RA: Technology

A rhetorical analysis of technology itself... Might be interesting.

What does technology "say"? A broad question, maybe, but here are some of the things I've noticed: (especially working with it, as I do on a regular basis...)

*"You have to keep buying me if you want to be savvy." You can be the most advanced user in the world, but if you're the most advanced user in the world with Windows 98, you're still behind the 7-year-old who can use just the basics of Office 2007. And, since technology is changing all the time, it means that you have to be constantly buying it... and if you don't want to waste a lot of money, it means you have to know WHAT you're buying. Therefore, you need to be knowledgable about not only technologies themselves, but new technologies... and a step beyond that, what people are CONSIDERING making into new technologies.

*Technology carries a lot of authority, it seems. When you have two people walk into a room, and one of them is toying with a very sophisticated piece of technology and they look like they know what they're doing with it, people tend to automatically assume they're smart, and give more deference to them.

*People who resist change can similarly be close-minded about other things. It's very funny. The people I work with who resisted just changing a simple program to a newer version were the same ones who were cranky, afraid of anything new or doing anything without the explicit permission of their supervisor (to the extent that one wanted to call a meeting just for that, good grief...) People who resist technological change usually have personality traits that coincide with that resistance. (Heh, my coworkers and I were joking that they probably still use floppy disks... a form of technology SO outdated, they've stopped making computers with places to put floppy disks. Heck, they've even stopped making places for zip drives, which came after floppies. Funny old-timers... We love the non-cranky ones, but when they break down and can't function without a specific icon placed right in view in their icon tray, you get a little worried...)