I picked a reading for this week, based solely on what the
reading was called. ‘My life with computers on a remote island’ caught my
attention but for all the wrong reasons. I was expecting some story about a
person who could live their life in isolation with a computer and still completely
live a satisfactory existence. The picture above is a sarcastic way of looking
at it. I was wrong. Instead Bethalia Gaidan talks about computers and the
internet as some sort of device that her community has been deprived of. She
complains that she has to ‘teach herself’ how new software programs and
hardware work, yet don’t we all? I recently purchased a new computer, there I also
had to purchase Microsoft and then I had to figure the programs out for myself.
I am 21 years old and I still have trouble and sometimes frustrated when using Microsoft
word and Microsoft excel. She also complains that she would like computers to
be more reliable because it is very expensive for ‘us’ in remote areas to get
our computers fixed. Have you ever tried to get your laptop fixed at a price
you are happy with?
Her complaints and story seems to be out of touch with the
environment today. Although we live in a mediatised technological world, we
cannot simply pick out remote areas and see them as less fortunate than those
who come from the city.
The old saying goes – ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ – I certainly
did.
References:
Gaidan, B 2007, ‘My life with computers on a remote
island’, in LE Dyson, M Hendriks & S Grant (eds), Information technology
and Indigenous people, Information Science Publishing, Hershey, Pa., pp.
58–60.
Image: Masood, N 2008, Do you suffer from Internet Addiction Disorder? Nadia Masood travel. food. photography., retrieved 21 August 2012, http://nadiamasood.com/do-you-suffer-from-internet-addiction-disorder.
I liked your blog as the topic is something I deal with daily. In my job I have to deal with people like Bethalia Gaidan and her complaints, when you are right, we have all had to teach ourselves. Computers and Technology are meant to make our lives easier, and they do, if you know what your doing. Its like driving a car. If you know what your doing its fine, if you don’t, then dude, get off the road. I think the older generation sometimes find it hard to be able to adapt where our generation (for the most part) has had to teach ourselves in every single technological fad, like how we all had to teach ourselves how to use Facebook after spending years on our MySpace pages.
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