johnro

Tag: Technology

  • The One Device We’d Be Better Off Without (Hint: You’re Probably Holding It)

    The One Device We’d Be Better Off Without (Hint: You’re Probably Holding It)

    What technology would you be better off without, why?

    If you asked me to list the technology that drains my happiness the most, my mind jumps to the usual suspects.

    I could blame social media and the infinite scroll that destroys my ability to focus. I could blame the loss of privacy from smart home devices listening in on my living room conversations. I could even blame workplace chat apps like Slack that keep me on high-alert.

    But those are just symptoms. If we really want to cure the digital fatigue we are all feeling, we have to look at the root cause. We have to look at the delivery mechanism.

    If I could un-invent one piece of technology, it would be the Smartphone.

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  • My Life Without a Computer

    My Life Without a Computer

    Daily writing prompt
    Your life without a computer: what does it look like?
    View all responses

    If I’m being honest, my life without a computer would look completely different. And I don’t just mean a Windows PC or a Mac — let’s lump in smartphones, tablets, and all the other smart devices too. Otherwise, it’s kind of boring, right?

    I rely on computers for everything — work, communication, entertainment, even creativity. Without one, I basically wouldn’t have my career. I’m a software engineer, so no computer means no code, no programs, no job. I probably would’ve ended up as an author or something like that, which was my original dream growing up.

    But here’s the thing: life without a computer wouldn’t necessarily be all bad. The last time I didn’t own one was in the early ’90s, when I was just a kid. Life was so much simpler then. If you wanted to see friends, you arranged a time and place — and actually showed up. If someone called your house and you weren’t home, you just missed the call. You memorized phone numbers. You went outside for fun. And honestly? There were no endless streams of short video clips melting your attention span.

    My free time would probably shift a lot. Maybe more TV, more books, more family events. I’d be more active. Probably healthier too. Sure, I’d miss the digital world if computers suddenly vanished one day, but if they had never been invented at all, I’d just lean into analog hobbies and not know what I was missing.

    And stress? I bet I’d have less of it. Computers — and especially the internet — made life faster, noisier, and more anxious. Sometimes I think we all need a break from screens just to breathe a little easier.

    So is life without a computer a step backward? Yeah, kind of. But it’s also a rediscovery of simplicity. Some days I really do miss those simpler, pre-computer days.

    Funny how thinking about this makes me feel old. But maybe that’s just the nostalgia talking.

  • From Reactive to Proactive: My “Light Bulb” Moment With Monitoring

    From Reactive to Proactive: My “Light Bulb” Moment With Monitoring

    About ten years into my career, I had one of those rare light bulb moments that completely reshaped how I approached engineering. Until then, I’d mostly thought of my role in terms of building features, fixing bugs, and keeping things moving. But thanks to a push from a colleague in product, I began to see things differently — not just as an engineer, but as someone responsible for the experience of real people using what we built.

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