I’m tempted to say that my relationship with technology has always been, to some degree, conflicted.  Perhaps it’s my upbringing–my parent’s are no luddites, but they certainly possess that former-flower-child distrust of attempts by ______ to “control” us, or at least somehow tie us down with new media (though McLuhan would credit television itself as the source of this attitude…curious).  I distinctly remember a period of perhaps a year, maybe more, in my early childhood, when my parents stopped paying for television, informing us that it was simply “broken” (and our set had no rabbit ears, so no freebies either), and I remember yearning for Sesame Street something fierce during this period.  And my father was a big get for the cell phone industry when he finally bought a phone after resisting for years, though he still feigns total ignorance when it comes to ridiculously simple operations like entering contacts or, say, answering a call.

So while I don’t have a hard time adopting, and even embracing, new technologies, I still have some level of skepticism or contrarianism seemingly hardwired into my brain (e.g.: maybe this isn’t the best example, but when I first bought an mp3 player, I made sure not to buy an iPod, and the two mp3 players I have owned have both been the Creative brand).  And from this half-hearted attempt to be discerning springs my total lack of interest in owning a smart phone, or the distaste for Twitter which I expressed in class…but I’m sure I’ll be something of a convert to the potential powers of Twitter by the end of the semester, and I’ll be preaching those wonders to my parents the next time I go home.

Most recently, my inner conflictedness has manifested in my desire for my life not to be shackled to my laptop, which I mentioned in class.  I was especially frustrated during this past break, which I spent at home, and found myself having to turn to my computer to accomplish any of the things I wanted to: doing taxes, earning credit for an internship, searching for future internships, writing a review of a new album, working on an electronic music piece, skyping with friends abroad, etc.  Perhaps it was the signs of age my computer started to exhibit: several keys stick, the battery is nearing the end of its days, there is a loose connection that causes the monitor to flicker occasionally, my audio jack has seen better days, and the fan sometimes wheezes like a lifetime smoker.  Perhaps these kinks implicitly led me to comprehend this machine’s fallibility, its imperfection, its mortality.  Don’t get me wrong, I love being able to do so much from my laptop, but it’s just a friggin machine, and I felt a little weary of it being the brain center for my life.

But now this class, paperless as it is, is tethering me to my computer for nearly every one of its components.  It’s not that I resent having to use my computer for some aspects of a class, but our syllabus is online, our readings are online, our blogs are (obviously) online, and my notes will probably be on my computer, just to keep things centralized.  There will be little proof of my having taken this class that is non-digital.  When I was filling out my college applications, the option to apply electronically for a reduced fee was being introduced, but I needed to be able to lay out all my application materials in front of me in order to properly think about my applications in a macro way.  Similarly, I am wholly uninterested in the advent of Kindle-type technologies.

Obviously, no physical format is indestructible, and that is a drawback (I rented Three Kings over break but the DVD was hopelessly scratched at some places–and don’t even get me started on those eminently fragile things known as “CDs” and their nefarious plastic jewel cases).  Digital formats certainly have many drawbacks as well, though.  But I suppose, at least when it comes to this class, my laptop and I are hardily stuck together again, so I’d better get used to it.