I’ve long prided myself on being on of the more tech-savvy individuals among my peers, friends, and family. I'm no expert–I still can't code, develop on the web, or do more than the basics in pro level apps. But, I have kept up with consumer tech advances, spending a lot of time listening to tech podcasts, reading blogs, and watching YouTube explainers and reviews.
I have been the personal IT department for parents, teachers, and colleagues, and spent two years as a technology factotum in my job with an educational non-profit. I often felt chagrined by comments about being a “digital native” and snubs toward “those yuppie devices”. I would roll my eyes and chuckle at people older than me who couldn’t understand that you shouldn’t Google Yahoo and then, cloud forbid, type a domain into the search bar instead of typing it into the browser. Or, FFS, why would someone continue using Word Perfect in 2010?!
Alas, I fear I may be turning into the Luddite curmudgeon I have resented.
My eagerness to tryout a shiny, new app is fading.
Notion is all the rage these days, from productivity to project management and even as a quick and agile web design platform. I’m curious about it, but I am finding myself more and more reluctant to dive into learning a new app.
I’ve had multiple websites on SquareSpace for nearly ten years, despite my awareness of much better platforms.1 It’s just so easy! I can type or click, drag, and adjust things in a fraction of the time it takes on more popular hosts. The allure of Ghost.io, Webflow, or even Notion still pulls. I just can’t be bothered.
Mind you, I’m still spending hours feeding my Apple fan-boy lustful desires2 and I’ve slowly been working through Codecademy courses to finally lay a foundation for HTML and CSS, and hope to return to some of the programming languages du jour.
The accelerated pace of tech innovation is difficult to keep up with, though. There used to be one iPhone with only a few options. Now, there are new smartphones coming out every month. Creating a new app would take an experienced development team and tens of thousands of dollars. Independent novice programmers can now create software projects and publish it as SaaS or on the App Store with minimal investment. Hardware has changed significantly over the past 5-10 years. It’s a full-time job for people to review and compare new apps.
Don’t even get me started on social media. I resisted joining Facebook for quite a while, but more recently I am quick to grab my preferred handle on new platforms – Snapchat, TikTok, Clubhouse… I try them out, and I can figure out their mechanics, but I don’t really understand the why or the how…