Campfyre Stories

…said the man behind me on the bus.

But it’s not.  Not really.  I mean, sure, technology is prevalent in our lives nowadays and certainly, it’s a higher technology than, say, the technology in a VCR or an answering machine, but that doesn’t make it actually high technology.  In fact, high technology is now and has always been inaccessible to the everyman.  You have to work with military contracts or medical research or something similar to even be aware of a lot of the HIGH technology that’s out there.

MP3 players, digital cameras, DVD players, flash drives, personal computers, etc., etc.  This is not high tech, not by a long shot.  This is medium tech, it’s not cutting edge, but it’s not quite "primitive" either, and everyone has access to it.  You might be able to make the case that something like Blu-Ray is the highest tech of storage media or that gaming technologies can be considered hi-tech, but I can’t imagine that you’d successfully be able to argue that something that available isn’t already being surpassed by another technology that few are even aware of.  This is the stuff of science fiction, kids, and it’s coming soon to a box store near you.

The context of the guy’s statement (which wasn’t made to me, I just happened to overhear) was that computers are everywhere.  That you can’t do much of anything without having to work with technology on some level, and I understand the point that he was making, but I can’t reconcile this idea that technology that has become commonplace and that, really, hasn’t changed all that drastically in this decade is still considered "hi-tech".  I mean, is this the type of guy whose VCR clock is STILL flashing at 12:00 because he can’t figure out how to program it?  On some level, it wouldn’t surprise me.

I don’t know…  the more I think about it, the more convinced I become that hi-tech can’t actually exist in our real lives, or not for long.  I’ve been brooding on this and trying to come up with a workable definition, but it’s all just so subjective.  Surely components to things that are no longer hi-tech may be invented or revamped in hi-tech ways, but does that make the overall product as hi-tech as the component?  I suppose that may be true for some people, but without major changes, I don’t think it works.  The whole auto-park feature on cars is pretty hi-tech, but that doesn’t make the actually car all that hi-tech unless it’s decked out, even then, you’d be hard-pressed to convince me that not having to parallel park makes your car, as a whole, hi-tech.

The further we progress, technologically, the more difficult (for me, anyway) the standards for a definition of "hi-tech" actually become.  I mean, cutting-edge needs to be a factor for sure, but what about older inventions that have only just found their niche in the mainstream?  What to think about technologies that are unarguably something "new and different" but just don’t work right?  What is an innovative leap great enough to render the previous version of whatever all but obsolete?

It seems to me that new terminology is needed to sum up technology.  I mean, sure, a pen and paper are unarguable LOW technology, but does that mean that a standard $3 calculator is, by default, hi-tech, simply because it is higher than some wood pulped/carved/molded into a workable shape?  I think not.

But the bottom line, for me, is that I don’t think that it matters how old you are or what you’ve done for a living.  Unless you’re spending your days gaping stupidly at things like automatic doors, digital watches and the ridiculous number of channels available on cable, you’ve got at least some perspective on the issue.

Surrounded by technology?  Absolutely, we are.  Does that necessarily make the technology HIGH?  Not really.  Once it becomes a part of the daily lives of most people, once it becomes easily attainable, it loses it’s cutting-edge value.