We often use technology not according to what it allows us to do, but to the idea that we have of it. More than the competence of users, it counts the faith in reference brands and commercial policies. So, useless products selling well on the market, mandatory updates of services without a reason, and the general resignation to the fact that humans may not understand or choose the future but adapt to it, and always run, even when we have machines that can run for us! We worry about cybersecurity, but we can no longer live without the control of many little big brothers, who also monitor our thinking, establish what is politically correct and address the groupthink of many. Without a new philosophical vision of the relationship between humans and media, we will never achieve what is technically possible, or we'll have anyhow virtual and physical realities out of control.
Top2. Technology And Faith
In 1999 I was at the book fair in Turin, presenting Come usare il computer con bambini e ragazzi (How to use the computer with children and teenagers). Beyond the very handbook title, the work was based much on my concrete work in schools, even in kindergarten, on the responses of real children and young people, on their ability to play with certain software, to discover its potential, well beyond the idea of learning to do all the same things in the same way.
A teacher is talking to me, she is interested, we are comparing the mutual experience. At one point, I let slip a sentence about some Windows problems, and the frost drops. The teacher makes a strange, dark, scandalized face, and silently walks away…
I did not want to denigrate the operating system at that time as successful as ever but, as it is used among those who deal with computer science and practice, I made those observations about the defects of a software that are an essential part of the life and development of the software itself, whose periodic updates not by chance list every few months the defects of previous versions and the corrections made to fix them. Clear that not all users’ comments are welcomed by developers, that anyone has his own ideas and preferences, but in any case, it should not make a matter of faith.
That is what often happens instead, with too many people who, today as and more than before, seem not to need to understand, but to believe in “technology”.
In 2012 Apple removed their SuperDrives from iMacs, to make them “thinner”. Then, optical discs were removed from Mac Pro and finally MacBook pro in 2016. The external Super Drive has been the best-selling accessory for Macs in many markets for years, until it has been no longer supported with M1 Macs, from 2020.
Aside from the fact that it’s not so clear why a desktop computer should be thinner, since we don’t have to put it in a bag or carry it on a plane, and it may be that with our furniture It looks better a sturdy one, I personally had the problem that a part of my activity was just to make DVD videos with children.
We are going to see in detail in chapter 7 why from an educational point of view I do think that to work for a DVD is better for kids than to post instant reels on TikTok. But more in general, having many different tools at disposal, I’d like to be free of choosing among them, according to my taste and needs. I understand that in front a substantial technological change, it’s up to me to equip myself looking for external devices allowing me to convert for example old analog video formats to digital. If several years ago I had a PC with a card inside dedicated to this, I know that obviously producers can’t go on manufacturing PCs with devices inbuilt completely out to date.