When Tech News Attacks

Some time ago I brought this blog out of an almost 2 year dead zone and tried to write about technology. Now almost a year and a half later, I’m realizing I made a mistake.

Don’t get me wrong, I love technology but what I was writing didn’t fill me with happiness, it kind of made me sad. I fell into the trap of taking sides, assuming anything I didn’t agree with was wrong, and generally being negative about almost everything. As time passed, I’ve watched myself change and — hopefully — grow out of that phase.

These days I’m less worried about who makes the product and more focused on what it can do for me. Isn’t that what technology is for? To better our lives? Who cares if Google or Microsoft or Apple is behind it, if it improves your daily life that’s all that matters.

Look at the state of tech news today. Do it, take a long hard look. It’s full of sites scrambling to be the first to publish the next doom and gloom piece. Do you really want to celebrate the loss of jobs at Blackberry? Do you want to cheer that Microsoft can’t sell the Surface RT? If so, why? Does it affect your life in any meaningful way?

The truth is, I have my preferred devices and how the Surface is selling doesn’t concern me. If anything, I should hope that Microsoft succeeds because the gadget world needs competition. If Apple sits at the top for too long, who’s to say they won’t start phoning it in? Along those lines, I’m glad Android has become a really good operating system, otherwise iOS may stagnate. The opposite is true as well, if iOS weren’t so dominate, would Google be trying this hard to improve Android?

That attitude seems lost on most writers today. They’re too busy writing headlines containing questions or sensationalizing random situations for page views. I understand why they do it, they need the ad views to make money, that’s what businesses do. That’s all well and good if you’re a professional writer but when you write an independent blog where page views don’t necessarily matter, it’s pointless to get bogged down in the same mire.

With that in mind, I’ve recently been spending time focusing on what technology does for me. Mainly how the gadgets I interact with on a daily basis affect my life. I hope to take that train of thought and move from feebly trying to report random old tech news and transition into writing about how technology improves our lives.

I’m also thinking it’s time to write about things that are fun. I enjoyed writing about RC cars & helicopters earlier this year so I intend to bring that back along with some other fun subjects.

Life is too short to spend worrying about what Tim Cook or Steve Ballmer is thinking, let’s have some fun. I hope you stick around and enjoy it with me.