Stop Being Religious With Your Technology
We’ve all been guilty of it
“Android is better!”
“Apple devices are just better than everything else out there”
“If you aren’t using Kubernetes then you’re old school.”
“Playstation is way better than Xbox!”
Does this sound familiar? It is increasingly common to hear someone expressing an opinion about one technology being better than another. The fanboys and fangirls are everywhere on the Internet and they defend their favourite technology choices like it’s a religious war. Granted some of these people are just trolling for entertainment but there is a number of them that genuinely take comments against their favourite technology as a personal attack that must be avenged.
However, if you work in the technology field or just don’t want to be left behind as technology advances then you need to be conscious of when you may be getting too religious with your favourite technologies. I’ll explain why.
Human psychology at work?
You’re probably thinking what the big deal is. How is this different than the many other stances that people take when it comes to everything from clothing brands to chocolates? It’s just something that humans seem to innately do. That may be a very valid point. Human beings are generally social beings that naturally gravitate to forming communities and seek a sense of belonging. In general, people also don’t like to feel unintelligent and when it is suggested that a decision they’ve made to invest in one technology over another is “wrong” it can trigger a natural reaction to defend oneself.
Creating your own blind spots
The problem with developing a religious stance about a particular technology is that it can cause you to develop blind spots that can hamper your personal growth or ability to adapt. While this is true for most things in life, the technology field is one that is much more dynamic and evolves at a much faster pace. This is why developing a blind spot in this field can potentially be more problematic because the window to adapt tends to be short or you wind up chasing or being left behind.
What are you being blinded from? You’re potentially blinded from experiencing or recognizing innovations and alternative approaches to doing things. This in turn can limit the well of experience and awareness from which you can draw on to spark your own creativity or identify potential shifts in the technology landscape. Both of these are needed to foster innovation in the technology industry.
Everything is a nail when you spent $200 on a hammer
Technology has, and always will be, about pushing the boundaries of what humans can create. There is a sense of personal achievement, especially in intelligence, associated with being on the “leading edge”. Everyone keeps hearing that technology is so pervasive in modern society and the need to “keep up” with it or you risk suffering dire consequences in your life (/sarcasm). The result of all this is that people often spend non-trivial amounts of money to acquire or upgrade to the latest technology. This can also come in the form of training and other non-material forms of keeping up with technology. This spending of money sub-consciously contributes to the development of religious stances because no one wants to be told they made a “bad” decision and potentially wasted money. I’m not implying that spending non-trivial amounts of money on technology, such as training, is a negative thing. I am just saying that one needs to be cognizant that it doesn’t subconsciously give you a mentality that everything is a nail on which to use your $200 hammer.
Don’t get caught up in the hype
So how do you avoid developing these blind spots? Well, much like an addiction, the first step is acknowledging you have a problem. When you find yourself strongly defending one piece of technology over another, ask yourself, why? Why do you think Apple is better than Android? Why is Xbox better than Playstation? Why did you mock the person still using a Blackberry device? Why are Kubernetes and microservices the only way forward in software engineering?
If the answer is “because it’s the latest thing”, “because everyone is using it now”, “it works better for me”, or you cite a bunch of specifications and statistics, then you most likely have a blind spot. The first 2 responses indicate you haven’t actually done an objective assessment of the technologies and just adopted a mob mentality. Just because a technology is considered old doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t relevant or can’t be a seed for future innovations. For example, is the general concept behind micro frontend architectures really that different than the old Java Portlets (see JSR-168) concepts from 2007?
The 3rd response indicates a personal preference as opposed to a more objective assessment and isn’t a strong reason to discount a technology. The last response is trying to justify a stance by using statistics that we all know can be skewed, especially if it comes from sources that can benefit from the results. When it comes to specifications and statistics, can you actually tell the difference between value X and value Y in real-world use?
It comes down to being conscious of not getting caught up in the hype and remind yourself that technology is constantly evolving and turnover rates are high so things that are currently “leading” can easily fall from grace in a matter of months. My favourite thing to do when friends or co-workers get hyped up about some of the features in the latest iOS and Android phones is to show them some of those features on my Blackberry OS 10 device from 2013. Some are quick to dismiss it because it’s a Blackberry and that it’s different/better on iOS/Android. Well considering it is 7 years later, I would hope it is better but given how similar the essence of the functionality is, I don’t think it is a major stretch to guess where the inspiration came from. The point is that by dismissing Blackberry so quickly they exposed their blind spots and how they deprived themselves of a source of inspiration and knowledge of the technology landscape.
You should have opinions, just don’t be blinded by them
As a person navigating through life, you should establish opinions on things and have a stance. As the saying goes, if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything. The point of this post is to highlight that you also need to be cognizant of getting so opinionated it becomes religious and you end up with blind spots that result in a disadvantage when things change and in the technology field that happens much more frequently. Don’t dismiss things outright, especially in technology, because sometimes it’s just a matter of timing and getting over an initial adoption hurdle but once that happens it can be much more difficult to catch up. As the picture shows, have a clear focus and but maintain some vision of the surroundings. As a closing thought, how many people in technology dismissed Apple in the ’90s as inferior or Tesla when they announced the Model S and now sing their praises?
Originally published at https://realtimerevisions.com.
