Tech in a Fast Lane: Confessions of a (Slightly) Tech-Illiterate Millennial

Friend: “Which social media are you mostly active in?”
Me: “Facebook and iMessage.”
Friend: “Line?”
Me: “Not so much.”
Friend: “Why?”
Me: “It isn't so flexible. I can't use it on the computer and I'm not on my phone the whole time.”
Friend: *begging* “Please be active (on Line)! I'm on it. That way we can chat further and longer!”

That was a brief chat I had with a childhood classmate. He's in Indonesia. For your information, most Indonesians are keen of Whatsapp, Line, and Path as their chosen social media.

I left the conversation finally re-activating my Line, which I haven't opened in quite a while. There were over 100 unread messages on my Elementary School and my Taiwan Study Tour groups. There were over cumulatively 10 birthdays that I missed. 80% of the conversation of both groups revolve around birthday wish (and lately 10% was on a friend's wedding). I felt bad. Most of my friends in USA don't use Line and after years, I didn't really see the point of being active in it.

Then there's Whatsapp, whose contacts are mostly composed of Indonesian people both living in USA and Indonesia. I consider this social media to be more important in comparison to Line, as it's a mean to communicate with my mom, dad, and relatives (my dad's family has an active group there).

Other than that, as mentioned previously, I'm mostly active in Facebook and iMessage, as a messaging and chatting platform. Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter are a different story.

The Line issue is just one example. Lately, I am volunteering for a nonprofit organization. The only webcam-based media I've used and I've found mostly comfortable of so far is Skype. The organization asks to have a webcam chat using Google Hangout, which I'm familiar of but have never used. I prefer not to. It's getting out of hand. I couldn't bargain of course but the process for me to get to this new Google Hangout chatting method took a while. I nearly missed a meeting due to technical problems. My bad, or maybe not really. My computer couldn't really handle Google Hangout and at one point it kept on crashing. Thank goodness, my job interviews don't really require that app (lets out a sigh of relief).

Why does that social media has become so overwhelming? The effect is even greater when you are a part of two different societies, where each has their own social media preferences. Each and every year, the app icons in my iPhone homepage pile up, so do the number on the red notification symbols. The more memory each app takes while the most memory my iPhone could take is 16Gb. Every now and then, a new form of social media appears. Millennials can quickly adapt to it, excited to embrace the new means of dynamic and portable communication. Technology progresses. It becomes a trend which the millennials can follow immerse themselves in it and become part of it. For quite a while, I thought I am one of those millennials, but then technology becomes suddenly overwhelming. So is social media.

Ten years ago, everyone used Nokia. It came in various series. The bigger your Nokia phone screen was, the cooler you were. You wouldn't miss a day without the term SMS. Five years ago, friendships and partnerships were formed through asking each other's Blackberry pin number. People found it finally comfortable to have alphabetical keypads on their device instead of just numerical ones. Then iPhone came along. Kiss those keypads goodbye because touch screen is all that matters. Then Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and many others (Facebook, included, of course) came along. The ubiquity of social media gets everyone's noses stuck on their phones regardless where they are – whether it's driving, mingling with friends on a Friday night, or crossing the street. We might have spent 95% of our days looking at screen – our phone's screen to be exact; our retina adjusting to the flickering pixels.

So what's the point of all these talks?

I'm a designer.

I'm bad at technology.

I don't even Facetime people.

I don't even know how to use Google Hangout. I'm strictly a Skype person.

Okay, don't judge me guys. If you're fellow designers, you may shake your head. It's okay. It happens.

Then what's the fuss all about?

It's ironic because designers are supposed to keep up with the latest tech trends and softwares. Those are all parts of the research in order for design to create a better future. Designers are expected to be tech geeks, at least that's what my fellow designers said.

I'm a millennial with my souls switched with my parents'. I live with the fact that they're more active on Facebook. My mom knows what goes on with my old friends, where they end up at. My fellow twenty-something year olds are the experts in all these Apple products and know every single feature of every latest iOS, while I recently just knew how to use iCloud. My friends are surprised that up to this point, I never grasped the concept – or at least know the difference – between SSD and HHD, or HDD. Or whatever that is.

All I want is for my computer to work faster and I don't care what kind of force this universe has to give in order to make it happen.

Technology is moving fast and even faster. Trust me, I attended an art school where the graphic design program is very much future-oriented. Instead of working on digital and traditional design, the design program at my school pushes us to think about design living in space, having interaction with the user, even if by any means, it requires users to wear design (wearable technology).

In twenty years, I don't know what sort of technology will take over the world in the future. The product designers are probably working on some high end wearable technology and we graphic designers are working on the best User Interface design that comes with it. Technology has become a large part of our life. What was once a tertiary need has shifted to become a primary one. Things change, and they change fast.

Will we be able to keep up?

Strangely enough, I'm good at coding.
Check my resume.