Are We Cooked? The Race to Keep Up with the Changing Times – W6

I’ve been on a journey of finding pieces of my old writing recently. Only to discover…none of my files made any sense. Every file from my freshman year of college had little to no reference to the class or assignment. Without a thorough investigation, the context in which it was written would have been lost to me.

Now this obviously isn’t the end of the world, lots of old works can be uncovered if they are located on your desktop or cloud storage. But when you’re trying to build a portfolio and keep circling the drain in your search, this effort can seem endless and unfulfilling (at least, for me it has).

If your experience is anything like mine, then you can attest to the fact that our files have become a maze.

How could this have happened?

Well one minute, you’re putting together your final draft for your final. Then the next, you keep thinking back to that amazing final that you wrote for “that one class.” Then you’re diving into your files, searching endlessly for this mythic work of art. And finally…you give up. Defeated. Not knowing that you nested that work in a folder titled “School Stuff.” A folder, which strangely was nested under your school OneDrive account rather than your personal one.

True story, by the way.

The only reason I’ve even started to think about my extreme disorganization with school materials was because of Monica Chin’s article “File not found.” I honestly felt a little bit exposed. This hit a little too close to home.

Then I started thinking…did that really even matter? I mean, like the article states, the times are changing. The way we store our data will continue to change. We went from physical to digital and have gotten quite comfortable with it. So why fix what’s not broken? I, myself, have never truly had a problem with finding the files that are the most important to me. And as much as a pain it was to search for something that I would never find, it was a minor inconvenience.

Even so, this article made me reflect on something. Where will these files live on my computer? Did I really even know how to navigate my files? How could I have even lost files that never even moved?

That gave me pause. Because as much as I am on my computer or digital devices in a day, I feel like I should be more organized with my files. More intentional.

That’s where I agree the most with the article. I may not have a hard time navigating it, but it helps to learn a little bit more…antiquated practices. Like one of the interviewed lecturers says in the article:

“‘They use a computer one way, and we use a computer another way,’ Guarin-Zapata emphasizes. ‘That’s where the problem is starting.”‘

We’re changing rapidly. Although our computer knowledge should and will advance, let’s find ways to bring the old with the new.

This nightmare scenario I mentioned above could easily multiply in scale and intensity. So with that, I won’t sit idly by and let my works get lost in the deluge of my files. Even the insignificant seeming ones need a home on your computer.

If it’s important enough to keep, then it’s important enough to find.