Beyond the hype
January 4, 2000
© 2000, Douglas E. Welch
The New Year has come and gone with little indication that the
world will end any time soon. Of course, anyone, even the most knowledgeable technology people,
would have been scared after more than a year of doom and gloom
predictions. The truth seems to be that like so many issues these
days, Y2K was over-hyped to an unprecedented degree. One small
piece of good that will come out of Y2K is a much-needed reevaluation
of technology issues and how we respond to them.
A calming effect
I have spent most of the last year allaying people's fear regarding
the host of possible Y2K problems. Every training session, every
class, every friend had some question about it. I tried to remain
calm myself in the face of the media pressure to bill it as the
crisis of the century. This is not to say that I wasn't a little
worried when I woke up Friday morning. I quickly checked the news
to make sure the early indications from New Zealand and Australia
were good. The press had even scared me in some ways and I pride
myself on understanding and enjoying technology.
My main fear, though, was that I had been wrong. I felt I was
right about what was going to happen but the media had inundated
me with such negative messages that I had my doubts. I would have
been terribly sorry had anything major occurred. Once I was assured
that everything was still working I was able to relax and enjoy
myself. I had done the right thing in helping people allay their
own fears.
The real issue
The real issue of Y2K was not about technology at all, but instead
the conflict of interest that arose within the media companies
covering the story. Too often today, newspapers and television
news programs report stories in such a way as to instill fear,
not understanding. The reason is simple. Fear sells more papers
and more advertising than understanding. Even when news was good
many papers spent more space telling us what COULD have happened instead of what DID happen. Good news is not as compelling as bad.
We have fallen victim to our own willful ignorance about technology.
We should never be content again to merely believe what the media
has told us. We need to be able to counteract the hype in the
future to prevent the almost universal sense of fear that Y2K
engendered. It is time we all learned more about technology. It
is time we all reach out to those around us and help them understand
it better. It is only through educating ourselves that we can
prevent the hype and confusion of Y2K from ever happening again.
As we move into the New year we may be disappointed that the Jetsonian
future we all grew up with has not materialized, but we can’t
allow that disappointment to close our eyes to the near-magical
technology that has been created in the last 100 years. Take control
of your technology and you will make your own world a better place.
Cede that control and you become a target for technology fear-mongers
of all shapes and sizes.
Douglas E. Welch is a freelance writer and computer consultant
in Van Nuys, California. He also writes Career Opportunities, a weekly column on high-tech careers and A Gardener's Notebook. You can find more of Douglas' writing on his web page at: http://www.welchwrite.com/
He can reached via email at douglas@welchwrite.com
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