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Published on 12/02/1996 All articles from this issue

Keeping up with the computer age Joneses may be impossible

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By Clyde Noel

Town Crier Staff Writer

Commentary

When it comes to owning the latest model computer, keeping up with the Joneses is impossible. With a rapidly expanding Internet and advances in computer technology, it's either too expensive or impossible to stay current. The fact is, trying to upgrade computer advances in software is financially out of reach for a growing number of families.

The feeling of inadequacy is showing up in many households. Eric, an 8-year-old tried out a virtual reality game on the Internet at a local computer store. The game was replete with sophisticated graphics, audio, and alien monsters, who, naturally had to be tracked down and slain in an authentic-looking cave. He asked his father if he could activate the game on his father's computer, and the response was to remind Eric about budget reality. Technically, the memory of the family's one-year-old computer wouldn't allow him to download the game, because it was also out of date.

Ted Hatrak, a Los Altos graphic designer helps different organizations trouble shoot computer systems and commented he and his wife are computer poor.

"I have numerous reference books that I paid more than $200, and they were out of date when I walked out the door," Hatrak said.

The computer I am using to write this story is only four years old. It has lost 80 percent of its original value, but I have been told to measure its real age in dog years. That means I am using a computer that is 28 years old and considered antiquated by the computer industry.

Actually, computer technology is much like a bottomless black hole. I am convinced I must upgrade monthly until I die, if I want my cyber-mission to be current. Computer companies are providing us with new and profound ways to handle information and are creating a society of cyber haves and cyber have-nots.

When new computer technology is brought out by the hour, at no time do companies consider budget constraints. As new technology moves the cultural benchmark for computer sophistication to a higher level, it leaves a majority of individuals feeling out of touch and, more critically, out of date.

"We get the impression programmers who write software don't have the end-user in mind. They just want to impress their boss," Hatrak said.

Computer companies push their computer technology to the point where a computer user will sit in front of the monitor for hours and hours. The software can leave people breathless with anticipation and hungry to concentrate more time and expend more money on acquiring and upgrading. Is there no stop to this?

What families need today, is continued access to a diversity of media. One shouldn't have to choose one particular medium to the exclusion of others. Whether it's a corporation or a family budget, the relentless pace and logic of modern computer technology is to spend and spend more.

Often, relevant information can just as easily be passed along a smaller, less expensive computer modem. New stories, games and challenges await those children willing to engage themselves with non-computerized media. Their needs can be satisfied there and their parent's budgets less likely to be exhausted.

But on the other hand, failing to recognize the usefulness of advances in computer technology today could be foolish. To ignore the impact of these new technologies on the financial and psychological welfare of families would be equally foolish.