What Would You Do Without the Gadgets? (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

What Would You Do Without the Gadgets?
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Delodephius
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Message 17 of 27

25 November 2011 at 6:35pm | IP Logged

Kisfroccs wrote:

I can completely rely on that. Without going in the details, I still can cook with a
wood-oven, I have vinyls too =D, I don't own a TV and though I can't make soap, I
learned to shower with soap and a little towel with a bowl of water. I grew up in a
farm - though nobody would guess today if they see me - and still use a lot in my
everyday life.

Sometimes, I feel like a real stranger in our world.

Well most people I know call me Old School, one of my friend who moved here from USA
(yeah, he emigrated because life is easier here[!]) says I'm living "Victorian style".
Well, my laptop is relatively old, and I'm still using Windows XP which I haven't
updated since 2008, or was it 2009? And I even made the theme of the desktop look like
the one on Windows '98, coz it reminds me of the simpler days, when I didn't have a
clue what the internet was.

As for a wood-burning stove, we switched to a gas stove years ago, because cooking on
an electric one just didn't "feel" right. I still have a wood-burning furnace in my
house however, which warms up the place quite nicely right now.

It may seem weird that people today use a lot of technology but say they don't really
like it. I'm like that too, because technology makes things simpler, yes, but it makes
you more incapable of doing it yourself. Kids today rely too much on technology and
when they get into a situation where they can't use it they start panicking. I always
wonder what will people do when we run out of petrol and if subsequently most power-
plants shut down. Well, my life will certainly be changed... but barely noticeably so.

And I don't need any katanas. I got my wood-axe and a scythe. They'll do just fine. :-D

Edited by Delodephius on 25 November 2011 at 6:37pm
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NickJS
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United Kingdom
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Message 18 of 27

26 November 2011 at 1:53am | IP Logged

iguanamon wrote:

Without, the gadgets, hmmm, well, before the internet I learned
Spanish on my own. For audio, I had AM (MW) and shortwave radio- Radio Nacional de
España, Radio Habana, BBC Mundo, Radio Clarín from the Dominican Republic, XEW from
Mexico City, Radio Camilo Cienfuegos (a clandestine Cuban exile, or CIA, station).
There were no Spanish speakers in my small US upper-south hometown with whom to
practice speaking. Still, people would pass through and in my travels I would meet
people with whom I could talk. Books in Spanish were hard to come by but I managed to
get hold of a few. Language learning materials were also difficult to find. I'd never
heard of Assimil back in the 80's. If I bought a language-learning book, it didn't come
with audio, I had to write to the publisher using the order form for the cassette
tapes.

If the internet and related devices disappeared, living here, I could keep up my
Spanish with no problem, Portuguese would be extremely difficult to maintain. Part of
the problem with today's technologically dependent society is that the prior
infrastructure has either gone away or drastically diminished. Before VOIP, and the
technological revolution in communications, I used to pay almost $1.50 a minute to
phone England via landline. Foreign language books had to be special ordered with no
chance to preview them. Foreign language videos were not available in most video shops
outside large cities. Now video shops are a dying breed. I wouldn't know where to go to
buy CDs, the record shops have gone, and even if they were still around, I doubt I'd
find any Brazilian music there. Shortwave radio is also dying/dead. Before the
internet, shortwave was the internet of it's day, where one could hear the news of the
world from the source without passing through one's own country's filter.

I like reading in Spanish and Portuguese on my Kindle- with the integrated
dictionaries, looking up unknown words is a dream, talking with natives via Skype,
reading on-line newspapers from Brazil, Mozambique and Portugal, watching Brazilian TV,
videos and movies, listening to podcasts and discovering new Brazilian music. All would
be more difficult, slower and most likely not feasible without today's technology. It
takes a special ear to listen to a fading, crackly and interference prone signal over
shortwave radio. If it all goes away tomorrow, my life will be poorer because of it.

Count your blessings!

It is quite sad that video stores died out...I used to love going to them when I was
younger!

Don't get me wrong though I do love everything that technology brings, but its all of
the things that surround (and come with) the actual useful things I'm starting to
dislike.

@Delodephius There are kids today that do not know how to even cook or use a
screwdriver! Its very scary to think really...I think it may have been my cousin that
told me that there were actually a large amount of people at his university that are
like this too and its usually the rich ones.

I'm lucky I think though, I know how to fix things, cook and at the same time use
technology...So I think I'm good if the robots or zombies ever rise haha!

1 person has voted this message useful

mrwarper
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Message 19 of 27

26 November 2011 at 8:57pm | IP Logged

Depends on how much you backlevel technology.

