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A weekly syndicated web column for InfoQuest Internet Technologies, Inc.


WelchWrite Main -- Douglas E. Welch -- Rosanne Welch


Beyond the hype

January 4, 2000

© 2000, Douglas E. Welch


The New Year has come and gone with little indication that the world will end any time soon. Of course, anyone, even the most knowledgeable technology people, would have been scared after more than a year of doom and gloom predictions. The truth seems to be that like so many issues these days, Y2K was over-hyped to an unprecedented degree. One small piece of good that will come out of Y2K is a much-needed reevaluation of technology issues and how we respond to them.

A calming effect

I have spent most of the last year allaying people's fear regarding the host of possible Y2K problems. Every training session, every class, every friend had some question about it. I tried to remain calm myself in the face of the media pressure to bill it as the crisis of the century. This is not to say that I wasn't a little worried when I woke up Friday morning. I quickly checked the news to make sure the early indications from New Zealand and Australia were good. The press had even scared me in some ways and I pride myself on understanding and enjoying technology.

My main fear, though, was that I had been wrong. I felt I was right about what was going to happen but the media had inundated me with such negative messages that I had my doubts. I would have been terribly sorry had anything major occurred. Once I was assured that everything was still working I was able to relax and enjoy myself. I had done the right thing in helping people allay their own fears.

The real issue

The real issue of Y2K was not about technology at all, but instead the conflict of interest that arose within the media companies covering the story. Too often today, newspapers and television news programs report stories in such a way as to instill fear, not understanding. The reason is simple. Fear sells more papers and more advertising than understanding. Even when news was good many papers spent more space telling us what COULD have happened instead of what DID happen. Good news is not as compelling as bad.

We have fallen victim to our own willful ignorance about technology. We should never be content again to merely believe what the media has told us. We need to be able to counteract the hype in the future to prevent the almost universal sense of fear that Y2K engendered. It is time we all learned more about technology. It is time we all reach out to those around us and help them understand it better. It is only through educating ourselves that we can prevent the hype and confusion of Y2K from ever happening again.

As we move into the New year we may be disappointed that the Jetsonian future we all grew up with has not materialized, but we can’t allow that disappointment to close our eyes to the near-magical technology that has been created in the last 100 years. Take control of your technology and you will make your own world a better place. Cede that control and you become a target for technology fear-mongers of all shapes and sizes.


Douglas E. Welch is a freelance writer and computer consultant in Van Nuys, California. He also writes Career Opportunities, a weekly column on high-tech careers and A Gardener's Notebook. You can find more of Douglas' writing on his web page at: http://www.welchwrite.com/

He can reached via email at douglas@welchwrite.com


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© 1999 Douglas E. Welch