Programming
Image accessed from 聽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聽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.聽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聽legal system would function if we hadn't developed a written language.聽
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聽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聽only limited by determination and imagination.聽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...