Dave's Sensible Blog

Welcome to Daves Sensible Blog - I guess I ultimately had no choice.

I created New Nightingales as a Blog 2 Years ago, having written the Book and wanting it to have an audience. Two years later it has an astonishing 44 Thousand Visitors. 

The New Nightingales Chronicles  

Egged on by others I created St Twitters as a Blog a year ago, the Private Eye equivalent of the NHS. Tongue in cheek irony it pokes fun at Nursing and Healthcare, whilst offering some interesting historical perspectives. A year later it has received 25 Thousand visits.

St Twitters

And then there is me, a 58 year old Grand Father. A Nurse, a Teacher, an Academic. 

David Barton RN, ENB100, DipN, B.Ed. M.Phil, PhD !!! SoMe user / communicator

I never expected to be a 'Blogger'. 3 Years ago I had never heard of Blogging. OK I had a FaceBook account, but Twitter was a mystery.  And as I explain in the closing Chapter of New Nightingales where I had no plans, no visions or ambitions for being a Senior Academic Nurse in 1979, no more had I of Social Media participant in 2007. And yet here I find myself on a dark February Sunday Night in 2014 'Blogging', Tweeting (with a ridiculous following of 3400 - nuts), engaging in a new virtual space of human communication. 

Oh.. BTW - This is one I prepared earlier :o) 

ASTONISHING – TECHNOLOGY
HUMANS AND THE FUTURE

Today I sat watching Dafydd, my 2 year old grandson, with astonishment. He sat (well he fidgeted actually - constantly) next to his father whilst he stared intently at a touch screen Smart Phone screen. He then deftly used his finger to flick through screens. He giggled as he got to the Games screen, opened his favourite game, and went to find the hiding rabbit! He is 2 years old and he had grasped the concept not only of a touch screen but also its interface. That cognitive step has humbled me, not because he is my grandson, but because we humans always underestimate the genius of the human mind and its ability to learn and invent at an extraordinary rate. That ability defines us, and perhaps is what sets us apart. 

Let me take you on a personal journey – a history of technology in my life time. I was born in 1956 – for some this was a long long time ago. I have early childhood recollections of a grainy 8 inch flickering black and white television and a large wooden gramophone player – and very grand they were. The house telephone was a large black machine with a shiny metal dial, it was a party line, shared by 3 different households.

 

Then I remember my Fathers bursting pride when we had our first colour TV when I was 12 in 1968. There was much excitement that night as he fiddled with the contrast, colour mix, and of course the blasted Arial position – we were captivated by the large 15 inch screen. We watched Neil Armstrong take his first steps on the Moon on that TV. It was not long later before I had my first portable record player for Xmas, playing black vinyl singles and long players – learning to love the music of Led Zepplin, Jimi Hendrix and the Doors. As I entered my 20s in 1976 I was delighted when I got my first Digital Watch – how cool was that – a watch with moving numbers.

In 1980 I started my studentship as a Nurse at Kings College Hospital. We were shown Cine films by Nurse Tutors of pathologies and surgery through large flickering projectors – some were really quite good. But by the time my first son was born in 1983 we saw the arrival of Video Tape – the BIG question was VHS or BetaMax. Shortly after I bought my 1^st Video Tape player and watched a film on out little rented colour TV – you could stop it if you need to have a cap of Tea or nip to the Loo. It was I thought a technological miracle.

In 1885 Live Aid was broadcasted to a global population of 1.2 Billion Humans – communication technology was, it seemed, beginning to change the world. By the late 1980s, in my early 30s, we first heard of a mystical future communication technology – microchips and the Internet – it meant nothing to me. However my treasured Vinyl collection was now consigned to history and being replaced by “Compact Disks” (CDs), and mobile CD players where Ghetto Blasters were the in thing.

In 1991, at the age of 35 I started my first degree, and bought my 1^st computer. The Amstrad 9512, you had to load the disk operating system (DOS), and then it ran an early Word processor “LocoScript” - it was in the stuff of science fiction – a “home” computer. Mind you I was a little sceptical about the new “Windows” programme – why I wondered would you want to open more than one programme at a time. In 1995 I was given my first Email address at work – Wow – goodbye to paper memos. We got our 1^st mobile phone – it was the size of a brick. I connected from home for the 1^st time to the “Internet” via America Online (AOL). As I sat there boggling my wife passed by – looked at the screen and said “So – so what”?  And forget Video Tape - let’s talk DVDs.

OK – what happened next was exponential. Today Email is considered by the younger generation as passé, Social Media has connected he world in a way that just 10 years ago was unimaginable. I have a mobile phone that exceeds many times all the total computational technology that enabled the Apollo 11 Moon landing.  I am writing this “BLOG” on my Netbook whilst half watching a 42 inch HD Flatscreen TV. I am connected wirelessly to the Internet. I am connected to Social Media  – and there are 4 computers in my house. My wife banks on-line, and shops on-line (she discovered her “So What”). I can talk instantly to people half a world away and I am good friends with people I have never actually physically met. And, despite the world’s ills, in the main we have used all this technological advance for the greater good of humanity – and to our extraordinary ability to find new ways to communicate.

In just under 60 years I have gone from that little flickering Black and White Screen I remember as a young child to this technology that has connected our world – a Global conversation - a result of our human genius. And now – at just 2 years my grandson is grasping technologies that were indeed the stuff of Science Fiction when I was his age. Dafydd will grow up never knowing a time before the Internet, before Google, Facebook or Twitter. I cannot imagine what he may be doing 56 years from now – but I expect it with be extraordinary.