technology conscious or challenged

… who shape our personal preferences?

After a round of thoughts mainly focused on web design and all those involved in the various related professions, thoughts surrounding end-users and their choices bubbled up with no place to go. So however incomplete these thoughts may have been, I chose to jot them down while they were still fresh, hoping to make more sense of them at a later date.

Here follows a few questions I have asked myself lately…

Why do I never surf the web via my smartphone?
Why do I never play computer games?
Why do I never pay attention to trends?
Why do I never use cloud storage?

Not very satisfying to answer all the above with “I cannot see the point”, but that is all I can come up with at this time. That I may land on the very same response when running into many other issues in life, does not reduce my dissatisfaction with ending up there. It is too easy…

As research into anything and everything regarding people's on-line activities is high on the agenda in all marketing institutions with respect for themselves, complete answers for why we all have whatever preferences we happen to have, should be easy to find.
However, all we will find is predetermined conclusions reduced to and contained in worthless statistics, and advices for how businesses can brand and present products so they can exploit people even more.

massaging personal preferences

Reality is that people's preferences either fall nicely in line with the major exploiters' wishes and greed, or they must be smoothed or hammered out so as not to harm big businesses' bottom lines.
Any deviation is unacceptable and must be remedied by any means, by law if necessary. Divisions between big business and governments are entirely illusory, and are ignored by those in power in either camp.

As everyone wants to appear to be on top of the games and ahead of any trends, most will fall in line with the major trends whether they admit to or not, simply because it is not easy for a person to ignore what all others do, and make ones own choices based entirely on personal wants and needs.
May sound like something from a speech about anything but personal on-line surfing habits and choice of communication tools, and maybe it is. However, the same mechanisms rule in all walks of life, and free will is pretty much an illusion in the digital world same as everywhere else – even more so because of the medium which pretty much is an illusion in itself.

let us look practical at it

All becomes so much easier when large groups of people behave as single entities, and refrain from all forms for individualism. People love being part of groups – especially large ones, and will do what they can, even pay big money to whoever, to keep the homogeneity and make others wish they were part of “their” group.

Of course, as trends have to change every fortnight or so in order to keep the markets vibrant, groups get nudged, guided and forced, and if necessary split up and new ones formed, whenever the big players – sellers – want. No big deal it seems, and those who do not want to play the game, or at least pretend to, are just pushed aside.

Would be allright if new trends and changes were for the better, but they rarely ever are. Fact is that most often they are not even any different from what was there before, but just more of the same short-lived and mainly useless solutions to dreamed-up and man-made problems. Practical maybe, but oh so boring.

still can't see the point

One page down, and I still can not come up with better answers to my list of questions on top. With nearly 60 years in electronic development, 40+ years in computer programing, and more than 25 years on the internet, I should have better answers for why I choose to do “this” and not to do “that”, but I don't.

Does it really matter what the answer is? Well, maybe not, as it does not change anything. Thinking these things through now and then does matter to me though, as I dislike having such questions hanging around even if I neither like the answers nor the processes to reconfirm them.
Anyway, maybe I have come up with the only right answer after all. And not to worry … I have good alternatives that suit my personal interests and habits better.

sincerely georg; sign

Hageland 15.may.2021
last rev: 15.may.2021

more incomplete reports…

Do people think through why they do any of the things they do, and not something totally different? Or are they just doing something because they think they should?

Fact is that I have no clear idea why people anywhere do anything, apart from what some of them tell me. How correct and/or complete any of their stories are is even more unclear, since most tend to reveal only what they think I should hear, and leave out all they find not to be to their advantage. Incomplete communication is the norm…

technology challenged?

Most who really are, are most likely found amongst those who think others are. We all better keep in mind that the human brain has not evolved since those who planned Stonehenge walked the Earth, and that those prehistoric people would learn to master the technology we take for granted just as easy as any of us if they were around today.

Someone near and dear to me is very much technology challenged, because she suffered irreparable damage to her brain years ago. Can happen to any of us, and we have no guaranties that come tomorrow we will master what we find oh so easy today.

If nothing else; we all age and degrade with time, and going on long enough much will be lost both in minds and bodies. Thus, one way or another we all will end up as mere shadows of our former selves just by living, and becoming technology challenged is just one way that may show.

technology conscious?

Whether one cherish ones privacy, ones money, or ones time the most, or all the before mentioned in equal measures, making conscious choices about what technology to use and what not to use, and for what, is a must in my book. Individual wants and needs are not static, and neither are the solutions on offer. Thus, finding the best combos is a never-ending challenge, and patience is an important ingredience for technology conscious users.

Those who always are first in line for the newest technology and solutions, may be at an advantage in some ways. On the other hand; those who choose to be patient and wait until they really need to upgrade, may save on test-time and frustration by passing on less developed and/or incomplete solutions. The latest is not always the greatest…

technology show-offs?

Show-offs are fun to have around in any field, and their more or less erratic activities in the digital world may be useful in that they quite often snap up and show off the more flashy and less useful technological solutions that the more conscious ones better avoid if they are serious about getting something done. Show-offs are often more of a threat to the not so conscious, in that they may try to pull everyone within reach in all the wrong directions.

We often find actual or would-be influencers in the show-off groups, for obvious reasons. As such they are of a lot more use to the marketeers than to the customers and users. Other than that they are no big deal either way, and, as mentioned; having them around can be a lot of fun.

technology conscious or challenged

… who shape our per­sonal pref­er­ences?

massaging per­sonal pref­er­ences

let us look practical at it

still can't see the point

… who shape our personal preferences?

massaging personal preferences