dropping out of the digital age

A recent New York Times article, "Parents Fret That Dialing Up Interferes With Growing Up" focuses on the amount of time kids are spending online. It mentions a girl who gets up an hour early to text message friends. I remember myself as a schoolgirl and don't think you could have dragged me out of bed, or paid me, to do the same.

When computers first became commonplace, I learned some basic skills on my own and was able to function. Lately, though, as technology has morphed and grown by leaps and bounds in the past few years, I feel myself slipping.

As a teacher in the early 1990s, I used my Mac to type up tests and quizzes. In 1994, I started a job in legal services, where funding is always an issue, with a DOS computer. I graduated to Windows at some point but when I left the job in October 200o, our office still had no Internet access and, consequently, no e-mail capability. I went to the public library next door to access my e-mail.

When I entered the library world in October 2000, I took a step up technologically. I used Publisher for the first time, pretty much just by messing around with it, so it's not that I'm afraid of new technology. It's more that I have to see the point of it.

I guess my problem is that I am a late adopter, so just when I have become comfortable with something, it has become pretty much obsolete, or at least quaint. At times I resent the computer and have toyed with the idea of just dropping out of the digital age and joining the Lead Pencil Club.