Tech Literacy: Surviving in Our Softwarized World

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

To survive in daily normal life, you just need to know how to read and write. I think this has always been straightforward, even though the government emphasizes more on this. Basic education is necessary—of course it is; we will take your money if you don't understand what has been written (Hahaha, just kidding. We are not like that. Most of us are good kids, right?)

Okay, but in professional life, you also need to know how to use basic technologies. The world keeps advancing every day. It's like now everything is moving towards being "softwarized." The things you used to do manually are now being automated or completely done with some sort of computer program. A good example: most of us did titrations in secondary school (burette and conical flask stuff 🙌), but do you know now there is an instrument that uses a computer to do that! Not only that, there are many other things now where you have to sit in front of a screen and click something to get a service—like registering your company, applying for college or scholarship, doing job interviews online. All these and many more are done by or through software. This brings to the surface the reality that basic understanding and ability to use these technologies is necessary—and I'm not joking about this. This time, we will take your "opportunities" if you don't know how to use these techs (this is serious!!!).

So, what should I do?

I think the answer is obvious: Know how to use these things.

I am not talking about going back to school and studying IT. I'm saying you should have the basic "know-hows" on using most of these technologies. Let's be real here: you know there are some of us who paid a lot of cash for even just a simple thing like opening an email account, which is one of the easiest things to do (of course, we won't do that again since we're in college and have access to these "screens" compared to before).

If using these kinds of technologies is still a pain even up to this point, there are some quick tricks on how you can navigate through this "softwarized" society. Actually, it's not that hard—it's just the approach that can simplify a lot whether you are using a personal computer, smartphone, or any other tech.

Here are three tips to survive in our softwarized world:

1. Understand what is the core activity done by the software (or techs)

Through the lens of a software developer, let me elaborate on this: we always design software that should be user-friendly (with good user experience). It's a pain and a sign of incompetence to a developer if you design software that your users can't use. As a result, we are always forced to design something anyone who knows how to read and write can use.

To be more specific, you have to understand the theory of what is the core activity done by that computer program. For example, you should know what titration is to use a potentiometric titrator (Titration monster!!!!). Excel helps you do math without scratching your head, but first, you'll need to know the math (average, standard deviation, and more); then you can command the software to do it for you. Or, HPLC instruments; for my fellow chemists if you have shallow knowledge of chromatography, you can't use this instrument.

These software, including websites, are made to assist us in doing something which otherwise we would do manually. They do this by receiving commands and then doing the job. Now, if you don't know what you are instructing, there won't be anything fruitful that will come from that.

2. Now press all the buttons on the software

Hahaha, don't do that—you will make your computer explode!!!

Every software or website has buttons or something which you can click, and if you click it, the program will do something. Anhaa, so it is doing something, and not on its own; you clicking is you commanding it to do something.

The good thing about software is that almost everything "clickable" has a label on it: there is a button labeled "delete," so its function is to delete something. There is another one labeled "Table" on Microsoft Word—I think it will create a table for you. Every button or anything which can be clicked has a label which indicates what it can do if clicked—so the "clickables" are the commands (in fact, your commands if you click them). Now, I don't think you will press that button labeled "explode," you will press the ones to do the activity you want.

As stated before, you can't command something you don't know, which is why if you know what is the core activity done by this software, I think the buttons will start to make sense by now. From here, I think you can now start telling this "machine" (by clicking) to do what you want!!!

Emphasis; The rule of thumb for immediate use of software or any tech: know first what is the task you want to do. Then simply look on the screen what are the "clickables" which can help me finish this job. If you find them, then click them.

3. Try to see what it does until the program crashes

We have seen that to make the software do something for you, you have to command it, and the commands are done by clicking buttons. Sometimes for ambiguous buttons (not very user-friendly or you just don't get it), you will have to click it to see what will happen.

To just click and observe what happens is what we call trial and error. By the way, at the end, you will end up knowing what it does (as long as it doesn't explode things!!!). This is the hard way and requires courage for you to take those risks if the stakes are high; but if you have nothing to lose and you can reset everything back, this is one of the good ways to learn faster—instead of starting to learn how to use the whole software at once.

Intuition kicks in sometime, especially if you have used a lot of software as these mostly have similar parts. You can quickly guess what a button does and just click it. There is no need to be afraid if you are learning. If that is not enough, just google it (YouTube is enough too), there are probably some folks who have already published how to use that software online.

Start with these crucial technologies

Examples of a few crucial software and websites that I think will be a good starting point for you to be able to attack any opportunity that will come your way are involved with emails and online accounts creation and management, Microsoft Office, online communication, and registration processes.

I think knowing these and other essentials will put you at the forefront of those who know how to use these technologies so as to extract opportunities that they encounter.

And lastly, before I forget this: Don't forget your email password...

#moreExposure #buildUpSkills #TryOutThings

Thanks to Joyce, Joyce-P, Stivin, Elly, Bernadetta, Saguda, and Ladislaus for reading drafts of this.