Thanksgiving Assignment

When I first read the homework over Thanksgiving break, it was clear that I was going to ask my dad about the most important information technology he once used at his job. My dad is a dairy farmer, so I knew his answer would be completely different from most of the other students' answers in this course. This assignment, therefore, was particularly interesting because I have always known that my father is especially inexperienced with technology, so I was curious to hear what he considers important for his job. My dad doesn't need a computer to do his job, he doesn't even need a cell phone. He works for himself and with no one else so he doesn't need to keep in much contact with other people. He takes care of everything himself with the help of my mom and my siblings so he never really needed to learn how to use a computer or even the internet. He receives what he needs to know (ie weather updates) through the radio and television news. Additionally, never being exposed to technology growing up created a strong digital divide between his understandings, which attributes to today. The technologies that he thought to be important in his daily working life included farm machinery that he never had the opportunity to use as a kid when working on his father's farm. It's really interesting that my dad and I lived in the same house for so many years and we always received our information differently. The fact that my dad doesn't know how to get on the internet may come as a complete shock to so many people, but for the life that he wants to live, he doesn't have to. And I actually applaud him for that.