This topic is one of those ones that bridges that topic and modern times, related to both. It occurred to me the other day the extent to which we often don't adopt technology so much as have it forced upon us, at least in the business context. Or rather, we both adopt and are required to adopt.
This has happened a couple of times to me, and it's beginning, maybe, to happen again, which is what caused me to think of it.
The other day, I knew I was going to get a pdf document sent to me by email, and I also intended to be out at a remote location. I thought this no problem, as my Iphone can pick up email.
As it happened, the location was very remote and I was there much longer than I had anticipated, which was fine. When I had a chance to check my email on my Iphone, it turned out that the attachment was much larger than I had anticipated. Some 30 or so pages. An Iphone is pretty small, so it wasn't really possible to digest a document of that size on my phone. So I did it at home.
Some time ago a person offered me their slightly used Ipad. I declined, but started rethinking it. It has a bigger screen. Wouldn't that be nice, I thought, for occasions like this.
But I've resisted owning an Ipad so far. I'm already heavily computerized and even though I've had my wife download a book for me on her Kindle, I'm still a fan of the old fashioned physical book. So I've seen no need.
Which is sort of the process I went through with my Iphone.
Cell phone wise, my father bought what was called a "bag phone" about 20 years ago for use in the truck. It surprised me when he did it, but I kept it for quite a few years and would use it when out in the remote sticks. I really kept it beyond the period of time most people did, as I didn't want a hand held cell phone, they seemed so irritating. Ultimately, I concluded I didn't need that either and cancelled it. Right after that, I got horribly stuck way out in the sticks and my wife reconsidered the topic of cell phones for me, as I had to walk some seven miles to they highway, to hitch a ride some 30 miles to a rural gas station where I could call her.
That rapidly lead to me having one of her old cell phones, which worked fine for me for a long time. I never carried it anywhere I didn't have to. Something happened to it, and I took over another one of hers, which had a camera. I only used it out of town, but I did like the little camera, which I found to take surprisingly good photographs.
St. Peter and St. Paul Orthodox Church, in Salt Lake City. Photograph taken with a cell phone camera.
I ended up washing that phone. By that time I had an Ipod, which of course can also take photographs, which I used mostly for music and podcasts.
About that time, I was at a hearing in Gillette and trying to keep track of settlement negotiations in another case simultaneously. Other counsel began exchanging emails and it suddenly dawned on me that I was going to have to get an Iphone, which could do that. Up until then, I'd seen no real need, but now I was actually in a situation where having an Iphone had become a requirement of my work. The old style phone had to go, and in came the Iphone.
I have an Iphone 5 and I've really liked it, although I still feel a bit uncomfortable with the fact that I now carry it everywhere. The fact that I do is due, in part, to the fact that it plays music and podcasts, which I enjoy listening to coming and going to work. Indeed, podcasts are great, and there are a variety of them I subscribe to. But to be fair, something I also like that it does is that it serves to send text messages, which I use a great deal more than I ever guessed I would. Indeed, I get a few most days from my family, and I also use them in a work context.
Still, its an interesting process to see how this developed. Some things that have come along since I've been practicing law I adopted as they were clearly so useful. Computers and computer programs are one. Others, like Iphones, I've been left with no choice but to adopt. Cameras, one of my favorite things, are something I really have to have, but I always have a SLR and have gone from 35 mm film to a Digital SLR as 35 mm film simply became obsolete, and I had no choice, even though I love my Pentax DSLR.
I suppose this is true of many other things. If this were 1914 instead of 2014, I suppose the telephone would be a new thing for us, that we'd have to have. I'd probably regard it like my Iphone, nifty, but somewhat of a problematic item in a vague way. Would I have an automobile? The Model T was introduced in 1903. My guess is that by 1914 I'd have to have had one.
Starting a Model T. They lacked an electric starter. This photograph from the late 1930s shows a car that would already have been regarded as obsolete even though by modern standards the age between the contemporary cars and this used car would not be that great.
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