How do you always keep up to date with technology?

13 comments

1. Part of it is a mindset, always be open to trying new things. Part of it is just spending some time playing with new things, which gets tricky as you get older, we want to spend our free time with family or on our hobbies and not being constantly plugged in.

2. If you find yourself saying “I don’t need to learn/know that” then that should ring some alarm bells. Just try to cultivate and keep a curiosity mindset and you’ll be fine.

3. This is mindset

   I am tech savy. But I’ll be honest I had to really YouTube how to use zoom and excel. I don’t understand those simple basic workflow.

   Also I help a lot of my older coworker with tech. So two things. Need to actually try to learn it. Also EXPOSURE! Not many people are expose to zoom or excel or other new tech apps. So I don’t blame my much older coworker. I’m a simple man, just teach those that need learning. Also for myself.

4. Be curious. That’s really all it takes.

5. Well, it’s my job. It is constant, but I enjoy it.

   That said, it really doesn’t move as fast as it seems. Most new things are just re-hashes of older things. This past decade especially is way more marketing than actual good tech: pretty much all (but not all, just most) things blockchain, AI, web3, etc. Lots of positioning, a lot less actual good.

   (and as the fan-boys jump down my throat on that, I’ve heard it all before)

6. >how I can avoid being technologically illiterate in my later years of my career.

   I think that will take care of itself.

   Newer communication technologies are tending to be social in nature.

   You will *have* to learn them to take care of basic interactions with people.

   For example, the web site for my bank account requires verification codes to do many things. The web site no longer has an option to send such codes to a phone. The choices are sending it via SMS or sending to the bank’s smart phone app.

   My late father, who was adverse to technology, wanted to enter his art into a contest. That organization started requiring high quality electronic images of the entries as part of the application process. He learned.

   Beyond communication technology, old things eventually break and you are forced to learn how to use new things.

7. My guess is your colleagues don’t know how to do these things because they simply *don’t care.* And that’s their choice. I don’t blame anyone for not caring about how Word, Excel, or Zoom works. In fact, I admire it.

   But if you *do* care, you’ll put in the work to learn.

8. One of the biggest things you can invest in is learning programming and logic at a basic level. It’s going to be second nature to the future generation of workers.

9. We started getting people into the workforce who only ever used google throughout their schooling, from middle school through college, and then threw a fit when they had to use Excel and Outlook. Outlook is sufficiently different hat someone who is literate will have to look at it for about 5 minutes to figure out how to use it but google sheets is a carbon copy of Excel so I can’t imagine how that throws anyone through a loop.

   You are being generous in not faulting them, I do, the Windows desktop has remained unchanged in any real way since the Windows 2000 Professional era. I use KDE for some tasks and if you know Windows or Mac you can get around KDE.

   It doesn’t occur to people that there are documents available, online and sometimes in the programs themselves that spell out how to do things. They are called ‘manuals’ and it is a key part of the phrase “RTFM” (Refer to frickin manual) which you will hear some people say from time to time.

   So, if you are asking how **I keep up with technology**, it is simple, I RTFM.

10. It’s all a case of Wanna.

    I know 80+ year olds that wiz around office applications great. He mostly arranges repairing veterans grave markers and such, but he leverages outlook and excel to make it easier.

    Heck my 90 year old great uncle was the first person to send me a FB invite and for years he was the only FB friend I had. Since he was deaf and legally blind, it was a good way to stay in touch and he was always posting funny things.

    Then add to the mix a 30-something friend I have that refuses to learn anything computer related and doesn’t own one.

    Two older people had the wanna, the young one has none. Age has nothing to do with wanna.

11. Always be learning – make it part of your identity. Believe that your can learn anything with enough time and effort.

    Strive to be as adaptable as you can, and open to new things.

12. A bit perspective from my side. I am pretty tech-savvy, but I am really picky what skills I want to master. Because for mastery and keeping up with the technology, you really have to put your time in. So, I pick what skills to master (and get paid for that).

    Skills that I will hardly use (like creating breakout rooms on Zoom), I will never develop.

    I like to think that there are people who earn their keep without technology, and leave technology to other people.

    So if you want to stay technologically literate, I think you just have to put your time in. If you use Zoom once a week, you will get good at Zoom. If you use it once a year, not quite so.

13. For me it’s my job as I am in IT. However the best advice I can give anyone is don’t give up. If you find yourself stuck that’s ok! Many people have the same problem. The benefit of being stuck these days is being able to google almost anything. If you’re having an issue chances are someone else had it too and got help in a forum.