I am out of step and now I know why

I have been puzzled of late over why I have been so out of step with current technology. I have always considered myself something of a techie, so why am I so hopelessly behind the times?

By "current technology" I mean Twitter and Facebook on the software side and tablets and smart phones on the hardware side. I read an article in Slate about Microsoft's latest tablet entry that helps to explain this. The money quote:

There’s just one problem with Microsoft pitching its new tablets at people who prefer to use their tablets for work rather than play: Those people barely exist. . . a Gartner survey found that tablet owners use their devices overwhelmingly for entertainment, followed by social media, e-mail, and other types of communication. Just 15 percent of tablet screen time is devoted to work. That makes sense when you consider that nearly everyone who owns a tablet also owns a different device that is far-better suited to doing work, whether desktop, laptop, or both. The tablet is where they go to get away from that work.

I don't use Twitter and Facebook, because other than their amazing ability to rapidly metastasize information, they are generally used to express day-to-day events and other mundane activities. I am just not interested in sharing this stuff with, well, anyone. I guess that I don't think that my life is that interesting. The overwhelming majority of us have lives that are not that interesting. I don't use tablets or smart phones because they are generally used for watching videos, listening to music, reading and posting to Twitter, texting, reading and posting to Facebook, and e-mail. I use my laptop for e-mail and videos. I don't much listen to music anymore, and oh, as I already pointed out I don't have much use for Facebook or Twitter.

I use my laptop for web browsing, e-mail, videos, and work. When I am working I am often in Microsoft Excel. You need a big screen and a decent keyboard to do work in Excel. Anyone who tries to do serious spreadsheet work on a smart phone or a tablet is very weird or a masochist or both

Of course, the great advantage of tablets and smart phones is their portability. If I regularly flew on airplanes this might appeal to me. As it is, I bring my laptop with me on all trips and set it up at the hotel in which I am staying, (they all have high-speed Internet). I watch with amazement when people--mostly young people--emerge from the movie theater and immediately open their phones to check messages as they are walking out to the car. Jeez, what is the rush? You can't wait to get home to check your e-mail? I check my e-mail 10 to 20 times a day. Do I really need to check it 100 times a day? There is a fine but clearly distinguishable line between diligence and obsession.

At least I think I get Facebook. If it were better designed and if I were more social, then I would probably use it regularly. Twitter, on the other hand, is completely inexplicable to me. Jonathan Chait, someone whose work and opinion I greatly admire, tried to explain the value of Twitter. He writes:

I started with a distrust/misunderstanding of Twitter, but quickly found it to be a super-efficient system for filtering out the crap I don’t want to wade through on the Internet and delivering the stuff I want to read, written or recommended by my favorite writers, to me. I also like to use it to trade quips. I’ve quickly grown addicted to it. I’ve seen enough writers go through the process — hate Twitter, get reluctantly dragooned on to it, discover you can’t live without it — that I attribute basically all hatred of Twitter to a lack of familiarity.

Of course it is possible that I simply lack the familiarity that Chait has about this medium for posting a maximum of 140-character comments, but I don't really think so. BTW that last sentence contained 141 characters, which gives you an indication of how truly in-depth twitter posts can be. I think that the problem just might be that Chait doesn't understand how to use his web browser.

If there are people whose writing you really like reading (Chait mentions Ezra Klein), then the web browser has a way of tracking just them and ignoring the rest of the Internet. It is called bookmarks (or Favorites in the IE world). I have bookmarks that take me to Chait's blog, Paul Krugman's blog, and, yes, Ezra Klein's blog, among others. These blogs are not limited in length, and thus these writers have an opportunity to develop their thoughts in depth. Furthermore, if any of the posts on my regularly visited pages recommend the work of others that I have not bookmarked, these recommendations are usually accompanied by a hypertext link to the relevant article. So, other than the additional activity of "trading quips", which frankly sounds suspiciously to me like famous people patting each other on the back for being famous, I don't really understand what else Twitter brings to the table.

Interestingly, both Ezra Klein and Paul Krugman have commented on this. Both use Twitter merely as a means to push links to their respective blogs to followers. It is the blogs that are worth reading, and not the Tweets. However, those followers could just have easily bookmarked Klein's and Krugman's blog, as I have done. They don't need to get a Tweet with a link. This is deeply weird.

The bottom line is that although I don't think that my life is that interesting, I am just egotistical enough to believe that I do have interesting things to say from time to time, which explains why I have a blog and don't bother with 140-character quips and observations.

Truthiness Lives!

Steven Colbert coined the word "truthiness." It refers to a belief that is not true, but FEELS true because it satisfies our existing belief system.

I just read an op-ed by Paul Krugman and a Politico article on conservative historian David Barton. They both make essentially the same point. Both are worth a read.

Krugman points out that there is a "wonk gap" between the GOP and, well, just about everyone else. Conservatives just know that:

• ObamaCare has caused health insurance premiums to increase.
• Government employment has risen under the Obama administration.
• The Federal Reserve's policy of low interest rates and easy money have led to inflation.
• Global warming is a scientific hoax.
• Mitt Romney lost only because he wasn't conservative enough.

None of these are beliefs are true, but they just sound so good to conservatives that they must be true, despite the evidence. Truthiness.

The Politico article offers a fascinating case study of this phenomenon. Conservative historian David Barton's career and credibility were in tatters just a few months ago. He had published a book claiming that Thomas Jefferson was "an orthodox Christian who saw no need to separate church and state." Barton's work had always come under fire from mainstream academic historians, but this time even his natural allies had had enough. A group of Christian scholars strongly criticized the book, which contributed to the book being voted “the least credible history book in print”. Then Barton's publisher withdrew the book from circulation claiming that “basic truths just were not there.”

For most academics this would be a career-ending event, but not in conservative land. Barton continues to give well-received speeches before conservative audiences, and Glen Beck has offered to republish the Jefferson book. The Politico article points out that "Politicians continue to join him as guests on his daily radio broadcast. Crowds continue to pack his speeches. And Barton said his organization continues to field calls from politicians seeking his advice."

Truthiness lives!