Steve Jobs: A Partial Legacy

Don’t get me wrong. Steve Jobs will go down in history as one of the great American inventors along with Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. He took what those two American originals gave to us and stretched the telephone and the radio and recording business into directions unimaginable just twenty years ago. In my lifetime I have gone from 78’s to 45’s to 33 1/3rd rpm’s to reel to reel tape recorders to smaller reel to reel tape recorders to eight tracks to cassettes to transistor radios to CD’s to illegal Napster to legal Napster to burning my own CD’s to I-Pods, I-Tunes and MP3’s to my tunes downloaded to my smartphone. That doesn’t even count Apple Computers…the gold standard by which all computers have historically been measured.

Although I have never entered the Apple universe, by both accident and design, Steve Jobs walks with me every day when I am on my PC or laptop or net book or pad downloading music. Books and movies are just a click away as my house is now wired for the digital age. Everything is connected to everything else. My life, literally, is on my Blackberry, including my tunes which connect to my car speakers through Bluetooth. It’s a whole lot easier than carrying all those CD cases. Do you remember the eight track monstrosities? Madonna Mia!!!!

The legacy of Steve Jobs, and other’s of his generation like Bill Gates, is forever changing how we live. And it will be my generation…those middling baby boomers who are at the tail end of the old analog technology and at the beginning of the digital technology that will have the last first hand word as to whether that is a good thing; or whether it will follow the rule of unintended consequences leaving us with something that is not so good.

Maybe I think too much, but it appears to me that the technology outpaced the culture. Over the years as the country progressed, we were given time to adapt, to learn how things work, to absorb the impact of the new technology, and evolve rules of behavior and etiquette that allowed us to function with it in a civilized manner. But when the technology is literally evolving faster than the “new” products can be produced, adaptation is difficult and we end up serving it instead of it serving us.

What we get is constant, nonstop stimulation. Our senses are assaulted every minute of every day. Big screen televisions, the bigger the better, are screaming advertising at us 24/7 augmented by surround sound or its equivalent. Our phones are always with us. Even driving down the street modern billboards change images every 30 seconds filled with LED lights that you can see miles away!!!!

People my age and older have developed a sink or swim mentality. I personally dove into the technocrap full blast. I taught myself how to do things right from the first word processor we bought over 20 years ago…right from the first IBM Selectric Typewriter with a touch of memory 30 years ago. But it has been getting harder and harder to keep up, and I find myself spending the greater part of each day either learning new “stuff” or trying to keep the old stuff going. Anyone with a crashed mother board knows that technology does have its glitches. To get away from it actually takes a concerted effort on my part, and to be honest, I am not very good at either keeping up or turning it off!!

At least I am aware there is a problem when I can't turn it off. Those 30 and under don’t seem to know that there is a problem. They have been fiddling with technocrap since they were toddlers. It is second nature. Technology, with all of its social networking, serves as a wall to hide from others. I have clients and tenants who will ONLY talk to me through texting and email. Phone calls go unanswered. And face to face? Fuggetaboutit!!!

That is the problem, and it is getting worse. Self reflection and contemplative thought are non-existent. What counts is instant information and anonymous instant communication. Some of these folks literally don’t know how to say “hello” to someone else. When life ceases to be “instant”…like instant jobs in a slow economy…people don’t know how to react.  Why can't things be fixed "right now" as Obama has commented.

The death of Steve Jobs at the very early age of 56 is a sad for his family, and for a grateful world that honors the man who defined what we are today. The question is, he taught us how technology can alter lives…but who is there to teach us how to live? In order for it to get better, don’t we need both?

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