I spent eighteen years as a professional dog walker, before retiring in the autumn of 2024. During that time, ‘technology’ continued to leap forward in great bounds like a playful golden retriever. However, it made no odds to my daily working life, other than my being able to order a delivered lunchtime pizza from my phone. *

*(This is mentioned for illustrative purposes only – there was no way I could afford pizza for lunch. And anyway, have you ever eaten pizza in front of several slavering dogs with pleading eyes? That’s one big guilt-trip right there.)

However, if you count my wee writing hobby as a ‘job’ – a very poorly paid, but fun ‘job’ – then I’d have to say technology in recent years has made a big difference.

For a start, technology has made me lazy. And for all its time-saving advantages, it has in many ways actually presented more time-related pressures.

Artificial Intelligence is wonderful, up to a point. I refuse point blank to use it for actually writing the content of this blog (it’s kinda obvious, isn’t it? 😉 ) or my attempts at books. However, what it does give me, is the ability to create wee, amusing cartoons and a programme that highlights over-use of certain words, punctuation errors and the like.

AI also helps big-time in research. For example, last week I disappeared down a rabbit hole of discovering what would be involved in inheriting a haveli in Rajasthan: what would be the tax implications; what grant funding would be available; the size of inner courtyards – all that sort of malarky. (Stay tuned, folks for my first attempt at a published novel. 😉 )

However, to a degree, I do miss spending my day in the Reference section of a large city library, poring through books to enhance my knowledge. And perversely, I feel compelled to use all that time saved by cramming more ‘stuff,’ more deadlines into my waking hours. I’m not really one for daytime television.

And … duh! ‘Technology’ has afforded me the privilege of entertaining you for these past couple of minutes.

But for every ying, there’s a yang. And that means you’ve just wasted another two minutes of your valuable time in reading this nonsense.

Never mind, time-saving ‘technology’ will help you balance it all out in the end.

🙂