Programming
Image accessed from Pixabay on 16 March 2020.
We are living in a digital age (just in case you hadn't noticed). When people point that out to me it usually feels like such a mundane observation. My gut response is that computers aren't anything remarkable, I use them every day
Smartphones and computers seem normal to me, so I don't really turn my mind to them. Except I really should because they are such a revolutionary technology. We do banking online, we shop online, we message online, we work online, we consume our media online. Technology has had a massive impact on how we live.
The world today is increasingly shifting towards an existence based on binary computer code, and I have very little idea how it works. I've heard someone compare not knowing computer code in the 21st century to not knowing how to write in medieval times.
I thought of all the benefits of being able to write: planning things, storing information, accessing ideas. For me, I thought of how our legal system would function if we hadn't developed a written language.
I wondered about the possibilities if I knew how to code, the things I could do. Maybe I could store and process more data than I could ever sift through in a lifetime. I could use logical computer processes as an extension of the processes occurring in my own head...
Maybe I could come up with my own applications . Maybe, for whatever field I go into long term, I could have a database of everything I need to know, and have programs running tasks in the background. Automate a chunk of my workload.
I've been learning how to use a programming language in my Psychology degree. I still haven't figured out how to apply it to the real world, but I have been shown the usefulness of the skill from a research perspective.
It seems foolish not to take full advantage of computers. The possibilities seem to be only limited by determination and imagination. I know there's nothing really stopping me from applying myself to online courses on the internet to develop this skill further, I think I will set some time aside to do that at least one day...