Those were the days when we were in school and computer was introduced to us as an Optional Subject. Yeah, then people thought that one can survive without knowing much about computers.
I remember reading a book named, ‘The World is Flat.’ It discussed how computers emerged and also explained how many Indians are becoming knowledge workers. I was not so keen on being one. I used to feel surprised as to how conversion of input to output is invisible in software, I still am. I feel comfortable when raw materials pass through an actual machine. One can see raw material being converted to output. This could be a newspaper or a car chassis.
But all in my family were fascinated by this computer thing. So, first computer came to our life. It took around 100 square feet of place for it self. It needed table for its own, chair for a person who works on it. It’s brain was outside the machine being CPU, Pentium 3 processor, am not sure though… which also had a particular place in that computer table. Keyboard, mouse, mouse pad, speakers, headphone, and The screen was a whole set up. My dad bought Epson printer as well. Whole thing was super expensive then which people bought on loans. It was like a newlywed bride adorned with accessories. Everybody was interested to learn everything about it. Once they understood, they never cared about it.
We learned the basic things in Microsoft Office. C programming was a compulsory subject. Last but not least, we played numerous video games, wasting sumptuous time. Car racing, Bricks, Farm ville, Mario were famous games then and Mom knew only one line …If you will not shut it down right now, I will switch off the Main button.
Historical mothers used think it’s the solution for anything, switching off main button even for television. Now, we think we will switch off the internet and our kids will stay away from these gadgets. It’s cool right, we can come up with short term solutions for addiction and stay calm.
Coming to the point, we witnessed industrial revolution and it’s positive and negatives. We experienced the pace of technological advancements and tried hard to cope up with it. I hope our brains are steady enough to match any intelligent machine. I also hope our minds are strong enough to face any empathetic system.
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