Technology?

by Phil Houseal as published in the Kerrville TX Community Journal & Boerne TX Hill Country Weekly - April 7, 2010


Can you imagine swapping your SUV for a horse and buggy?

Your microwave oven for a wood stove?

Your vibrating Barcalounger for a stone bench?

How about your cell phone, Internet, email, and Facebook for... well... for silence?

That last scenario happened for many of us living west of Boerne last week.

Returning from lunch on that Wednesday, we automatically fired up our web browsers, downloaded the news, and checked our email.

I received one from a colleague with the subject line: “Food for thought on social media.”

The link took me to a YouTube video. It was a fast-moving, four-minute show on how our interconnected world, especially the so-called social networking movement, was changing the way we lived, thought, and worked.

“By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers.”


“If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest.”


“Wikipedia has over 13 million articles.”

The factoids whizzed past at the speed of light.

“35% of book sales on Amazon are on the Kindle.”

Fascinating, I thought, at the speed of flesh.

Then something happened. The computer show “hiccoughed.” The downstream stopped streaming. In technical terms, my computer froze.

“The phones don’t work!” came a cry from another room.

“I can’t read my email,” came another.

“Retry, resend, reboot,” I said. I might as well have added, “Resurrect,” because it wasn’t happening.

That of course was the day our web unraveled. All five cell carriers went down, no long distance telephone calls went through, and outgoing email went round and round, chasing its digital tail.

Later we learned that a line had been severed west of Boerne, hurling vast reaches of the hill country back to the dark ages of the early 21st century. For the rest of that day, our communications was limited to those within range of our vocal vibrations. We could not teleconference, video conference, page, text, beep or tweet.

We could only talk, and listen.

The ripples went wider than conversation. People could not use ATMs, buy gas, or take online courses. Stores could not ring up sales; banks could not receive deposits.

The impact affected all ages. After school, I saw forlorn youngsters sitting on doorsteps hoping mom remembered to pick them up. Girls at the dance studio - usually busy texting between classes - were sitting in groups and giggling face to face. One even was writing a note using pencil and paper! The loss of signal was an event for them, like canceling school because of snow, or hauling out the kerosene lamps when the electricity goes out.

Thankfully the system was up by the time we went to bed that evening. If it had lasted longer than a day, we might have had to take extreme measures to communicate, such as writing and mailing actually letters.

And no, the irony of losing our social network in the midst of viewing an online stream of how social networking was changing the world did not escape me.

And perhaps there are all kinds of lessons and aphorisms that could arise from this event.

Like the fact that all communications for our entire region travels through a piece of fiber no larger round than a quarter.

Or how quickly we move from “what is a cell phone?” to “I would never need a cell phone” to “I can’t leave home without my cell phone.”

But the big lesson?

Sometimes the lights go out. Sometimes the phones go dead. Sometimes the car breaks down.

But I never want to go back to hitching up the horse every morning.

xxx


Club Ed offers classes from social networking to hitching up the horses. For information or to sign up, click www.clubed.net, or call 830-895-4386.

Club Ed is the Community Education program of the Kerrville Independent School District. Each year, we offer more than 400 classes throughout the Texas Hill Country, along with online courses, business and individual training, and after-school and summer camps. Comment online at clubedcomments.blogspot.com, or follow us on Twitter @clubedtx.