Technology: Past Vs. Present

I am back...yippee!  I owe my daughter a huge THANK YOU!  I've been struggling for weeks unable to sign in or comment on my blog or reply to the comments others posted.  My daughter determined it was an issue with Safari after I updated my system to Mojave.  She downloaded Firefox to try that and...viola! I am back in business...or so it seems thus far, at least.

All of this started me thinking about the extent and degree to which technology drives and impacts our lives today.  I clearly see the merits and am frustrated by the negative issues; however, there are parts of me that would love to throw it all out the window.  Technology and social media have become such an intrinsic and important part of our world today, and there are certainly plenty of pros.  But there are also some cons.  Clearly, I have been struggling with one such issue these last weeks.

By nature, I am a paper and pencil person.  I write on yellow legal pads most often and then type and save on my computer.  I never used the computer lab in college (this was before taking a computer to college was as common as it is these days) and always typed papers on my typewriter.  I would probably still do so today were it not for the huge amount of submissions being accepted via email (and the greater difficulty erasing mistakes on a typewriter).  Don't get me wrong, it is a very big time saver to use computers and do so much electronically.  The biggest thing I struggle with is the fact that I am fairly (this is putting it very mildly) technologically inept and often have issues I cannot solve as well as the fact that social media and all it offers, albeit positive in large part, is a huge time suck and can often take away from time spent writing, butt in chair.  It is such a catch-22...the ease with which we can make connections and the speed with which we can accomplish so much of what we do is wonderful; however, the ease with which we can waste time on all that is offered online requires serious time management skills and strict self-control.

Which takes me back to my original point...how were marketing and promotion done in the days before social media and all these outlets that allow us to create a platform and sell ourselves today?  How did authors help sell books? How did they make themselves known to others, especially those who were not published by the big houses?  And is there ever a way to scale back to more of that type of approach to focus more on the writing and less on the rest of what marketing entails?  Oh boy, it sounds like I want to have my cake and eat it too, doesn't it???  Therein lies the need for balance and a happy medium.

Okay, maybe not quite this far back (and mine was far newer and more functional than this model), but you get my drift.


I would welcome any input or comments anyone is willing to share.