You can’t be lazy in a technocracy. I find myself repeating this mantra to myself when dealing with many people who use technology only when strictly necessary. They don’t realize the war has already been lost. If you want to thrive in this new world order, you need to keep up at least a modicum with technology. I deal with a lot of people for whom biblical studies means handling only pens and paper. J. C. L. Gibson, one of my doctoral advisors, wrote all his books longhand and had his secretary type them. That’s simply no longer possible. For authors, if you’re not willing to put notice of your books on Facebook, Twitter (or, as it seems to be going, Threads) people aren’t going to notice. Publishers don’t send print catalogues any more. My physical mailbox has been quite a bit less used of late.
There’s an irony to the fact that the generation that grew up on Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’” are now refusing to accept our robo-overlords. AI is here to stay and shy of a total collapse of the electrical grid, we’re not going back to where we were in the sixties. The times have a-changed. And you know what Bob says to do if you can’t lend an appendage. Now, if you read my blog regularly, you know that I don’t go into this future with a sincere smile. But at least I try to keep up with what I need to to survive. I have to stop and remind myself how to write a check. Or fold a roadmap. I suspect that many of those who object to doing academic business electronically also drive by GPS. It beats getting lost.
No, I’m not the first in line. I still wouldn’t be using a headset for Zoom/Teams meetings if my wife hadn’t given me an old one of hers. This despite the fact I complain that I can’t hear others who insist they can speak clearly without and whose voices are muffled by the echoes in their work-at-home room. Nevertheless, if you want to be a professional of any stripe, you need to reconcile yourself with technology and its endless changes. You wake up one morning and Twitter is now X and you find yourself xing rather than tweeting. I need to get more followers on Threads, but you can’t do that on your laptop—I guess times are still a-changin’.