What Role Does Technology Play in Your Life?
Randy Thom, a sound designer for
Skywalker Sound, made an interesting statement at the
LA Film Fest back in June (covered by
PodTech.net):
"We spend most of our time thinking about the art of what we do, obviously, and I try - personally - to think about technology as little as I can get away with, because I find that if I spend too much time thinking about technology, it distracts me from making good creative decisions."
Are you someone who uses technology purely to get things done, or are you someone who enjoys technology just for technology's sake? I think
Ben and
Ro would be the latter: Ben, because he'll buy things like
XBox 360 gaming systems even though he's not a gamer. And Ro, because he must have the incrementally latest and greatest
GPS system for his car.
How would you rate yourself compared to Randy Thom, Ben, or Ro?
Technology should be secondary to the expected result. I don't care what type of dvd format is newest. I really just want it do reproduce movies well. Waterworld is improved little by being shown from a dvd rather than a vhs cassette. It is a terrible movie because it has uncessary material and actors that convey unintentionally tepid emotions. It's a bad story and technology won't help.
I try to seperate media and its medium. I like to say album when refering to a collection of music, even though I never owned a turn table for vinyl. The music can be stored as FLAC, MP3, AAC; the codec means little. However, I am benefitted from being able to store more music in less space from technology like I can with my i-pod. I also like that I can wear the music player while I run and it won't skip. I can also use it for music my car with ease. I would rather my player stream tunes from my home server via my wireless phone, but that technology is not quite there yet. I appreciate what technology can do, but what it does must provide more than novel benefit to me.
1. Posted by: Cariann on December 21, 2006 9:57 AM:
I see what you are saying about Ben, although I can say from experience, that I think he wants the new technology not just to posses it, but also to understand it. Not saying that Ben has no clue about these sorts of things... oh contraire! My perception is more that Ben wants to understand when and why a mfgr would use a certain type of tech as opposed to another and what can be innovated from their designs. I am sure that Ben is always thinking of new ways to use a technology and how he can improve upon it. So, to say that Ben simply wants the tech because he enjoys tech is only somewhat accurate. Ben actually likes it and wants to better-er it.