This is Technology Bytes, episode 139, for November 2nd, 2025.
Technology Bytes is a microcast, where I share brief bites on interesting technology.
Enjoy, and here we go.
This week I want to talk about the digital realm.
That is the place we live in today’s world.
It’s really what some might call the new normal, although at this point it may be just the normal, not anything really new about it.
And what does that look like?
It looks like a world where things are done online, where things are done inside of devices, whether it be a computer, whether it be a phone, whether it be a tablet, whatever the case may be, we can see that it is mostly performed in a digital realm.
And so what does that mean?
Well, that means that generally we don’t have paper.
So you think of all the places where that might occur.
So any kind of documents, we’re passing those around now as PDFs or Word documents or Pages documents if you live in the Apple world, but we don’t generally deal with paper.
In fact, many of us find that paper is a little bit…
What’s the word I’m looking for?
Unruly, that’s not really…
It’s just a little bit inconvenient.
That’s a good word.
But then some wonder about the loss of the tangible.
We don’t print our photos anymore.
We just look at them on devices.
We show people photographs that mean something to us, but we don’t ever really hold them in our hands in a produced form.
When I was getting into photography and I had really nice camera gear, I took some pictures and I thought, maybe I should print something just so that I can show some of the photography.
I really wasn’t a very good photographer, but I enjoyed the process anyway.
And so I actually made some canvas prints that my wife was kind enough to hang in our home.
But those things are few and far between.
And so maybe there is a loss of something there.
My aunt carries all of her records around in paper form, and I find that to be super inconvenient.
I want everything to be done on a device so that I don’t have to worry about losing it, about misplacing about it, maybe discoloring.
Who knows what the situation may be, but I really like to live in the digital world.
So much do I like the digital world that when paper is introduced to me in any form, I try to find ways to make it digital.
So I might be in a class, maybe a Sunday school class, where they’re teaching through a book, and I’m like, is that book available online so I can get it on my iPad?
I can take notes.
I’m taking a class at work on management or something like that starting in a week or so.
And there’s information and documents and maybe even a workbook or something that goes with that class.
And in my head, I’m thinking, I sure hope this is in a digital format.
And so I find even in thinking about the loss of things, I’m in my 60s, so I remember the paper world.
I folded newspapers, and I had subscriptions to magazines, and I remember those times, but I don’t necessarily remember them fondly.
I think I really enjoy the digital.
I don’t have the dirt of paper, the ink from paper on my hands.
I don’t have the mess of trying to find storage for paper.
I can hold so much in the digital realm that that is, again, where I like to be.
So not everyone is in that same boat.
Some of us are forced into it because that is the world and its schemes today.
But even thinking about refinancing our home, all of it is done online, and it’s so convenient and so quick, maybe a little scary.
Maybe if we use paper, we could slow down and make fewer errors.
Maybe we could put a little more thought into what we do.
Maybe we would take fewer photographs and make them better and more meaningful if we didn’t live in the digital world.
But I don’t know.
There’s something about producing lots of stuff and getting rid of the ones that you don’t like and not missing a moment in life that I find interesting in the digital realm.
Well, that is all I have for today.
If you have any questions or comments, you can send them to technologybytes at marigfamily.com.
As always, I want to thank you for listening to the Technology Bytes microcast, and I look forward to the next time we are together taking another bite of technology.
