sitcom, what makes a TV work and then have to piece it all together to understand how come it is that he makes onions cry.

I already faced my first challenge: I can´t sent out text messages. I searched online for answers, checked other nokia phones I could get my hands on who are also in my network to see configurations, i´ve practiced my google-fu and I´m stumped. After doing the official Nokia troubleshooting I have to follow their recommendations: see my service provider and ask them to give me the message center phone number.

I´m afraid that whomever sees me at the service provider counter will be even worse off than myself. The English manual won´t be much use, and the N95 hasn´t arrived here yet. I´m crossing my fingers, though.

I have a lot more respect for anyone who dares confront not only the technological gap, but also cultural and language gaps on top of it. Like our students who surf the internet without prior experience, no knowledge of English and just based on trusting what we tell them. I think this experience is making me a better trainer. It has reminded me of what it feels like to SUCK.

What would I give for a tecchy mentor to show me the way!