One of the very major changes in recent years has nothing to do with the speed of technology, or even the its vast improvements in capability or power. Yet one, single aspect of technological change in recent years has impacted me more than any other.
I’m typing this from inside my travel trailer parked at my home. It turns out to be a quiet place when not being used for actual travel, so it’s a place to retreat to if I want to cut down on the distractions that might be present in my office, or even in my back yard.
That I can do this with nary a thought is pretty darned amazing. That big technological change I refered to? Mobility. Or put another way, the ubiquity of connectivity options.
I can get the internet just about anywhere.
What I do on my computer has probably plateaued in recent years, at least from a technological perspective. Writing, website building, email, even photo editing, to a large degree, hasn’t really caused me to push boundaries in in terms of what I expect from my technology. Even video editing, which I do on occasion, remains quite comfortable on equipment I’ve had for several years now.
What I continue to leverage more and more is simply being able to connect to the internet itself from just about anywhere I might be.
In my home is a given — particularly now that we have decent internet service and speed. That I can simply slip outside to my nearby trailer — Faraday cage though it is — and connect up to my home Wi-Fi is pretty handy. That I even have multiple options while sitting here is cool.
That any time I visit Starbucks, my local grocery store, doctor, beer bar and tap room, airport, and even more I can quickly connect to freely provided internet is borderline amazing.
That I can connect in this same trailer, but while at a state park out on the Washington coast is very useful.
That I can do it in my car while it’s driving is truly amazing. (Don’t worry — I don’t surf and drive — it’s generally about listening to streaming audio and getting real-time traffic and mapping information.)
That I can connect to the internet while at 30,000 feet traveling between states or even countries is mind-blowing.
The reason that I’m so truly grateful for all this connectivity is simple: mobility. Options. I can do what I do from anywhere. And I have.
Slipping out to the trailer to get some distraction-free work done is just one example.