Source Text
Dr. Progoff’s technique has developed an exercise useful for an exploration of technology. The first and last statements appear only once: “At first” and “And now.” “At first” is our first memory of becoming intrigued or consciously aware of an aspect of technology, often a new (for us) invention. “And now” is how we would describe our relationship to technology at this moment in time, perhaps what most pleases or troubles us about that relationship. Between “At first” and “And now” may flow any number of “And then” statements.
To make this all concrete enough for the reader to tell his own story, I present aspects of the story of my relationship to technology. This abbreviated sketch does not include all the “And thens” that would constitute the lengthy middle chapters of the book called “Me and Technology.”
AT FIRST, I remember being amazed at the “winky dink” screen placed on my television that allowed me to write on top of the projected television image …
… And then I remember the joys of a mahogany brown console radio which allowed me to listen to Sergeant Preston of the Canadian Mountain Police and Dragnet as I lay in bed on Sunday night …
… And then I remembered how transistor radios allowed me to circumvent my parents’ bedtime rule and listen to hockey games at 9:00 in the evening …
… And then I remember some thirty years later our first family computer …
… And then I began experiencing the travails of a digital immigrant, laboring my way through new technologies of cell phone, laptop, and smartphones, trying to master the new technologies with dated templates of how old toys were put together, constantly searching, as it were for a printed manual in place of the now digitally stored and intuitively guided instructions …
… And then as I began to feel more comfortable and competent to experiment with the “world in my hand” of the smartphone and found myself constantly requesting information from Siri about any item or discussion that required information not on my mental hard drive …
… AND NOW I find myself writing this volume, weighing for myself – and encouraging my readers to do the same – the pluses and minuses of the impact of digital technologies on our lives.
Guide Prompt
Striking the same encouraging note to personalize ideas, the reader is now encouraged to retell personal stories of their own relationship to technology, using these three prompts of At first … And then (multiple entries) … And now.