I don't believe you have a choice. Whether you like it or not, you have to either adapt and use technology and become a technofreak, or you risk extinction.
50 years ago when the telephone first came into general use, there were companies who refused to use them, insisting their clients continued to come to them to do business. This inconvenienced their telephone using customers, who soon moved their business to telephone using companies. The same story with credit cards. Those businesses who didn't accept credit card payment lost customers to those who did. The decision for business was easy - accept and utilise the new technologies or face extinction.
Today's technology is all about convenience. This may take the form of computers storing medical case histories for efficient retrieval, computerized tills and barcodes to streamline department stores, automated teller machines and bank networks that allow you to withdraw money any time, any place, to the speed and efficiency that your microwave defrosts and warms up food. Refusing to use these technologies is like cutting your nose off to spite your face - all you are doing is sacrificing convenience. Nobody in their right mind would do this, making everybody to some extent a technofreak.
At the heart of these new technologies is the microchip. If one conjures up an image of a technofreak, a bespecticled computer enthusiast immediately springs to mind. It is no coincidence that most computer experts are younger that 30 years, because the nature of the industry demands the abilities to accommodate constant change, new creative ways of thinking and the self confidence to make mistakes. For this reason many of the older generation are excluded from computer use, simply because they have somehow 'lost' the ability to learn and re-learn and are afraid of making mistakes. I believe this is the reason that the word 'technofreak' has such derogatory connotations - it was conceived by people afraid of computers and jealous of those who use them.
The happening technologies of today are computers and the Internet. Apart from the 'gee-whizz' factor, the principle reasons for this are the speed, efficiency and convenience of communication that they allow. Never before has one been able to send letters (email) instantaneously around the world, ask a question to an audience of millions (newsgroups) or set up a full colour interactive advertisement (World Wide Web), all for less than R100 per month and the price of a local telephone call. Like telephones and credit cards, those who do not accept and utilise computers and the Internet are walking the very short road to extinction.
Those termed 'technofreaks' are those who have recognised the potential of these emerging technologies and are prepared to begin to use them. They have realised that everything in the future, from the way we work to the way newspapers are delivered will change. The television programs we watch through to the way we do our banking will be controlled by computers. The only way to ensure a secure career and future will be to become masters of this new technology. In this way you will become someone businesses must employ to stay competitive in the highly competitive open market that this new communication system is creating. It is for these reasons that I place myself firmly in the so-called 'technofreak' camp. In addition I love the logical challenge; and the primitive joy of pushing buttons and seeing things happen ;-)