Without the 'gadgets' (assuming just the internet, computers, and 'smart' phones, and NOT radio, TV and books, oh the Apocalypse)... I'd probably do essentially the same things, only a bit more slowly, meaning I'd optimize some tasks in a different way. Technology makes things like look-ups so trivial that I don't mind repeating them, whereas without it, I'd probably...
*write more things down.
*stick to the most important look-ups instead of doing every last one of them. *consume less material, but I'd sure be more picky about it.
Still, other than being more readily available than ever, written media, radio and TV series/movies are still the same. SRS is not that different from paper flash cards.
Those alone account for 95%+ of the materials you need to learn / practice languages.

I'm kind of an efficiency nerd (or freak), and having been lost myself in the IT abyss for some time, I can tell that all technology benefits are almost leveled by its most pernicious effect: distractions, be they either access to things other than the task at hand, or technology becoming an end in itself and not a medium. But once you come to your senses again you realize that, language learning-wise, task optimization stems from technology in a small percentage only.

In conclusion, if killing 'gadgets' kills your languages, you're probably doing the wrong things.

Half the energies I spend as a language teacher are focused on getting technology out of the way for my students. I just love it when they have to admit that they, well, didn't sit to do <whatever it was> :)
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Iversen
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Message 20 of 27

27 November 2011 at 9:00pm | IP Logged

I would miss the internet (and the cheap flight tickets), but I'm a surviving relict from the stone age where you had to rely on paper books ... and as far as I can see my old paper dictionaries and grammars wouldn't disappear.
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Fasulye
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Message 21 of 27

27 November 2011 at 9:12pm | IP Logged

Without any gadgets I would miss my computer desperately(!), but I could survive without my mobile phone and my MP3 - player. And like Iversen - I am using paper dictionaries anyway! Living without a computer would be really tough - and I couldn't even write my job applications!

Fasulye
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Kisfroccs
Bilingual Pentaglot
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Switzerland
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Message 22 of 27

27 November 2011 at 9:23pm | IP Logged

Delodephius wrote:

Well most people I know call me Old School, one of my friend who moved here from USA (yeah, he emigrated because life is easier here[!]) says I'm living "Victorian style". Well, my laptop is relatively old, and I'm still using Windows XP which I haven't updated since 2008, or was it 2009? And I even made the theme of the desktop look like the one on Windows '98, coz it reminds me of the simpler days, when I didn't have a clue what the internet was.

As for a wood-burning stove, we switched to a gas stove years ago, because cooking on
an electric one just didn't "feel" right. I still have a wood-burning furnace in my
house however, which warms up the place quite nicely right now.

It may seem weird that people today use a lot of technology but say they don't really
like it. I'm like that too, because technology makes things simpler, yes, but it makes
you more incapable of doing it yourself. Kids today rely too much on technology and
when they get into a situation where they can't use it they start panicking. I always
wonder what will people do when we run out of petrol and if subsequently most power-
plants shut down. Well, my life will certainly be changed... but barely noticeably so.

And I don't need any katanas. I got my wood-axe and a scythe. They'll do just fine. :-D

We too have two wood-burning furnace at my parent's place. Since I moved, I think this is one of the things I miss the most. It's not an open fireplace, but just sitting next to it, stroking my dogs, that would be the right thing at the moment :).

And what does he means with "victorian style" ?

I openly say that I like some technology, for example computers and iPod. That it is for the 'gadget'. I don't own anything else. But with the way I grew up, I think I could live without technology. I would not be simple though... Time consumating. (if you'd like to do everything without technology...)

If we'd run out of petrol, we would have a big problem. Think about hospitals, diabeties patient if their fridge doesn't work, no cars working including firemans, ambulance etc. People in westerners countries would not be ready. Easter countries could digest it a bit better, but only because a few years ago, they were not dependant on technology as we are. Is changing though, and rapidly :).

And I prefer not too much speculate here, simply state that I could live without the common gadget.

Kisfröccs

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Kisfroccs
Bilingual Pentaglot
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Switzerland
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Message 23 of 27

27 November 2011 at 9:26pm | IP Logged

When I come thinking to it, I would miss shopping on the Internet... :p
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NickJS
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United Kingdom
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Message 24 of 27

28 November 2011 at 12:52am | IP Logged

Fasulye wrote:

Without any gadgets I would miss my computer desperately(!), but I could
survive without my mobile phone and my MP3 - player. And like Iversen - I am using paper
dictionaries anyway! Living without a computer would be really tough - and I couldn't
even write my job applications!

Fasulye

I for one could never resort to only using computer or internet based dictionaries, I
always find comfort in having my paper ones on my shelf.

1 person has voted this message useful

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