Shortcomings in Digital Technology Skills Impair My Computer Use

I have had a Google Chromebook for the past few months...still a long way off from figuring out this supposedly simple device.  For example, I had just typed out several sentences introducing a completely different subject for today's blog article entry, but somehow the way I rested my hands on the keyboard caused the whole thing to erase...and without any means of undoing it!  I've also had issues with the word processing here and certain keyboard functions I'd normally consider standard, such as the absent "Capitals" key normally available anywhere else. Yet overall I'm pretty satisfied with it, since after all I'm a big user of Google applications, including this blog, YouTube, Google Search and Google Maps: they seem to be well integrated.  It's also true that I lag behind many others in my knowledge of how to maneuver around the computer...not an advisable shortcoming in this age of heavy dependency on digital information and the Internet.  I think my problems are probably more due to needing to improve my digital IQ than with the computer hardware or software.  Then again, something inside me says to not get too involved in it all and stay as long as possible on this side of reality.  That might explain why I feel a strange sense of relief whenever I sign out and shut off the computer.  And at least I managed to get this article out before inexplicably erasing it...  

Just Finished Reading Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte

Tiago Forte is a computer/IT expert with an interesting premise: that we all could use a "second", external brain, in which the incredible amount of detailed information we accumulate over the years is processed, prioritized, organized and arranged for easy access.  Forte believes that use of digitalized notetaking apps can greatly enhance the function of this all, although traditionally people have relied on notepads and other paper-based media...count me as one of them.  He expresses this in his 2022 book Building a Second Brain, which I just finished reading.  I agree with that premise of his, although his language is such that I felt as if Mr. Spock on Star Trek were feeding me a lot of incomprehensible gobbledygook without actual laying out specifics on how to maneuver around the often very arcane field of knowledge management, especially as it applies to using computer technology.  Forte also has a tendency to go heavy on acronyms...not a good way to endear me to his message. Still, I recognize that over the years I have been bombarded with information and memories, much of which is lost, deeply buried in my mental recesses without an effective means to retrieve it.  Fortunately, with some things...like my running record and list of books and short stories read...I have this very blog as an external memory device...and therefore an element of Forte's suggested "second brain": I just need to streamline the data and make the articles with all the info easy to access.  That's why I used yesterday's article to update my running race history: I plan to place links on each race entry to be able to quickly access the pertinent articles.  I plan to do the same with my reading list...that project is going to be much longer, though.  And there are some areas more personal and financial in nature, for which using a public blog is inappropriate, yet still demanding a better external organization of prioritized and retrievable information.  So, although the author's writing style, in my opinion, left a lot to be desired, his core message strongly resonates with me as I already see a strong need to better organize my personal information.  Thank you, Tiago Forte...

Podcaster Discusses Why People Won't Change Their Viewpoints

On a recent Mindset Mentor podcast of his, personal development coach Rob Dial gives three reasons why it's so hard for people to change their own minds about things as well as change others'.  They are (1) cognitive dissonance, (2) partisanism/tribalism, and (3) confirmation bias.  With cognitive dissonance, someone hears something that conflicts with what they are comfortable with, so they either rationalize or trivialize it...or as is often the case, just get mad at the other person who they perceive as messing up their life by expressing it.  The second one has to do with our tribal social nature, be it following a particular political party or politician, religion, culture, family, work pals, section of the neighborhood...or maybe just what our favorite sports team is.  Folks tend to magnify the faults of those outside their felt circle, especially when they are in direct competition with them, as is the case in politics and sports.  Dial himself says he doesn't come down on either side of the political spectrum, he's in the "center", and doesn't care about all the political things others do.  With that I have a problem: you can be in the center and care more than many on the left or right fringe.  But I'm totally in agreement with him in that people in a group who want to be accepted within it will often, if not usually, bend their beliefs to fit in...even if they are obviously false.  As for confirmation bias, people tend to seek their sources of information that confirm their already cherished beliefs and reject those that challenge them...this isn't helped by Internet algorithms that various social media and search engines use to "perceive" the user's inclinations and then fulfill them with affirming material.  Also, Dial mentions that there is a tendency for people, if they hear something repeated enough times, to accept it as truth...combine that with confirmation bias and the desire to "fit in", and you have whole entrenched sections of the population at odds with one another while "circling the wagons" to  protect own "tribes".  I don't think that this problem with human nature has changed over the centuries, but with our very recent development in mass personal digital communications the effects have mushroomed.  Rob Dial's solution seems to be to avoid confronting people with the truth because you're wasting your time for the aforementioned reasons...up to a point I agree with him, but at some point you have to stand up for what you know is right...